Kirov Series Special Edition #68
The Kirov Series Revisited….
Most fans of the Kirov Series know by now that the
never ending story never really ended. The last two volumes of the main series
were #63 Final Sortie, and #64 Journey’s end. Then, after over ten years dedicated to the
mighty Kirov, John took a break and put out a five
volume Epic Fantasy series, The
Chronicles of Innisfail, basically
looking for more readers in that highly popular genre. But ever since Game of
Thrones, fantasy has been absolutely saturated, and it was difficult to get
noticed. So John then returned to his
Keyholders Saga, which arose as a subplot in the Kirov Series when the
character Sir Roger Ames hired one Ian Thomas to burrow beneath Churchill’s
burial site to obtain his ashes so they could be compressed to make a diamond
by services like Eterneva, EverDear, Lonite and many others. Ever since that,
Sir Roger has been wagering that diamond in a number of games with wealthy
adversaries. These men all seem to have mysterious keys that open highly
engineered gates to hidden passages concealing rifts in time. So time travel is again at the heart of these
stories, which end up being highly textured alternate histories.
Of course the keys
soon become prominent in the Kirov Series as other characters begin
seeking them out, like Elena Fairchild, and eventually Fedorov and Karpov as
well. We learn how they are used in the Kamenski Device to open more and more
features of that magic box. Meanwhile, Sir Roger leads us through four
excellent alternate histories of famous battles from British History. The first was Field of Glory (Waterloo),
then Zulu Hour (Isandlwana). Returning to this series John
added The Devil Ship (The Opium Wars) and then The Sands of Honor, (Sudan and Omdurman), with Sir Roger Ames again
involved in both stories. These are books that are pretty much stand alone
novels, so the Keyholder’s Saga can be read in any order.
Now then… the never
ending Kirov Saga suddenly had
an Encore, (Series volume #65) and that volume
actually seemed a more appropriate way to tie things off for the series as a
whole. While it focused on the officers
and crew, the vehicle was the airship Baikal, not the Mighty Kirov.
But it did get us sitting in on the plans and plots of Karpov and Fedorov, and on
a fairly wild mission to both polar regions.
Next John went back to the ship he devoted so much love,
time, and energy to and put out two quick volumes a month apart. They were Clash
of Empires, Kirov Series #66, where Director Kamenski recruited our
heroes and their intrepid battlecruiser to clean up a mess caused by the
disappearance of a Chinese warship. It was followed in just one month by War
in Limbo, volume #67.
With Kirov fighting in just about every historical
war possible, this time John took his imagination forward to the year 2030, and
in a future made possible by Ivan Volkov’s interventions. In the War in Limbo,
we learn that Volkov gave “the Bomb” to the Japanese a year before the end of
WWII, and that enabled Japan to stage a surprise attack on Halsey while he mustered
in Truk Lagoon. That ended the war by treaty instead of unconditional surrender
for Japan, and voila, what do we have in 2030, a ravenously Samurai
souled Imperial Japanese Empire dominating all the Western Pacific, but with
modern day ships and missiles in their Imperial Navy.
Kirov gets marooned in this Limbo in volume #67,
quite literally tossed aground on the island named Limbo by a big Typhoon. It
is not long before the Japanese become aware of the ship, and they meet the
same character that they encountered when this world was first introduced in the main series,
Captain Sato. Things then take a darker turn, and things transpire that series
fans never thought possible. Mid-way through this story there are dramatic
events which cannot be revealed
here. This puts both Fedorov and Karpov to the test, and they devise a plan to
try and reverse their setbacks and escape this world.
The ending of War in Limbo presents an eerie stalking of the ship and crew by the force of
Paradox, which appears as a massive Temporal storm. So while a physical typhoon
begins the story, it is bookended by a Temporal Cyclone, and that is where we left it last month. Well
guess what mister prolific has for us in June. The Kirov Series gets yet
another sequel, Series Volume #68, An
Hour For Vengeance is coming soon, and while the other Encores were stand
alone stories, this one connects directly to War in Limbo, picking up right
where that story ended. The two volumes even share a similar cover design.
So this month the story takes off again, and puts us right back on the bridge of Kirov to resolve the ending of War in Limbo. Saying more about An Hour for Vengeance might spoil things for you, but needless to say, Karpov is pissed off with the Imperial Japanese Navy for what they put the ship and crew through, and he shows them what Mizuchi can really do. Coming this June, possibly around the 15th again, we get another Kirov fix that is utterly classic, and it looks like these books revisiting the series are becoming a stealth Season Nine. Like the four or five Star Trek spinoffs, there may be more to come as the Kirov series reboots in these tales. Don’t miss out!
~ The The Writing
Shop Press
Season 9: The Encore Series for Kirov
Volume 65: Encore
Volume 66: Clash of Empires
Volume 67: War in Limbo
Volume 68: An Hour for Vengeance
