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Blue Shield: A ‘What-if?’ Action Thriller
‘What-if’ NATO called Russia’s bluff in Ukraine?
A fragile UN monitored ceasefire in Ukraine is on the verge of collapse. Both sides have used the pause in fighting to rearm and regroup. In a rerun of 2022, Russia is conducting exercises with its forces in Belarus. Despite vague ‘security guarantees’ to Ukraine from NATO, there is no question Russia will attack again – but where?
It could mean the end of Ukrainian sovereignty and the start of a new war in Europe, but this gripping action thriller asks ‘what if’ …
: What if NATO acted with resolve?
: What if it set up an air defense perimeter over Ukraine, like it did for Bosnia?
: What if it put boots on the ground inside Ukraine, like it did in Iraq?
: What if it sent ships into the Black Sea, like it did off Africa?
In Future War style, BLUE SHIELD focuses on the stories of several ordinary people in such a scenario, from the air, in space, on the ground, and at sea. And from all sides of the conflict.
FUTURE WAR ‘what-if’ thrillers are a new series of novels disconnected from the Future War and Aggressor series timelines. They will explore alternate responses to the political and military crises of today, using characters drawn from the FX Holden universe.
Each novel in the FX Holden ‘What-if’ series is a standalone self contained story.
A fragile UN monitored ceasefire in Ukraine is on the verge of collapse. Both sides have used the pause in fighting to rearm and regroup. In a rerun of 2022, Russia is conducting exercises with its forces in Belarus. Despite vague ‘security guarantees’ to Ukraine from NATO, there is no question Russia will attack again – but where?
It could mean the end of Ukrainian sovereignty and the start of a new war in Europe, but this gripping action thriller asks ‘what if’ …
: What if NATO acted with resolve?
: What if it set up an air defense perimeter over Ukraine, like it did for Bosnia?
: What if it put boots on the ground inside Ukraine, like it did in Iraq?
: What if it sent ships into the Black Sea, like it did off Africa?
In Future War style, BLUE SHIELD focuses on the stories of several ordinary people in such a scenario, from the air, in space, on the ground, and at sea. And from all sides of the conflict.
FUTURE WAR ‘what-if’ thrillers are a new series of novels disconnected from the Future War and Aggressor series timelines. They will explore alternate responses to the political and military crises of today, using characters drawn from the FX Holden universe.
Each novel in the FX Holden ‘What-if’ series is a standalone self contained story.
571 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 17, 2026
About the author
F.X. Holden
27 books198 followersFX Holden writes action thrillers (The 'Aggressor' and 'Future War' Series) and Science Fiction (The 'Coruscant' and 'Red Legion' Series). He has been awarded two US Publishers' Weekly Stars (the Michelin Star of publishing), the US Readers' Favorite award for Best Political Thriller (twice, including in 2025), and the US Book Excellence award for Best Military Fiction!
FX Holden is a pen name for author Tim (TJ) Slee, winner of the HarperCollins Banjo Prize for Australian fiction and the US Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize for Fiction.
FX Holden is a pen name for author Tim (TJ) Slee, winner of the HarperCollins Banjo Prize for Australian fiction and the US Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize for Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 7, 2026
Not strictly a review, since I am the author! Call it an ‘author’s note’. I usually wait until around a hundred ratings are in before dropping a few words about the novel, to get an idea of what people like or don’t. It seems people like the ‘what-if’ concept which is nice - in this case ‘what if NATO called Russia’s bluff in Ukraine?’
As I write this, a Eurofighter of Italy’s 4th Stormo is circling over my head near Grosseto in Tuscany. The 4th has recently been designated a rapid response unit, meaning that if the scenario I lay out in Blue Shield happens - a resumption of hostilities after a short ceasefire in Ukraine - the 4th Stormo might be on their way to Ukraine’s defense. Because Europe is finally finding its mojo again and preparing to stand up to a Russian aggressor whose pathetic armed forces have been fought to a standstill by a steadfast nation a quarter of its population, one tenth of its GDP and three percent of its landmass.
