A GUIDE TO THE EARTHFORCE SAGA
The Latest Evolution of the Kirov Series
Some long time readers of the Kirov Series may have checked out around the finale in Volume #64. Now they get wind of the fact that the series presently extends to 82 volumes as of 10 January this year. What happened?
The Kirov series was so sprawling and complex, and had so many subplots running through it, that these subplots have already spawned two other series. The first to bloom and then be moved out of the Kirov series, was the story of Sir Roger Ames and his competitions with another French Industrialist, Jean Michel Fortier. These two men were wagering on the outcomes of famous historic battles involving the British Empire. Sir Roger would take the side of the British, and Fortier or some other member of their very unique club would take the other, all having mysterious keys that opened hidden doorways protecting tunnels that led through natural rifts in time. Ah, Time Travel, it’s all through Schettler’s work, first seen in his award winning novel Meridian, which led to a 5 book series there. But John makes a confession.
“It’s really historical fiction that I love the most, and I just use Time travel so I can go to to the period in history I want to write about. This was true in all five of the Meridian Series books, and in all the many Kirov series books, so I could write my alternate history of WWII, which was the largest creative project I ever completed.”--JS
This series involving Sir Roger was then called the “Keyholders Series,” and the stories arising from it in the Kirov Series were then moved into that series, now with four books. They covered alternate history retelling of:
1) the Battle of Waterloo, (Field of Glory)
2) Lord Chelmsford’s Zulu Campaign,( Zulu Hour)
3) The Opium wars in Chins (The Devil Ship) and the latest was
4) The British struggle to hold the Sudan that ended with the Battle of Omdurman (The Sands of Honor).
All were contests to see who could wrench the history to their side of the contest and achieve the victory, and the players were wagering diamonds that were made from the compressed remains of famous historical figures, coveted and traded among the super wealthy.
Then after 64 Volumes of the Kirov Series completed the Alternate history of WWII, and two predictions of what the naval WWIII would look like (One based on our present history and one based on the future arising from the Alternate history of WWII), the Kirov series finally glided to what looked like a soft landing. Then came the Encore Season, books 65 through 69 where Kirov was involved in an alternate Meridian where half the Pacific was dominated by a modern day Imperial Japan. When that concluded, the author then took a leap of faith. He had just finished writing the third volume of his first series, a science fiction epic trilogy: Wild Zone, Mother Heart, and finally Nightwatch.
“Finishing Nightwatch took me 30 years, as that series was interrupted when I started writing Taklamakan, Meridian, then the Kirov Series. But when Kirov landed I finally wrote that third book in the Dharman Series. Then I could not shake the Science Fiction story there. I wanted to write more, and an Idea bloomed in my head that took the Kirov series in a whole new direction.” --JS
The Earthforce Saga
Also arising from the Kirov Series came a much more imaginative story, the latest flower and fruit to bloom and drop from from the many branches of the Kirov series. You can blame Director Pavel Kamenski. This is the Earthforce Saga, where the author has been delivering a new volume to interested readers every month, the most prolific output of his story telling magic yet. It began with a single mission teed up by Director Kamenski. Earth was threatened by a large Asteroid that was named Goliath, and a mission was being launched to try and divert it with two or three Tsar Bomba size 50 Megaton nuclear warheads. Yet the mission needed a military leader and experienced crew, because Kamenski said it might very likely be opposed by the aliens that Anton Fedorov first discovered in Antarctica, the so called Skeletals, or Ice Men that had been featured as antagonists in a number of the later Kirov Series volumes after their discovery in Volume #61 Queen’s Gambit.
