Condition Zebra: The Next War - 2025

Reading the Kirov Series

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 involved in an accident during live fire exercises that sends the ship back to the 1940s in the Norwegian Sea, where it subsequently becomes embroiled in WWII.

Similar to episodes in the never-ending Star Trek series, the saga continues through one volume after another as the ship’s position in time remains unstable. The main 40 volume series is an alternate history of WWII, from 1940 to late 1944, showing the war as it is changed by the intervention of Kirov and crew. It is the most detailed fictional depiction of WWII ever written, covering most every major battle on land and sea.

Getting Started:

There are two key entry points to the series, the most obvious being Book 1, Kirov, where you will meet all the main characters in the series and learn their inner motivations. However, as the series describes a great loop in time, new readers can also enter with the current season 6 of the story, beginning with volume 41, Homecoming. The author is writing these final books to include all the necessary information new readers would need to know. This final season shows what would have happened to the ship and crew if they had not shifted to the past in book 1, and Kirov becomes embroiled in the outbreak of WWIII in the Norwegian Sea. At the conclusion of Season 6, new readers can then move to book 1 in the main series, and see what happens to the ship if it does shift back in time.

Detailed information on the battles covered in each book, including battle maps, is available at www.writingshop.ws. A listing of books in all six “seasons” of this amazing series appears below.