Sea of Fire

Author’s Note:

Dear Readers,

This is the alternate history of the war in the Pacific, extracted from many volumes of the long Kirov Series and re-edited into one continuous narrative. The first 45 chapters of this history were presented in Volume I, Roll of Thunder, and this picks up right after the eruption of Krakatoa and the surprising new visitor it blew through the cracks in time.

Volume II for the Pacific War now continues with the story concerning JS Takami, the Battle of the Coral Sea, Halsey’s raid on the Marshalls, Japanese Operation FS and the landings on Fiji, the Battle of the Koro Sea, US Landing at Suva Bay, Karpov’s Landings on Sakhalin Island, and then the battle between Kirov and an unexpected challenger in the Sea of Okhotsk. Admiral Hara’s Indian Ocean Raid and the action against Somerville’s British Far East Fleet concludes this volume. There was then a huge gap of 66 chapters where I devoted most of the main series action to PQ-17, Rommel in North Africa, the fighting in Spain and Algeria, the plan to assassinate Sergei Kirov, Fall Blau on the east front, and the drive on Volgograd which took us to the end of 1943.

So this catchup on the Pacific action arrives in a timely manner, because I intend to continue with the Pacific War in the next regular series volume, 1943. That entire novel is devoted to action on that front, and take up right where this volume concludes. With Fedorov and Karpov forging a new Alliance, Kirov moves south into the heat of the intense carrier duels between Halsey and the Kido Butai.