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In the alternate timeline of the Ring of Fire, a American community now planted in central Germany stages a raid on Paris, a lone aircraft mission modeled on the Doolittle attack, with Cardinal Richelieu as its target. Elsewhere, the Habsburgs hold a Mughal envoy from northern India prisoner in Austria. Mike Stearns resolves to dispatch a band of hired soldiers to free him. Two seventeenth-century mercenary captains, one English and one Irish, lead the company, and they appear to quarrel with each other nearly as often as they fight their foes.

The volume also gathers a set of short pieces by various writers and co-authors. Eric Flint contributes "Steps In The Dance," and other stories come from Mike Spehar, Christopher James Weber, Leonard Hollar, Gorg Huff, John Zeek, Danita Lee Ewing, Rick Boatright and Andrew Clark. Enrico M. Toro appears twice, with the comic serial "Euterpe, Episode 1" and a short essay on historical fencing. Laura Runkle adds a piece on practical mineralogy and mineral prospecting in 1632.

The nonfiction-style articles, including Boatright's look at telecommunications in 1633, suggest the practical side of life in this rebuilt world. Together the entries offer a mix of adventure, military intrigue and everyday detail for readers who enjoy alternate history built around a real seventeenth-century setting.