Nexus Deep

Author’s Note:

Dear Readers,

The process winds its way to the conclusion of yet another volume. It’s no mean task to produce a new series book in just 60 days. Keeping to my discipline of completing at least one eight-page chapter per writing day, I need 36 days of writing to get my first draft. There is also research and simulation design involved for the battles, which can be quite time consuming. After that, it is all about texturing, sandpapering, proofing to eliminate my inevitable typos. Like Karpov with his missiles, I get most everything, but sometimes, as he would say it, “something gets through—something always gets through.” That said, it’s usually not anything big enough to sink the ship.

I listen to the whole manuscript using Ivona Voice Brian (UK), and I find it to be the highest quality voice reader I’ve ever heard. He helps me to spot my ‘though vs thought’ typing issues, and also lets me listen to the dialogue between characters to assess how it all flows. In many ways, I punctuate to please Brian more than to pay homage to established rules, though I mostly keep to them in any case. In effect, I have punctuated the manuscript so that Brian sounds more natural when reading it aloud, and I have even created a custom pronunciation dictionary to coach him on proper names, German, Japanese and Russian.

This volume now takes us into Mid-1943, with big events unfolding on both the east and west fronts. As there was no disaster at Stalingrad in this alternate history, the real “Turning Point” in the war happens here in these crucial months. Both the Soviets and the Western Allies have now realized that they have gained parity on the battlefield against the formerly unbeatable German Army. One might argue that it was only lack of German military commitment that allowed the US and British to drive inexorably from Casablanca in Operation Torch, to the final battle at Tunis, but logistics truly ruled the day on that account. There were only so many divisions that ports like Tunis, Tripoli, Bizerte and Benghazi could support, and to use them, the Axis navies had to at least have parity with their foes.

After the big battle off Fuerteventura during Operation Condor, it seemed that the Axis fleets never again mounted a strong challenge to Tovey in the West, and if they could, there was always Kirov to weigh in heavily on the Allied side.

Yet it was not mere naval dominance that sealed the fate of the Axis position in North Africa, but also a dramatic shift in the balance of power in the air. By July of 1943, the Allies had not only local air superiority, but actual air supremacy in the theater as a whole. That really put the screws to the German supply effort into Tunisia, and this volume will present the conclusion of the war in North Africa. (Meaning I can now finally produce the next battle book to mate with Foxbane and present the entire uninterrupted history of the North African Campaign over those two volumes.)

In the east, Manstein has had his hands full of late, fighting battles with Hitler, and on the ground against an increasingly powerful Soviet Army. In this volume, he will perceive a palpable change on the field, that Turning Point that he takes to be a harbinger of bad things to come. Even Hitler will be forced to see Germany’s situation differently, and he will have to make some very sweeping changes in this book to try and stem the Red tide.

In the meantime, the main character based “missions” are all on track, with things happening in 1804, 1908, and also 1943. Those story lines will come into more focus in the Season Four Finale and through the Premier of Season 5. As I’m writing the series at the pace the war was actually fought, it may be this time a year from now before we see the landings in France, but that will all depend on what the Generals decide. As you will see in this volume, they make choices their historical counterparts did not, and who knows where the war will lead things. Now, deep in 1943, we have some great action ahead as the Allies look to clear North Africa and knock Italy out of the war, and, at the rate things are going, Sergei Kirov and Zhukov will set their sights on the Dnieper soon.

Enjoy!