Keyholder's Saga #2 launches new year on or before Jan 1
ABOUT ZULU HOUR
Strap on your pith helmet, load that Martini & Henry
rifle, and stand to!
The Zulu War has long been a
military history favorite, memorialized in two popular movies, Zulu Dawn,
and Zulu. The first presented the invasion of Zululand when the British
General, Lord Chelmsford, led his #3 Column across the Buffalo River on 10-11
January 1879. What followed was a series of missteps characterized by
overconfident hubris, and downright stupidity. For reasons that seemed
perfectly logical to the General at the time, he managed to violate most every
rule he penned into his own orders and guidelines for the conduct of armies in
the field in South Africa. Historians have long railed against his failure,
even after being warned, to laager his wagons and create a sound defensive
position at the camp he made near the prominent hill of Isandlwana. Then
inexplicably to many, he divided his army without having sound intelligence as
to their whereabouts and strength, let alone any real idea of their intentions.
The result was the greatest military defeat and disaster to befall British arms
in the colorful Colonial Period, when some 1300 British regulars and native
troops were slaughtered in a grand massacre of the camp at Isandlwana—all while
Chelmsford had half his army out on a reconnaissance in force to the east.
Could the disaster have ever been
prevented? Would sound preparations at the camp and more prudence, caution, and
respect for his enemy have reversed the tragic defeat? These are just a few of
the question that writer John Schettler explores and tries to answer in his
alternate history of Chelmsford’s invasion, and the battles that followed.
Learning why Chelmsford did what he did is an important part of the tale, and
this one gives us a very good look at his invasion in a wonderfully written
military fiction.
Mister Schettler has been writing
in the genres of military history and alternate outcomes for over 20 years. One
of his first explorations was the award winning novel Meridian, which
explored the fate of Lawrence of Arabia in the deserts of Syria during WWI.
That novel spawned four others in the Meridian Series, which ended up visiting
the time of the Crusades in Palestine, Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and the
Middle East in 1799, the famous ‘Battle of Tours’ when Charles Martel turned
back the Islamic invasion of southern France in October of 732, and finally a
thrilling tale that sends the Meridian Team back in time when they discover the
great German battleship Bismarck was not sunk on its maiden voyage,
which had a dramatic effect on the course of WWII. Their aim is to find out
why, and do anything possible to send that battleship to its proper rendezvous
with the Royal Navy, and a resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.
That final book in the Meridian
Series tickled a long time fascination the author had for great fighting ships,
particularly the battleships of WWII. He was going to write an alternate naval
history of WWII, only with the German Navy built out much stronger, with
behemoths like the Hindenburg overshadowing both Bismarck and Tirpitz in
power, but then he took a leap of imagination and focused on another ship, the
powerful Russian Kirov Class battlecruisers of modern times. That leap
had since seen him write the longest continuously running story ever penned in
his popular Kirov Series, where cadres of his most loyal fans have stayed with
the story through all of 50 Plus volumes as of this writing. That tale finally
became his grand alternate history of WWII, with heavy emphasis on all the
naval engagements, but also all the major land battles fought in every theater
of the war. It’s a deeply compelling tale of the war, and one where you can get
lost in it for days on end with each new release in the series.
In the middle of that long saga,
one major subplot involved the discovery of mysterious keys that open heavily
engineered metal doors protecting hidden passages. All the keys had been found
in special places in the history—at the famous Oracle of Delphi, embedded in
one of the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone discovered in Egypt during
Napoleon’s invasion, in a vase on display in the Summer Palace of the Qing
Dynasty in China, and also in one of the recently unearthed Terracotta
warriors. And these keys are what now make this journey to Zululand in 1879
possible.
The premise is a simple one: two
wealthy industrialists have possession of one of these mysterious keys, which
conceal rifts in spacetime behind the doors they open. They have used them to
take long safaris through the past, wagering with one another on the outcome of
famous historical battles. It’s the basic energy that Mister Schettler first
kindled in his Meridian Series, and the first of these books titled Field of Glory opened what he calls
the “Keyholders Saga” emerged from his Kirov Series in a wonderful
retelling of the Battle of Waterloo. This one, the fate of Lord Chelmsford and
his British Army in Zululand, is volume 2 in the series, and not to be missed
by any fan of this history.
In fact, the more you know of the
history of this campaign, the more you will be entertained. The author explores
the effort made by Sir Roger Ames, the Duke of Elvington in Modern times, as he
jousts with his nemesis, one Jean Michel Fortier playing for the Zulu side of
this war. The Duke is trying to save Chelmsford and prevent the disaster at
Isandlwana, and Fortier is trying to make sure the fierce impis of the Zulus
properly devour the British. The result of this contest takes us to the heart
of all the decisions Chelmsford had before him after crossing the Buffalo River
into Zululand, and the alternative choices he might have made to alter the disastrous
outcome. Yet even if you are not well versed in the history surrounding the
battle, you will certainly be well educated by the time you finish this novel. It opens with a three chapter introduction from the Kirov Series, and then 33 all new chapters to relate the tale.
Beginning at the crossing of the
Buffalo River on 10-11 January, the author shows why it took Chelmsford nearly
12 days to move just nine more miles into Zululand. In that interval, all the
many possibilities and choices before him are explored, and Sir Roger Ames is
doing his very best to get him to correct his oversights and errors, and push
the course of the campaign to an alternate outcome. The history buffs will
enjoy all of this segment, and then, midway through the book, the time to prove
whether the Duke’s interventions have saved the hour finally arrives with “The
Coming of the Shadows,” the massive Zulu army of some 20,000 men against less
than 5,000 under Chelmsford’s command. From that point on, the last half of the
book is all the alternate history battles that flowed from the Duke’s
interventions, every bit as detailed and visceral as those in the movies.
So strap on your pith helmet,
load that Martini & Henry rifle, and stand to! Zulu Hour is a
wonderful leap into all this fascinating and exciting military history by an
author that had emerged as the new master of that genre, with over 60 books out
now that use some means of time travel to get modern day characters back in to
the heart of these famous battles, and live them through in a way they never
could while safe and sound in their libraries or reading chairs. Zulu Hour
presents a convincing, well-researched alternate outcome of this first great
clash between Lord Chelmsford and the Zulus, and it’s one no fan of the genre,
or any of this military history, will want to miss.
