John Schettler - Paradox Hour

He gave them all one last look, as if trying to firmly fix the image of each man in his head, seeing the lines on their faces, their eyes, remembering them, loving them all. Then he smiled.

“Let’s get to work, gentlemen, before we end up having coffee with Orlov!”

That was life in a nutshell, thought Fedorov. They were all going to disappear one day, in one way or another, and then simply vanish from this world. It was all about the things they could do while they were still here.

Faraway, perhaps in another time and place, the world Kirov had vanished from was still raging with the ravages of war at sea. As Rodney foundered, her hull rent open by the explosion of her own torpedoes, two ships appeared on the horizon, Renown and Repulse , rushing to the scene with guns elevated for battle. And off to the southeast, Argos Fire was dashing forward into the fray, the missile crews rushing to their stations.

Yet Kapitans Topp and Hoffmann were not to fight alone. Lütjens’ task force was also arriving on the scene coming out of the southwest like a sudden squall. There sailed the ship that had once been fated to meet its doom this very month, the Bismarck . And behind came another ship, larger, more powerful, looming like a shadow of death, the Hindenburg .

Not wanting to miss out on the action, Admiral Tovey had also altered his course to steam north to Rodney ’s aid. Though he might come late to the party, HMS Invincible would soon make its presence felt with the roar of nine more massive 16-inch guns. It was to be the largest naval battle ever to be fought in the Atlantic, a collision of five battleships, three battlecruisers, and one interloper from another era, desperate to save Rodney , and not knowing her quest was already foiled.

But time and fate were fickle partners in the mad dance that was now underway. Things gone missing in one era, might be found somewhere else. No one knew just then where the quest for that missing key might now lead, or what the fate of England’s embattled new ally might finally be.

Kirov had left the world of the here and now, its sharp bow slipping into the grey shadow of Paradox. The strange effects had started with Lenkov, with that awful unheard sound, but they would not end there. Each moment was now bringing the ship closer and closer to that final tick of Time’s unfathomable clock—that final hour when Kirov would be held to account for all its many interventions in the history of these events.

As with Alan Turing’s watch, the ship had slipped into some sallow purgatory, waiting to be judged, and not knowing whether heaven or hell would greet them with that final tolling of the hour that Fedorov had feared for so long. Their presence in 1941 had been a grave and insoluble problem for Time.

On one side of that equation, the ship and crew were set to pierce the ground of infinity, to be planted in the cold northern seas of World War Two like a darksome seed of doom. On the other hand, that seed had already bloomed, a black rose, its thorny stem scoring the history as it grew, its dark flower a shadow in the Devil’s Garden of time. Yet only one of the two could remain when that final bell tolled, and Time would have to choose which side of that equation would balance through to the zero sum it was seeking now. Which would it be, the darksome seed or the black rose?

It was time to decide, because the hour of fate was drawing nigh… Paradox Hour.

Season 3of the Kirov Series opens with Volume 17: Doppelganger , where the answer to the dilemma that now faces Mother Time will decide the fate of the ship and crew. Battle still rages in the Atlantic, and Elena Fairchild arrives on the scene to discover the crisis aboard Rodney has made her quest for the lost key impossible. Yet there she meets one other uninvited guest, an American officer who reveals that he is not the man he seems. Together they consider what they may have lost, and how it might yet be saved.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Karpov has discovered that his own personal fate is also in jeopardy as his dwindling lease on time runs thin. Realizing the dilemma that had plagued Fedorov for so long, he rises in Tunguska , intent on seeking the heart of a gathering storm, in a desperate attempt to save his own twisted soul from the ravages of Paradox. As he peers through the shattered glass of history, deep into the mirror of time, he suddenly discovers his own self looking right back at him.

The exciting alternate history of WWII careens forward into 1942, as Germany now makes its great bid to destroy Kirov’s Soviet Russia and smash the last of the stubborn British resistance in the Middle East. Yet new weapons of war will appear, strange doppelgangers spawned from the legacy of Kirov . Now they darken the battlefields of Europe, when the tempo of technology leaps ahead to produce a new generation of tanks, aircraft and the deadly art of missile warfare arrives years early.

Don’t miss the premier of Season 3 of the amazing Kirov Series — Doppelganger.

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 sent back to the 1940s in the Norwegian Sea where it subsequently becomes embroiled in the war.

Similar to episodes in the never ending Star Trek series, the saga continues through one episode after another as the ship’s position in time remains unstable. It culminates in Book 8 Armageddon , then continues the saga in Altered States , which begins the second saga in the series, extending through Volume 16.

The best entry point is obviously Book I, Kirov , where you will meet all the main characters in the series and learn their inner motivations. The series itself, however, is structured as sets of trilogies linked by what the author calls a “bridge novel.” The first three volumes form an exciting trilogy featuring much fast paced naval action as Kirov battles the Royal Navy, Regia Marina (Italians) and finally the Japanese after sailing to the Pacific in Book III. The bridge novel Men Of War is a second entry point which covers what happened to the ship and crew after it returned home to Vladivostok. As such it serves as both a sequel to the opening trilogy and a prequel to the next trilogy, the three novels beginning with Book V, 9 Days Falling. Each trilogy in the series is followed by a similar “bridge novel.”

The 9 Days Falling trilogy focuses on the struggle to prevent a great war in 2021 from reaching a terrible nuclear climax that destroys the world. It spans book 5, 6, and 7, featuring the outbreak of the war in 2021 as Japan and China battle over disputed islands, and the action of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet against the modern US Fleet. It then takes a dramatic turn when the ship is again shifted in time to 1945. There they confront the powerful US Pacific Fleet under Admiral Halsey, and so this trilogy focuses much of the action as Kirov faces down the US in two eras. This second trilogy also launches several subplots that serve to relate other events in the great war of 2021 and also deepen the mystery of time travel as discovered in the series. The trilogy ends at another crucial point in history where the ship’s Captain, Vladimir Karpov, believes he is in a position to decisively change events.