I decided to focus on characters in this episode of this series who represent the best and worst of their nations - brave Ukrainians, selfless Americans and Brits, and yes, hapless Russians. Pilot Vadim ‘Beartooth’ Korenchuk is an embodiment of the mythical ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ Ukrainian ace of the early days of the war. The ‘never say die’ attitude of Captain Roman Gribov is modeled on the lone Ukrainian soldier on Snake Island who, when called on by a Russian warship over the radio to surrender, replied ‘Russian warship, go f**k yourself.’ And Hanna Petrivka Shevchenko, the village council official in occupied Budjak baking laxative-laced Kiflyky cookies for the Russian invaders, is based on the grandmother of a Ukrainian soccer buddy who baked her way through the second world war and cold war as a way of continuing to assert her cultural identity under occupation.
Yes, I know there is a lot of debate about the future of the US in the NATO alliance, but in this novel I have chosen to treat that as a glitch in the matrix. So it does feature US personnel, fighting and sacrificing alongside other NATO nationals to protect the freedoms of democratic Ukraine. There are too many who want NATO to continue to succeed as a force for geopolitical stability, for it to be permanently derailed by any who don’t. And I do believe that after decades of somnolence, NATO is waking up to the need to be assertive in the face of a bully whose aggressive rhetoric is not matched by the military reality of his improverished army.
Drone warfare has changed the balance of power between superpowers and smaller nations and features heavily in this novel. We have seen that change most dramatically in Ukraine, but also now in the US-Iran war, where Iran - a country whose air force was already non existent, whose navy was ‘obliterated’ in the first days of the war and whose Russian-made air defenses were quickly overwhelmed - has fought the US to the negotiating table with cards still in hand, due to its continued ability to deploy low cost, easily concealed missiles, small boats and drones to shut down shipping in the Gulf and threaten US bases in the region. The US (and other powers) are learning painful lessons in this war, that Ukraine should already have taught them:
- you can’t park aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars out in the open without adequate protection, even far from the front line; they will be destroyed, as demonstrated by an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in March 2026, which claimed a US E-3 AWACS (the US has only about 15 of these left) and several KC-135 Stratotankers.
- current NATO air defenses are inadequate against waves of drones and missiles, especially ballistic/hypersonics; some will get through. US bases across the region have been successfully struck 220 times (ISW analysis.)
- traditional naval assets, including powerful AEGIS equipped air warfare destroyers, are frighteningly vulnerable to drone and missile attack. While Iran has yet to land a blow on a US warship, the threat is sufficiently real that the US Navy is unable to open the Strait of Hormuz by directly escorting vessels through as it did during the ‘tanker war’ of 1987. It has been forced to keep most of its ships out of reach of Iranian drones and missiles out in the Gulf of Oman. And lastly;
- you can’t bomb an enemy into submission with aircraft/missiles alone. This was proven true in WW2, in Vietnam and most recently in Ukraine. After failing to assert its will on the battlefield, at sea and in the air for the last two plus years, Russia has resorted to sending wave after wave of missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities. More than 100,000 drones and 2,400 missiles were launched by Russia in 2025. By April 2026 that number was already 35,000 drones and 800 missiles. Despite a brutal winter with constant disruption to its energy infrastructure, Ukraine is no closer to surrendering now than it was four years ago.
In BLUE SHIELD I am so bold as to assume that by the time Russia breaks a future ceasefire and resumes its war in Ukraine - which I regard as inevitable - NATO will have learned these lessons and adapted its forces and systems to reflect them. Optimistic? Sure, but optimism is a quality we need right now!
FX Holden
As I write this, a Eurofighter of Italy’s 4th Stormo is circling over my head near Grosseto in Tuscany. The 4th has recently been designated a rapid response unit, meaning that if the scenario I lay out in Blue Shield happens - a resumption of hostilities after a short ceasefire in Ukraine - the 4th Stormo might be on their way to Ukraine’s defense. Because Europe is finally finding its mojo again and preparing to stand up to a Russian aggressor whose pathetic armed forces have been fought to a standstill by a steadfast nation a quarter of its population, one tenth of its GDP and three percent of its landmass.
