The Autumn of Empire

October 1961

De: James Philip

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Welcome to the Timeline 10/27/62 prequel series COUNTDOWN TO WAR starting in October 1961 and concluding when the world goes mad during the last weekend in October 1962.

First, a tiny apology to anywhere unfamiliar with my Timeline 10/27/63 books in which the Cold War turned disastrously HOT over Cuba and the swinging sixties did not happen. This is as much a personal open letter to my readers as it is a blurb for a new book. But then as every story-teller will attest; why on earth would one be conventional when one has an opportunity to be contrary?

THE AUTUMN OF EMPIRE is the first of thirteen books in this series which will be released between 27th October 2023 and 27th October 2024.

Rather than releasing this series as a small series of long books; I am experimenting with a new format which will comprise twelve ‘shorts’ – short novels or novellas – each of at least 30,000 words and a series-ending ‘normal’ length book, of 100,000 plus words.

The second part of the experiment is to release the books at one-monthly intervals starting with THE AUTUMN OF EMPIRE – OCTOBER 1961 on 27th October 2023.

The COUNTDOWN TO WAR Series is:

1: The Autumn of Empire – October 1961
2: Enterprise – November 1961
3: Fallout Shelter – December 1961
4: The Lion Sleeps Tonight – January 1962
5: Doomsday Blues – February 1962
6: The Great Storm – March 1962
7: West Side Story – April 1962
8: The Wall – May 1962
9: Test Ban Treaty – June 1962
10: The Night of the Long Knives – July 1962
11: Marilyn – August 1962
12: A Hard Rain – September 1962
13: Gathered on the Beach – October 1962

Book 2, ENTERPRISE – NOVEMBER 1961 will be released on 27th November 2023, and the others in sequence on the 27th of the month thereafter – hey, you get the idea – through to its conclusion with GATHERED ON THE BEACH on 27th October 2024.

Okay, that has set the scene.

I will not speak to THE AUTUMN OF EMPIRE directly, other than to say in it we find some familiar, and several unfamiliar characters from the 30+ books written in the Timeline universe before the cataclysm in a world that…well, might have an inkling of what is to come but if it fears the worst, it also hopes for the best.

I have had many fascinating, and some infuriating conversations with readers, and others, about alternative history, counter-factual story-telling, et al. Basically, in any work of fiction not everything that is in the author’s mind makes it into the final text.

It has always been my contention that good ‘alternative history’ must have a starting point and a robust context rooted in actual events to be believable. In other words, the new timeline must not simply appear out of thin air, abracadabra, at the waving of some magical literary-fantastical wand.

We can know what history was, or rather, what actually happened next because we are living after it has happened. At the time, we may think we know what history will be but we cannot know; the future really is a strange place, by and large unknowable. Therefore, if we make plans wholly on the basis of what we know happened in the past we are, almost always, riding for a fall.

So, when I write alternative history the hardest part is figuring out what was different about this timeline from the one we have observed in our own reality, universe, whatever?

So, this is COUNTDOWN TO WAR, my alternative history of what happened in the year before the Cuban Missiles Crisis went horribly wrong, in effect, the story readers do not usually get to read told month by month.

In that sense, this series should be treated as a direct prequel to the events in OPERATION ANADYR, and Book 1 of the USA Series AFTERMATH.

James Philip
Summer 2023