The longest story ever written has finally reached its end. :(
We asked John about the torment of ending a series of such exceptional length. His response: "It wasn't easy. I knew I had a final battle to be fought against Admiral Kita, but Karpov didn't like his odds in that situation. As I thought about how to end this I realized that I had given the very first book a good ending, never really intending to do a series. Then, I just couldn't stop writing, so I did Cauldron of Fire and Pacific Storm, thinking to make this a "Trilogy." The response from readers was so positive that, even though I thought I had ended the story after volume three, I went ahead and wrote Men of War. It was Karpov that then took hold of things, particularly after the eruption of the Demon Volcano. I just knew what he would do when he finally fell through to 1908, and I just knew that Fedorov would come up with some scheme to go back after him. That led to all the books in the "9 Days Falling" segment, and then I thought I was ending the series with Armageddon, another big climax similar to Karpov's first mutiny aboard Kirov. But series fans just wouldn't let it go. I threw out six new book proposals and asked them where I should go next, and the vote was heavily in support of more Kirov series books. So I launched what became "Season 2--Altered States."
Was it hard to end this?
"Damn hard, and sad too. You have these people in your head for ten years, you dream about them; think about them all day. It's like losing close friends. Though I suppose I could boot up another book involving them any time I wanted, the series itself was long in the tooth. The readership was diminishing, as it was asking a lot for people to stay the course through 64 books, and new readers looking at that journey were easily intimidated. So I decided it was time to do something new. I had squeezed all the wine I could out of that bottle, Kirov, and I wanted to take my muse, and word processor, somewhere else."
Why did you decide to end it with these character based retrospectives?
"I wanted to revisit some of the great moments in the series, and thought that showing how each character stood up in those moments was a nice way to say goodbye to them. Throughout those retrospectives, I continued to weave in the tale of what was happening on Baikal, and on Kirov in 1943 now when Admiral Kita arrives. That became the final task for the ship, and it was a daunting one. So I asked myself, who's going to win this one? Is Kirov going to be sunk here? Are these people all going to die in Part XII? I won't answer those three questions here but it's all in Part XII, I hope readers feel as I did, which is expressed in the ending I chose."
Do we get the remaining mysteries solved? The Seven Keys, the Grand Finality?
"Yes, the mystery of the keys, who made them, and the Kamenski Device are pretty much known by the time they sign on Sir Roger Ames. At the end, the problem of the Grand Finality is revealed too. Along with the fate of the ship and characters. It was something Kirov discovered in Book one, though Fedorov is shocked to learn how that happened. So I had a hard time at the end, like Karpov. I was never one for an easy goodbye. The story ends like things really end in life, not through some contrived plot invention, or stirring climax. Karpov and Fedorov had a job to do in these final missions, and they did it well. Unfortunately, there were some unexpected consequences when Sir Roger asked if he could shift to his time for a look around. I set all that up much earlier in Queen's Gambit.
Are you excited about your new project?
"Of course, but this is a difficult time for me, caught between two worlds, 'one dead, the other powerless to be born.' I'm hoping to build a good readership for my Chronicles of Innisfail, and it has a decided military Fiction bent, just without the tanks and missiles. I call it "Mythic Military Fiction," and I hope some of the series readers take a look with volume one, and help me launch it. .I owe so much to the readers, but I gave a lot too. Producing a book every 60 days was quite a task. But I'll be equally prolific with Innisfail, though I'm not expecting it to be another marathon like the Kirov Series. I've finished book I for that, and just put up the web site pages, with links to all the maps of my new world. Come and see!
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