I decided to focus on characters in this episode of this series who represent the best and worst of their nations - brave Ukrainians, selfless Americans and Brits, and yes, hapless Russians. Pilot Vadim ‘Beartooth’ Korenchuk is an embodiment of the mythical ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ Ukrainian ace of the early days of the war. The ‘never say die’ attitude of Captain Roman Gribov is modeled on the lone Ukrainian soldier on Snake Island who, when called on by a Russian warship over the radio to surrender, replied ‘Russian warship, go f**k yourself.’ And Hanna Petrivka Shevchenko, the village council official in occupied Budjak baking laxative-laced Kiflyky cookies for the Russian invaders, is based on the grandmother of a Ukrainian soccer buddy who baked her way through the second world war and cold war as a way of continuing to assert her cultural identity under occupation.
Yes, I know there is a lot of debate about the future of the US in the NATO alliance, but in this novel I have chosen to treat that as a glitch in the matrix. So it does feature US personnel, fighting and sacrificing alongside other NATO nationals to protect the freedoms of democratic Ukraine. There are too many who want NATO to continue to succeed as a force for geopolitical stability, for it to be permanently derailed by any who don’t. And I do believe that after decades of somnolence, NATO is waking up to the need to be assertive in the face of a bully whose aggressive rhetoric is not matched by the military reality of his improverished army.
Drone warfare has changed the balance of power between superpowers and smaller nations and features heavily in this novel. We have seen that change most dramatically in Ukraine, but also now in the US-Iran war, where Iran - a country whose air force was already non existent, whose navy was ‘obliterated’ in the first days of the war and whose Russian-made air defenses were quickly overwhelmed - has fought the US to the negotiating table with cards still in hand, due to its continued ability to deploy low cost, easily concealed missiles, small boats and drones to shut down shipping in the Gulf and threaten US bases in the region. The US (and other powers) are learning painful lessons in this war, that Ukraine should already have taught them:
- you can’t park aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars out in the open without adequate protection, even far from the front line; they will be destroyed, as demonstrated by an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in March 2026, which claimed a US E-3 AWACS (the US has only about 15 of these left) and several KC-135 Stratotankers.
- current NATO air defenses are inadequate against waves of drones and missiles, especially ballistic/hypersonics; some will get through. US bases across the region have been successfully struck 220 times (ISW analysis.)
- traditional naval assets, including powerful AEGIS equipped air warfare destroyers, are frighteningly vulnerable to drone and missile attack. While Iran has yet to land a blow on a US warship, the threat is sufficiently real that the US Navy is unable to open the Strait of Hormuz by directly escorting vessels through as it did during the ‘tanker war’ of 1987. It has been forced to keep most of its ships out of reach of Iranian drones and missiles out in the Gulf of Oman. And lastly;
- you can’t bomb an enemy into submission with aircraft/missiles alone. This was proven true in WW2, in Vietnam and most recently in Ukraine. After failing to assert its will on the battlefield, at sea and in the air for the last two plus years, Russia has resorted to sending wave after wave of missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities. More than 100,000 drones and 2,400 missiles were launched by Russia in 2025. By April 2026 that number was already 35,000 drones and 800 missiles. Despite a brutal winter with constant disruption to its energy infrastructure, Ukraine is no closer to surrendering now than it was four years ago.
In BLUE SHIELD I am so bold as to assume that by the time Russia breaks a future ceasefire and resumes its war in Ukraine - which I regard as inevitable - NATO will have learned these lessons and adapted its forces and systems to reflect them. Optimistic? Sure, but optimism is a quality we need right now!
FX Holden
April 29, 2026
It’s another winner for FXHolden! I always love the characters in his stories, from the generals to the privates to the civilians. Their individual personalities greatly adds to the realism of the scenarios in the book. Hits so close to currect events. Well researched (as usual) and good anticipation/projection of future weapons and tactics. Looking forward to the next one!
May 3, 2026
Is this the future of the Ukrainian war?
A story packed with action from start to finish let's hope it become a reality an the Russian dictator meets his reckoning day. The battle description is so real that the reader feels immersed in the battlefield.
A story packed with action from start to finish let's hope it become a reality an the Russian dictator meets his reckoning day. The battle description is so real that the reader feels immersed in the battlefield.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews