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Timeline 10/27/62 #3
The Pillars of Hercules
The Ancient Greeks called the Straits of Gibraltar the ‘Pillars of Hercules’. The Rock of Gibraltar was the northern pillar; Monte Hacho in Ceuta its probable southern analogue. To the ancients the Pillars of Hercules delineated the western end of the known Mediterranean World. Beyond lay the limitless, impassable vastness of the Atlantic; wherein lay monsters...
It is December 1963 and the tensions that have been simmering since the October War have come to the boil in an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion so poisonous, that nobody in England or Washington DC has realised that in the background there is a third, malignant force at work.
When the CIA is implicated in the attempted assassination of the Royal Family, United States aircraft subsequently attack two British destroyers off the coast of Northern Spain and take part in a devastating surprise raid on the Maltese Archipelago, the belligerence of General Franco’s government over Gibraltar and the sabre-rattling of the new fascist Government of Italy suddenly assumes the proportions of a Machiavellian American plot to drive the final nail into the coffin of the British Empire.
In England the hard-pressed United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration is struggling to feed and house its survivors; and every time it tries to talk to the Kennedy Administration nobody is available to take its call.
On Malta hundreds are dead, thousands injured. Bunker-buster bombs have destroyed practically every key headquarters building, Sunken British warships lie in the oil-fouled waters of the Grand Harbour and Sliema Creek, and the medical facilities of the islands have been overwhelmed.
Off the Straits of Gibraltar a Royal Navy carrier battle group is fending off mass attacks by the antiquated Spanish Air Force and harrying Franco’s army and navy as they press around the beleaguered Rock, while far out at sea the Royal Navy’s one nuclear powered attack submarine, HMS Dreadnought, is playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with two US Navy submarines.
Britain and the United States of America are a heartbeat away from war. Never have two nations been so grievously separated by their common language. It is as if every word the former allies say to each other is being passed through a filter that translates ‘peace’ into ‘war’.
The Timeline 10/27/62 World is:
Timeline 10/27/62 – Main Series
Book 1: Operation Anadyr
Book 2: Love is Strange
Book 3: The Pillars of Hercules
Book 4: Red Dawn (Available 1st May 2015)
Book 5: The Burning Time (Available 1st July 2015)
Timeline 10/27/62 - USA
Book 1: Aftermath (Available 27th October 2015)
Book 2: California Dreaming (Available 27th October 2015)
A PERSONAL NOTE FOR MY READERS
The books of the Timeline 10/27/62 Series are written as episodes; instalments in a contiguous narrative arc. The individual ‘episodes’ each explore a number of plot branches, and develop themes continuously from book to book. Inevitably, in any series some exposition and extemporization is unavoidable but I try – honestly, I do – to keep this to a minimum as it tends to slow down the pace of the stories I am telling.
In writing each successive addition to the Timeline 10/27/62 ‘verse’ it is my implicit assumption that my readers will have read the previous books in the series in sequence, and that my readers do not want their reading experience to be overly impacted by excessive re-hashing of the events in previous books.
It is December 1963 and the tensions that have been simmering since the October War have come to the boil in an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion so poisonous, that nobody in England or Washington DC has realised that in the background there is a third, malignant force at work.
When the CIA is implicated in the attempted assassination of the Royal Family, United States aircraft subsequently attack two British destroyers off the coast of Northern Spain and take part in a devastating surprise raid on the Maltese Archipelago, the belligerence of General Franco’s government over Gibraltar and the sabre-rattling of the new fascist Government of Italy suddenly assumes the proportions of a Machiavellian American plot to drive the final nail into the coffin of the British Empire.
In England the hard-pressed United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration is struggling to feed and house its survivors; and every time it tries to talk to the Kennedy Administration nobody is available to take its call.
On Malta hundreds are dead, thousands injured. Bunker-buster bombs have destroyed practically every key headquarters building, Sunken British warships lie in the oil-fouled waters of the Grand Harbour and Sliema Creek, and the medical facilities of the islands have been overwhelmed.
Off the Straits of Gibraltar a Royal Navy carrier battle group is fending off mass attacks by the antiquated Spanish Air Force and harrying Franco’s army and navy as they press around the beleaguered Rock, while far out at sea the Royal Navy’s one nuclear powered attack submarine, HMS Dreadnought, is playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with two US Navy submarines.
Britain and the United States of America are a heartbeat away from war. Never have two nations been so grievously separated by their common language. It is as if every word the former allies say to each other is being passed through a filter that translates ‘peace’ into ‘war’.
