The Cuban Missiles crisis and the death of a President taught a young boy in England in 1962 and 1963 that the World is a very dangerous place.
Subsequently, we have learned how close we all came to the abyss in October 1962, and on occasions since, and can look back on how deeply Jack Kennedy’s death scarred hearts and minds in the years after his assassination.
There is no certainty, no one profound insight into what ‘might have happened’ had the Cold War turned Hot in the fall of 1962, or if JFK had survived that day in Dallas. History is not a systematic, explicable march from one event to another that inevitably reaches some readily predictable point. History only works that way in hindsight; very little is obvious to the major or the minor players at the time history is actually being made. One does not have to be a fully paid up chaos theoretician to know that apparently inconsequential small events can have massive unforeseen and unforeseeable impacts in subsequent historical developments.
I do not pretend to know what would have happened if the USA and the USSR had gone to war over Cuba in October 1962. One imagines this scenario has been the object of countless staff college war games in America and elsewhere in the intervening fifty-three years; I suspect that few of those war games would have played out the way the participants expected, and that no two games would have resolved themselves in exactly the same way as any other. That is the beauty and the fascination of historical counterfactuals, or as those of us who make no pretence at being emeritus professors of history say, alternative history.
Nobody can claim ‘this is the way it would have been’ after the Cuban Missiles Crisis ‘went wrong’. This author only speculates that the Timeline 10/27/62 Series reflects one of the many ways ‘things might have gone’ in the aftermath of Armageddon.
The thing one can be reasonably confident about is that if the Cuban Missiles Crisis had turned into a shooting war the World in which we live today would, probably, not be the one with which we are familiar.
A work of fiction is a journey of imagination. I hope it does not sound corny but I am genuinely a little humbled by the number of people who have already bought into what I am trying to do with Timeline 10/27/62.
Like any author, this author would prefer everybody to enjoy his books — if I disappoint, I am truly sorry — but either way, thank you for reading and helping to keep the printed word alive. I really do believe that civilization depends on people like you.
Other Books by James Philip
Book 1: Operation Anadyr
Book 2: Love is Strange
Book 3: The Pillars of Hercules
Book 4: Red Dawn
Book 5: The Burning Time
Book 6: Tales of Brave Ulysses
Book 7: A Line in the Sand
Book 8: The Mountains of the Moon
Book 9: All Along the Watchtower
(Available 1st June 2017)
Book 10: Crow on the Cradle
(Available 27th October 2017)
Book 1: Aftermath
Book 2: California Dreaming
Book 3: The Great Society
Book 4: Ask Not of Your Country
Book 5: The American Dream
(Available 27th October 2017)
Book 1: Cricket on the Beach
(Available 20th December 2017)
Book 2: Operation Manna
(Available 20th December 2017)
Prologue: Winter’s Pearl
Book 1: Winter’s War
Book 2: Winter’s Revenge
Book 3: Winter’s Exile
Book 4: Winter’s Return
Book 5: Winter’s Spy
(Available 31st January 2017)
Book 1: Until the Night
Book 2: The Painter
(Available 31st March 2017)
Book 3: The Cloud Walkers
(Available 31st March 2017)
Part 1: Main Force Country — September 1943
Part 2: The Road to Berlin — October 1943
Part 3: The Big City — November 1943
Part 4: When Winter Comes — December 1943
Part 5: After Midnight — January 1944
Book 1: Islands of No Return
Book 2: Heroes
Book 3: Brothers in Arms
Book 1: A Ransom for Two Roses
Book 2: The Plains of Waterloo
Book 3: The Nantucket Sleighride
Book 1: Interlopers
Book 2: Pictures of Lily
Aftermath
A Ransom for Two Roses
California Dreaming
Heroes
Islands of No Return
Love is Strange
Main Force Country
Operation Anadyr
The Pillars of Hercules
The Plains of Waterloo
Winter’s Pearl
Winter’s War
Details of all James Philip’s published books and forthcoming publications can be found on his website www.jamesphilip.co.uk
Cover artwork concepts by James Philip
Graphic Design by Beastleigh Web Design