“Science fiction elements started creeping into the Kirov Series when the Ice Men Skeletals were discovered,” said John. That happened in book #61, but I had no idea then that subplot would eventuality spawn a new saga. I should have known better. Once an idea gets into my head, like Kirov, I have to write wherever my imagination takes me. So I played the Queen’s Gambit, and decided the Ice Men would have to become a major antagonist in later books. That came to full fruition as the Kroth War fought in the Earthforce Saga.” --JS
In Kirov Series #70, Goliath, Kamenski opens the story by explaining that it was this same alien race found as “sleepers” in the ice of Antarctica that had now aimed this massive world ending asteroid, Goliath, at the Earth. So the ship that would take the mission team out to try and divert it was also armed in case the aliens tried to stop their mission.
Goliath must have lit a fire in the author’s mind, because since its publication he has written another eleven volumes in what he now calls the Earthforce Saga, all blending Military fiction, Science Fiction, and Cosmic Horror. And yet there is still a naval aspect about the whole series, because the alien nemesis race Fedorov called the Ice Men is now known to hail from the Tau Ceti system and Kamenski reveals their real name, the Kroth.
How the Earthforce Saga was born
In Goliath, Karpov, his bridge crew and Marines, use the Kamenski Device to move forward in time to the year 2130 to undertake a mission to divert a massive asteroid. After that mission, Kamenski tells our heroes, Karpov and Company, that the Kroth fleet will arrive at Earth in a hundred years, which gives Earth that single century to build a fleet of starships to defend Humanity from this alien threat. Then we are off to the races. Twelve books followed Goliath, with eleven of them set in space where Vladimir Karpov is named the commander of Earth’s new space faring navy—Earthforce. Seeing Mars as a vital frontier tower defending Earth, Karpov takes the story there when he orders the planet scoured to find and eliminate any hidden Kroth forces there.
The Mars Books:
#71 Earthforce Mars, #72 Invasion Mars, #73 Sons of Ares, #74 Blood of the Ancients
The Kroth have revealed themselves by emerging from hidden ice caves on Mars and raiding small scientific outposts at Camp Copernicus and Cydonia. The next four Volumes of the Earthforce Saga were all set on or around Mars, with a grand tour of that planet in the living color this author can generate with his pen. Battles are fought in Copernicus Crater, Cydonia, Valles Marineris, in Noctis Labyrinthus (The Labyrinth of Night), and on the plains of Elysium against contingents of Kroth Ice Men out to raid or destroy Earthforce bases, or defend their own hidden outposts.
Read those first four books of the Earthforce Saga and you will be hooked. On Mars, Fedorov makes some amazing discoveries of an ancient Martian Humanoid race that apparently perished long ago. But after Mars is secured, the clock is ticking, and the Kroth Fleet vanguard begins to enter the outer Solar System. The series then presents the battles fought by the Earthforce Navy against the arriving Kroth Fleet, where Karpov become a heroic figure to the masses on Earth with his victories.
In these books, the action all takes place inside the solar system, and the two navies duel off the Rings of Saturn, at Titan, among the moons of Jupiter and as far out as Neptune and the Kuiper belt. Along the way the author teaches a lot about all these places, making sure the science in his science fiction is real.
Don’t miss these four… “Get your ass to Mars!”
#75 The Lost Empire (Kirov Series)
The series then sees Karpov and crew return to Earth on a special mission in The Lost Empire, where Fedorov learns that Carthage has survived their Punic wars with Rome and exists as a technologically advanced empire in the western Med. Yet WWII is late in coming and does not break out in 1972! Now Italy enters the war on the Axis side, and is at War with Carthage in a Modern Day Punic War. This book is properly part of the Kirov Saga, an interesting diversion before the Earthforce Saga continues in the next volume. Director has sent Kirov to Sevastopol and it is to enter the Med and make sure Carthage survives its war with Italy. In the meantime, this volume also sees Germany invade Poland, Norway, the low Countries and France, material never covered in the long alternate History of WWII in the main Kirov Series. It’s worth a read if you liked that alternate history aspect of the war. Then we get back to Earthforce…
Volume #75, The Call of the Wolf
The Kroth War ends, only to see another alien force, the Fendi, become a threat. The Fendi are automatons, controlled by an A.I. Supermind, and cavort about in massive scavenger ships grinding up asteroids or collecting debris in the battlefields of outer space. If they find refined metals or derelict space ships left over from the Kroth War, they start reverse engineering to create their own ships and weapons. We later learn that the Fendi were actually attacking the Kroth Homeworld in the Tau Ceti system, forcing a two front war on them. This is why they could only send 300 ships instead of 500 to attack the Earth, and why they eventually chose to abandon their long struggle against Earthforce in the years 2185 thru 2190.
