В поисках родителей безымянный странник путешествует от планеты к планете. Но найти их – это не самое сложное испытание. Иногда, чтобы жить – нужно создать легенду. Иногда нужно понять, что война – это эхо мира. И всегда – всегда – мы убиваем то, что любим больше всего.

During the late 1970s and early 80s tension in Europe, between east and west, had grown until it appeared that war was virtually unavoidable. Soviet armies massed behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

In the west, Allied forces, British, American, and armies from virtually all the western countries, raised the levels of their training and readiness. A senior British army officer, General Sir John Hackett, had written a book of the likely strategies of the Allied forces if a war actually took place and, shortly after its publication, he suggested to his publisher Futura that it might be interesting to produce a novel based on the Third World War but from the point of view of the soldier on the ground.

Bob Forrest-Webb, an author and ex-serviceman who had written several best-selling novels, was commissioned to write the book. As modern warfare tends to be extremely mobile, and as a worldwide event would surely include the threat of atomic weapons, it was decided that the book would mainly feature the armoured divisions already stationed in Germany facing the growing number of Soviet tanks and armoured artillery.

With the assistance of the Ministry of Defence, Forrest-Webb undertook extensive research that included visits to various armoured regiments in the UK and Germany, and a large number of interviews with veteran members of the Armoured Corps, men who had experienced actual battle conditions in their vehicles from mined D-Day beaches under heavy fire, to warfare in more recent conflicts.

It helped that Forrest-Webb’s father-in-law, Bill Waterson, was an ex-Armoured Corps man with thirty years of service; including six years of war combat experience. He’s still remembered at Bovington, Dorset, still an Armoured Corps base, and also home to the best tank museum in the world.

Forrest-Webb believes in realism; realism in speech, and in action. The characters in his book behave as the men in actual tanks and in actual combat behave. You can smell the oil fumes and the sweat and gun-smoke in his writing. Armour is the spearhead of the army; it has to be hard, and sharp. The book is reputed to be the best novel ever written about tank warfare and is being re-published because that’s what the guys in the tanks today have requested. When first published, the colonel of one of the armoured regiments stationed in Germany gave a copy to Princess Anne when she visited their base. When read by General Sir John Hackett, he stated: “A dramatic and authentic account”, and that’s what ‘Chieftains’ is.

Germany, 1985.

The Reich Council has fallen and the Reich is sundered in two, but the uneasy peace will not last long. To the east, Karl Holliston – now styling himself the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich – is planning the conquest of Berlin and the destruction of the rebels, while to the west Germany’s former satellites are planning a bid for independence and the North Atlantic Alliance is uneasily considering just what will happen to the Reich’s vast arsenal of nuclear weapons.

As the civil war begins, as the Panzers begin their advance on Berlin, the rebels are forced to fight to save their revolution…

…Or watch helplessly as a jackboot stamps down on Germany, forever.

^{[Like my other self-published Kindle books, Chosen of the Valkyries is DRM-free. You may reformat it as you choose. There is a large sample of the text – and my other books – on my site: chrishanger.net. Try before you buy.]}

THE ZONE 8 • CIVILIAN SLAUGHTER

The Special Combat force is hardened to horror but during a truce they find a KGB battalion has exceeded anything they’ve seen. In a fury, despite the truce, despite threats from their own commanders, they decide to extract a revenge. They set out to wipe them out the KGB battalion to the last man.

SYNOPSIS

The men of the Special Combat Force have become hardened to atrocities performed by the Warsaw Pact armies. Or they thought they had. During a shaky truce, when those highly trained and experienced fighters are given mundane jobs, they discover mass graves and evidence of the grossest atrocities being performed on civilians. The evidence is that the horrors are perpetrated by a KGB battalion opposite their position. Driven to fury by what they have witnessed the Special Combat Force decide to take matters into their own hands when their reports are ignored and they are even threatened with disbandment if they don’t drop the accusations. Extracting revenge and putting a stop to further violations makes them enemies on both sides but nothing stops them, and they won’t stop until the job is done.

PUBLISHED

First NEL Paperback Edition April 1989

First IMPRINT Publication E-Book Edition May 2005

First Revision IMPRINT Publications E-Book Edition April 2007

* * *

A shaky truce has been called, and Major Revell’s Special Combat Company has been assigned mundane duties. But when evidence turns up of civilians being slaughtered by a KGB battalion, Revell and his men take matters into their own hands, waging merciless war on the vicious Reds.

Tyrenkov’s trip up the back stairway at Ilanskiy has led him to a most unexpected place, and now Karpov has a moment that could change all history within his grasp, and a means of getting his revenge on Ivan Volkov. Will he seize the day? Yet Tyrenkov has also brought something back with him that is of great importance, and Karpov soon learns more of the days ahead than any man alive could ever wish to know. Even so, Ivan Volkov has plans of his own, to take a massive airship fleet to Ilanskiy and seize the day himself. Can he succeed, or will Karpov become the ruin of all he had plotted and built in his long sojourn to the past.

Meanwhile, Anton Fedorov has a mind to become the next Lawrence of Arabia, and leads his mobile force to Raqqah to impede the German retreat, and in daring raids against the old Hejaz rail lines from Homs to Aleppo. As the battle for Syria continues, Erwin Rommel launches a sudden new offensive in North Africa, this time aimed at the vital port of Tobruk, and the Germans strive to crush the British defense in the Middle East in a mighty pincer attack. As these events play out, Hitler now plans to unleash his greatest attack of the war, Operation Barbarossa. The storm clouds of war darken the Russian border, and the thunder of the guns soon deafens the world, as the conflict rises in a dreadful Crescendo of Doom.

The 'gripping and riveting' (S.M. Stirling, author of The Scourge of God) Destroyermen saga continues.

Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy, along with the men and women of the USS Walker, have chosen sides in a war not of their making. Swept from the World War II Pacific into an alternate world, they have allied with the Lemurians — a mammalian race threatened by the warlike reptilian Grik.

The Lemurians are vastly outnumbered and ignorant of warfare, and even the guns and technology of Walker cannot turn the tide of battle. Luckily they are not alone — Reddy finally finds Mahan, the other destroyer that passed through the rift. Together, the two American ships will teach the Lemurians to make a stand. Or so they think.

For the massive Japanese battleship Amagi, the very ship that Walker was fleeing from when the rift took them, has followed them through. And now the Amagi is in the hands of the Grik.

Jedna z najwybitniejszych powieści amerykańskiej fantastyki naukowej. Autor sugestywnie przedstawia inny wariant historii: państwa osi wygrały II wojnę światową, w podzielonej Ameryce ścierają się wpływy japońskie i niemieckie, a wielką poczytnością cieszy się zakazana powieść fantastyczna, w której Niemcy i Japonia wojnę przegrały.

Nagroda Hugo 1963.

Второй раз на срочную? Так не бывает, но иногда случается. Попаданец в СССР 1988 года.

Второй раз на срочную? Так не бывает, но иногда случается. Попаданец в СССР 1988 года.

Все совпадения случайны, географические названия взяты с потолка, имена не настоящие, фамилии сгенерированы случайным образом. И вообще это фантастика. За достоверность приключений и описываемых событий не отвечаю. Всех предупредил, претензии не принимаются.