The Timeline 10/27/62 World is:
Timeline 10/27/62 – Main Series
Book 1: Operation Anadyr
Book 2: Love is Strange
Book 3: The Pillars of Hercules
Book 4: Red Dawn (Available 1st May 2015)
Book 5: The Burning Time (Available 1st July 2015)
Timeline 10/27/62 - USA
Book 1: Aftermath (Available 27th October 2015)
Book 2: California Dreaming (Available 27th October 2015)
A PERSONAL NOTE FOR MY READERS
The books of the Timeline 10/27/62 Series are written as episodes; instalments in a contiguous narrative arc. The individual ‘episodes’ each explore a number of plot branches, and develop themes continuously from book to book. Inevitably, in any series some exposition and extemporization is unavoidable but I try – honestly, I do – to keep this to a minimum as it tends to slow down the pace of the stories I am telling.
In writing each successive addition to the Timeline 10/27/62 ‘verse’ it is my implicit assumption that my readers will have read the previous books in the series in sequence, and that my readers do not want their reading experience to be overly impacted by excessive re-hashing of the events in previous books.
299 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 30, 2015
29 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
James Philip
75 books9 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
James Philip was born in Kingsbury in London and grew up in that long-lost age when as a four-year old he was among the last generation of young boys in England whose father could take him to stand on a nearby railway bridge, at Wealdstone so that he could peer over the smoke blackened parapet as real steam locomotives chugged beneath.
James Philip was born in Kingsbury in London and grew up in that long-lost age when as a four-year old he was among the last generation of young boys in England whose father could take him to stand on a nearby railway bridge, at Wealdstone so that he could peer over the smoke blackened parapet as real steam locomotives chugged beneath.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 1, 2022
Ahhh! He finally did it!
This alternate history premise got off to a good start. I enjoyed the first book. It's all gone south from there. The narrative reads like it's being told by Jacob Rees-Mogg. The author isn't shy on copy and pasting from Wikipedia (if you doubt me look up the entries for F.A.D.E. ships and Maltese history. He even left the wiki links in still underlined).
He also has a penchant for constantly giving the full titles of the characters. In the case of the admiral that equated to 3 1/2 lines of text. I learned to skip these. Then we come to the reason for my header, Margaret Thatcher. The author obviously longs for the good old colonial days. He keeps referring to her as the 'angry widow' and being an attractive woman. Now, in no way could she ever be called attractive, either in looks and especially in character. But he went too far in sexualising her. Fiction taken too far.
Other annoying things include ending the chapters on a cliffhanger as soon as any action starts. You then later catch up with the consequences of that action in a wholly unsatisfactory way. He also constantly repeats himself (even his bio is tediously long and full of repeated explanations to the reader that it's a work of fiction - really? I'm reading your book and not dust floating in the air). Another example of kindle unlimited publishing rubbish. It is really becoming difficult to find a decent author or book. Good examples of quality authors are Stephen Konkoly and John Birmingham. Never a misplaced word or spelling mistake from either.
This alternate history premise got off to a good start. I enjoyed the first book. It's all gone south from there. The narrative reads like it's being told by Jacob Rees-Mogg. The author isn't shy on copy and pasting from Wikipedia (if you doubt me look up the entries for F.A.D.E. ships and Maltese history. He even left the wiki links in still underlined).
He also has a penchant for constantly giving the full titles of the characters. In the case of the admiral that equated to 3 1/2 lines of text. I learned to skip these. Then we come to the reason for my header, Margaret Thatcher. The author obviously longs for the good old colonial days. He keeps referring to her as the 'angry widow' and being an attractive woman. Now, in no way could she ever be called attractive, either in looks and especially in character. But he went too far in sexualising her. Fiction taken too far.
Other annoying things include ending the chapters on a cliffhanger as soon as any action starts. You then later catch up with the consequences of that action in a wholly unsatisfactory way. He also constantly repeats himself (even his bio is tediously long and full of repeated explanations to the reader that it's a work of fiction - really? I'm reading your book and not dust floating in the air). Another example of kindle unlimited publishing rubbish. It is really becoming difficult to find a decent author or book. Good examples of quality authors are Stephen Konkoly and John Birmingham. Never a misplaced word or spelling mistake from either.
January 10, 2023
Great read
Third one of the series, and we’ll worth the time. Good alternative story line with strong characters. Give it a go
Third one of the series, and we’ll worth the time. Good alternative story line with strong characters. Give it a go
July 11, 2023
Excelent
Another excellent book in the series that will keep you gripped.
Sit back and join the journey on what could of well happened forvreal.
Another excellent book in the series that will keep you gripped.
Sit back and join the journey on what could of well happened forvreal.
June 10, 2016
I very thought provoking read with some exceptional characters.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews