He stepped closer, and this time there was no snarling. The beasts were wary, yet they had already learned how to wait.
“You will be called Greyback,” he said to the biggest of the two, his eyes locked with the beast. “And you will be called Ghost,” he finished, shifting his gaze to the other.
“I haven’t time for dredging up fancier names, and those will do well enough. We will have a good deal of time up here together, won’t we? Soon you will come to see your situation as quite favorable. In fact, aside from the cage, you’ll get better treatment than Trushin. Yes, you will be fed well, only by me, of course. And we will sit with one another for hours at a time, and you will listen to all I may have to say, the sound of my voice, its soft, quiet, and reflective side, its hard and angry tones, and you will learn them well. Yes, you will come to know when I am frustrated, eager, excited, sleepy, and oh yes, when I am raging with anger. Soon you will learn your new names, and heed my call. Yes, you’ll become as faithful and true as any dog I have ever kept. Oh, you will never really be tamed. The wild is in your blood from birth, and it will never leave you. But you will be mine… And as long as we are meeting like this for the very first time, allow me to introduce myself.”
He gave them an evil smile.
“My name is Volkov, brothers. Ivan Volkov….”
The Kirov series turns 50!
Celebrate Volume 50 of the series this March, Able Sentry, as the war in the Arabian Sea intensifies. Admiral Sun Wei seeks the support of Pakistan, their bases, air force, and navy. Yet the war is on a dangerous edge, and India will soon be forced to make a choice that could be decisive.
Now Captain Simpson and Admiral Wells are joined by Carrier Strike Group Independence, and the final battle to open the sea lanes to Oman is joined in the Arabian Sea. Backed into the Gulf of Oman, the Chinese fleet, supported by Pakistan, is still a very dangerous beast. The west must prevail, enabling Operation Able Sentry to bring the powerful 1st US Marine Division to Saudi Arabia, and open the way for further reinforcements by sea.
At the same time Admiral Wu Jinlong continues to press south towards Singapore, in spite of the terrible loss of the carrier Shandong. He vows vengeance, and swears that he will drive his enemies off, as he forced the Royal Navy to an ignominious retreat. Yet this time he meets a foe unlike any he has faced before—Vladimir Karpov, aboard the Siberian battlecruiser Kirov. And at his side, is an old warrior from the last great war, made new, and gilded with modern sensors and new weapons—the battleship New Jersey, with four American destroyers.
Reading the Kirov Series
The Kirov Series is a long chain of linked novels by John Schettler in the Military Alternate History / Time Travel Genre. Like the popular movie “The Final Countdown” which saw the US Carrier Nimitz sent back in time to the eve of Pearl Harbor in 1941, in the opening volume, the powerful Russian battlecruiser Kirov is involved in an accident during live fire exercises that sends the ship back to the 1940s in the Norwegian Sea, where it subsequently becomes embroiled in WWII.
Similar to episodes in the never-ending Star Trek series, the saga continues through one volume after another as the ship’s position in time remains unstable. The main 40 volume series is an alternate history of WWII, from 1940 to late 1944, showing the war as it is changed by the intervention of Kirov and crew. It is the most detailed fictional depiction of WWII ever written, covering most every major battle on land and sea.
Getting Started:
There are two key entry points to the series, the most obvious being Book 1, Kirov, where you will meet all the main characters in the series and learn their inner motivations. However, as the series describes a great loop in time, new readers can also enter with the current season 6 of the story, beginning with volume 41, Homecoming. The author is writing these final books to include all the necessary information new readers would need to know. This final season shows what would have happened to the ship and crew if they had not shifted to the past in book 1, and Kirov becomes embroiled in the outbreak of WWIII in the Norwegian Sea. At the conclusion of Season 6, new readers can then move to book 1 in the main series, and see what happens to the ship if it does shift back in time.
Detailed information on the battles covered in each book, including battle maps, is available at www.writingshop.ws. A listing of books in all six “seasons” of this amazing series appears below.
KIROV SERIES
KIROV SERIES - SEASON 1: Kirov
1) Kirov
2) Cauldron of Fire
3) Pacific Storm
4) Men of War
5) Nine Days Falling
6) Fallen Angels
7) Devil’s Garden
8) Armageddon – Season 1 Finale
KIROV SERIES - SEASON 2: Altered States (1940–1941)
9) Altered States
10) Darkest Hour (Naval Battles, Mers El Kebir)
11) Hinge of Fate (Gibraltar & The Med)
12) Three Kings (North Africa, Spain)
13) Grand Alliance (North Africa, Syria)
14) Hammer of God (Crete, Malta, North Africa)
15) Crescendo of Doom (North Africa, Tobruk)
16) Paradox Hour – Season 2 Finale
KIROV SERIES – SEASON 3: Doppelganger (1941–1942)
17) Doppelganger (Naval Action)
18) Nemesis (Barbarossa, Typhoon)
19) Winter Storm (Moscow, Operation Crusader)
20) Tide of Fortune (Moscow, Pearl Harbor, Operation Condor)
21) Knight’s Move (Japanese Offensive, Malaya, Singapore)
22) Turning Point (Soviet Counteroffensive, Java Sea, Supercharge)
23) Steel Reign (Operation FS - Fiji-Samoa, Sakhalin)
24) Second Front – (Torch, PQ-17, Portugal) Season 3 Finale
KIROV SERIES – SEASON 4: Tigers East (1942–1943)
25) Tigers East (Operation Blue)
26) Thor’s Anvil (Stalingrad)
27) 1943 (Pacific Battles)
28) Lions at Dawn (Plan Orient, Operation Phoenix, Tunisia)