Then Karpov and company have a run in with one Fendi Wolf, as they call the massive three million ton scavenger ship. After this, a full wolfpack of five show up, which prompts the one friendly alien race they discovered in the series, the Lyrians, to take the side of Earthforce and back down the Fendi. The wolves withdraw, but do not go far, and they will retool and return to the series in due course.
Then the Earthforce Saga starts shifting into higher gears when Karpov and Fedorov conceive and lead the first Outreach Program as Humanity begins to reach for the stars. Humans are now to become a multi-system race, (the present dream of Elon Musk) to insure consciousness survives. Targeting exoplanets within 15 Light years, the Outreach Expedition founds five colonies on star systems, and here’s where the author introduces a clever twist. He begins to consolidate his first Sci-fi tale, written over 30 years ago, into the Earthforce Saga, freshening the brew when characters like SS Agent Tim Ryan, Captain Ray Harper, Ensign Lydia gates, Starman Caruso and the robots ELMO and CLEM all enter the Earthforce Saga.
Series Volume #77 Outreach
Among John’s very first books were two linked Science Fiction stories, Wild Zone and Mother Heart. Written well before his best selling Kirov series books, these two books formed the beginning of a trilogy he called the Dharman series. Wild Zone was a fascinating tale of a special service agent sent to investigate a small colony on the sixth planet of a star system called Dharma. It was a great Military Science Fiction story, blending Special Operations, robotics, and eventually genetic and bio-engineering when the SS Agent discovers a virus that can form a massive gelatinous colony and achieve sentient consciousness there. It is then discovered that the “Colony Virus” has infected life forms all over Dharma-6, and also on the other Colonies founded by the Outreach Program. It does not to kill them, or merely replicate, but instead it mutates them for other purposes devised by this intelligent virus colony.
One other twist in this merger was the fact that Fedorov discovers the virus first originated as a Dark Matter life form, and in subsequent volumes, Fedorov discovers and contends with other life forms that have been breaching into normal space, the realm of Baryonic Matter.
Volume #78 Dark Matters begins to reveal these life forms.
Alright—Earthforce decides to take on this Colony Virus which has started to infect all the colonies. Commodore Tico is sent to the distant star Fomalhaut on a recon mission, as it is suspected of being a mustering point for a new invasive threat posed by dark Matter mercenaries of the Colony Virus now being called “The Shadows,” which now invade the domain of Baryonic Matter—(things built of the matter we know, Neutrons, Protons, Electrons.) Tico’s mission features the cast of the Dharman Series characters, and continues right where book #3 of the Dharman Series left off. At Fomalhaut, Tico finds and engages strange alien ships that seem like hermit crabs, having an external organic shell but engineered interiors. This dark matter race is now called “The Shadows,” and the Shadow War begins.
Volume #79 Contagion.
The Shadow war sees the Colony Virus finally starting to infect the biospheres of Earth. And here characters from the older Dharman series sci-fi take prominent roles allowing Earth to develop a vaccine against the Colony Virus, and confront the mutated life that had started to plague modern society on Earth. Mutants arise from the oceans and fjords, in distant environments like Norway and Alaska, and then the insects get a gene for gigantism and start migrating out of the Amazon forest into the Caribbean and crossing that sea into Florida. Contagion presents the battle to stop these mutations and keep the mutants from getting any farther north into the continental USA.
Volume #80 Startides.
