The Assiti Shards series is a fictional universe invented by American author Eric Flint. It is a shared universe concerning several alternate history worlds, related to a prime timeline.[1] The defining characteristic of the fictional universe is the existence of the "Assiti Shards effect", and the impact that strikes by Assiti Shards have on characters in the stories. The series is rather large and expansive, having started publication in 2000, and as of 2008[update], consisting of 15 print books, and 21 e-magazine anthologies, in two different published timelines of the same multiverse (only one work is in the second timeline).