The Shadow war concludes with a negotiated settlement when Earth gets a powerful preventive vaccine and an anti-viral Phage that can directly attack the Colony Virus. A fragile peace is restored with the Shadow leaving the Cyonid Quadrant Colonies and retreating to the Cepheus Quadrant, as yet mostly unexplored by Earthforce. Then comes Fedorov with his hankering for exploration and in Volume #80, the Kirov cast discovers a strange tidal flow in space that comes to be name a Startide, and gives volume #80 its title. The Startide moves ships at alarming speeds through Upper dimensional travel, and I’m talking hundreds of light years in a matter of two hours. This takes the Kirov cast out to “strange far places” as the author puts it, and almost kills one of the main characters. Fedorov discovers that the cosmic filaments are all actually a network of interconnected Startides. For Fedorov, this is an astounding discovery, and he asserts that these tidal flows are now the key to Humanity becoming a galactic species. The tides then become a problem when commercial ships get swept away and go missing.
Volume #81 Out of the Night
A sortie that sees Apollo searching for a lost mining ship, Valhalla, marooned in a cosmic void beyond the Polyarnny Rift named Mordor. Here we meet a number of minor characters on Valhalla, William Testor (Wild Bill), Ace Spader, (The Ace of Spades) and others. It is here that a second Startide is discovered, and strange life forms are found to inhabit the Void of Mordor, where no life was thought possible. Fedorov struggles to overcome a problem when Apollo can no longer fold space for a warp jump home. Facing years marooned in this void, he finally engineers an escape as the next volume begins.
Volume #82 The Viper
Now we finally come to this month’s offering, introducing a privateer with a pirate crew that also gets swept into one of these Startides and then pursued by an alien ship on their return journey. Meet Captain Armen Parado, a character that had a knack for finding things, some mysterious, others causing a lot of trouble for Earthforce, because he leads a hostile alien race home the region of Fomalhaut again. Fedorov knows the Startides are two way freeways and that they can bring dangerous races into contact with Earth’s slowly expanding circle of stellar Colonies, now reaching 30 Light Years from Earth. Discoveries made by the Viper in the Beta and then the Delta Startides, and along a ridge of stars reaching through the Void of Mordor, now set up the story for another big confrontation with a potentially hostile alien race. Yet Karpov and Fedorov are shocked when they finally meet them near Fomalhaut.
Throughout these later volumes, the world building the author has done throughout the saga is now like a nice warm coat. The saga has its own internal gravity and we all know what an LC-7 is, and why the missiles used by Earthforce ships are in classes like those used in the Naval wars. (Karpov just calls them by familiar names, based on their characteristics.) Subspace, Normal Space and Hyperspace are all familiar domains, and a map released with this volume helps us navigate the story. (It’s on the web site). The author has been introducing new characters in small Vignettes, usually to drop things into the story that later become building blocks for a major series evolution. In The Viper, many of these mysteries, like the Artifact found by the character Run DMC, suddenly come into keen focus.
If you were an old Kirov series reader that fell off the wagon somewhere, these last few books in the Earthforce series, like the first four Mars books, put you back into that mindset we had in Season one—When’s the next book coming out? Back then we only had to wait about 60 days for the saga to continue, and those last words of each book, “the Saga Continues” were always welcome. This author is twice as prolific as Branded Sanderson, and every bit as good. Now, with the Earthforce Saga, we get a continuation of the story every month. Its really exceptional, and I can think of no other author more deserving of a wider audience than John, the man who first gave us a book many could simply not put down for the whole ride to date through the series—Kirov.
If you’ve missed these later volumes and evolutions of the Kirov series, you’ve missed a lot. So jump back in with Goliath, or you can just start with Earthforce Mars. By the time you get to The Viper, who knows where John will have taken the story. So don’t miss the Earthforce Saga, familiar and well known characters you loved in a challenging new environment with very imaginative story telling, and a great Military Science Fiction that has a naval feel to it, with Karpov and Crew in the fleet flagship. Gotta love this.
—The Writing Shop Press for John Schettler