Fresh from Duck Soup (1933), Julius, Leonard, Arthur and Herbert Marx - or as the world knows them, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo - are transported by a freak electrical storm to Nacogdoches, Texas in the year 1826. Landing in the midst of the Fredonian Rebellion (the first attempt by settlers in Texas to secede from Mexico) and into the company of the only other Jewish person in town, they are in deep dreck. Falling in with Stephen F. Austin and inadvertently filling his head with knowledge of what is to come, our heroes risk tampering with the future of Texas, and perhaps the entire U.S.A., in their quest to return to their own time. Will they find their way back? Or will they be doomed to live out their lives without indoor plumbing?

    On Saturday 27th October 1962 American and Soviet geopolitical brinkmanship resulted in the most terrible war in human history. The forever changed world that remained when the thermonuclear fires had burned themselves out is the world of ‘Timeline 10/27/62’. ‘Operation Anadyr’ is Book 1 of the alternative history series Timeline 10/27/62. ‘Operation Anadyr’ is about the first hours of that alternative history of the world. It is about living through the cataclysm, and wondering how it happened. How did the unthinkable happen? How could our leaders let it happen? How does one quantify the magnitude of the disaster? And what of the survivors living with the aftermath of a world gone mad? ‘Operation Anadyr’ confronts these questions. In ‘Operation Anadyr’ the anatomy of the disaster is writ plain and the men and women who survive it begin to find their voices. * * * Why Timeline 10/27/62? Because that date is a very significant date in my life and in the lives of everybody else in the world alive today because on Saturday 27th October 1962 World War III almost started. World War III probably wouldn’t have lasted very long because one side would have been swiftly obliterated in the first 24 hours of a cataclysm that would have left vast tracts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabited and uninhabitable for decades to come. Perhaps, a quarter of the world’s population would have died in the firestorm or in the starvation and the plagues that would have ensued in the following weeks and months. In the October War of 1962 the hammer of the gods would have fallen upon the territories of the Soviet Union, central and Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, upon the extremities of continental North America. In the Soviet Union and in Europe from Paris to Warsaw, from Prague to Berlin, from the Alps to the Baltic, across the Low Countries and parts of the United Kingdom the thermonuclear fire would have burned with a merciless flame. Scandinavia might have escaped relatively untouched, likewise southern France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Ireland and possibly parts of England, Wales and Scotland. The ‘Cuban Missiles’ War would have been a Man made global catastrophe like no other in human history. In the aftermath, the USA, mourning the dead in half-a-dozen wrecked cities would have been the last major industrial and military power left standing. That world could never, ever be the world we know today. How close did we actually come to the edge of the abyss? Much closer than most people like to contemplate. On Saturday 27th October 1962, north east of Cuba, the commander of Soviet submarine B-59 had to be talked out of firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at the American destroyer USS Beale. That’s how close we came to World War III! The Captain of the B-59 was a man called Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky. He gave the order for a nuclear warhead to be fitted to a torpedo. In that era Soviet naval doctrine governing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons onboard a warship at sea required the authorisation of three officers: the captain, the executive officer, and the vessel’s political officer. B-59’s political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov signed off on starting World War III but fortunately for us all, the submarine’s second-in-command, Captain 2nd Rank Vasili Arkhipov, dissented and Armageddon was narrowly averted. Timeline 10/27/62 is an alternative history of the modern world in which nobody ever got to know the name of Vasili Arkhipov because he died in the first act of the most terrible war in history.

    The effects varied widely and influenced billions of individuals. It most directly affected people who appear to be at the precise inflection point to jump them into a world that was almost the same as the place where they left. Heinrich Schloss had arrived at Berlin's Tempelhof airport in 1982 to pick up his wife. After a brief migraine-like spasm, he opened his eyes to Tempelhof in 1941 to witness Hitler's death in an airplane accident. A history professor who had grown up in a divided Berlin was now a party chieftain in Nazi Germany. All of those speculative conversations around the table with colleagues about what could have been changed to avoid the fall of Germany now had immediacy. The Schloss of this parallel world had replaced Martin Bormann to assume his role of party leader. The transplant now had to make himself into the alternate Schloss and interact with the murderous Nazis who surrounded Hitler. Schloss discovers the perils of simply trying to do the right thing.

    

    It is the journey of Johan Kipper, a reluctant soldier in illy's tercio as he collides with the fact of Grantville's existence. Johan decides he doesn't want to be a soldier anymore. So he becomes what he thinks is a swrvant to entrepreneur David Bartley and the Higgins family. They actually treat him like a person, in stark contrast to how he has been treated all his life by the royalty and nobility of his own time. Johan returns this genuine caring with love and loyalty as he watches David grow into manhood and he grows as a man.

    The RAF is on the verge of defeat, the Royal Navy near mutiny.In an underground bunker, Churchill and the British commanders await the onslaught. Their plan to throw back Hitler's army is about to be put to the test.Churchill is confident they can throw back the enemy.But not all his enemies are abroad.

    Really. The Kaiser did order the invasion of Belgium halted, and yet it went ahead, bringing Great Britain and the rest of the British Empire into the war.This book explores what would have happened if the Kaiser’s decision had not been reversed and his troops had not crossed the Belgian border. It is fiction, of course, but the characters are real and, most of them, precisely where they were and where they would have been fulfilling their historical roles at that time.The story is vivid, realistic and exciting, following the action, the intrigue, the political upheavals as well as political apathy and inertia, meticulously researched and accurate in military and historical detail.

    With a disintegrating infrastructure and wounded pride, the Russian president makes a bold move to confront the United States. Red Hammer 1994 is an exciting military thriller about nuclear war. This novel explores professionalism and extreme courage in impossible situations, while asking tough questions about how leaders can hope to function amid destruction and chaos. Action packed and thought provoking, this novel describes the complex nature of nuclear war. Expertly crafted in its details, Red Hammer 1994 is for anyone interested in geo-political issues.Inspired by a career spent working on Air Force strategic weapon systems and a nuclear engineering and nuclear power background, Robert Ratcliffe wrote this novel after gaining a deep understanding of nuclear weapon effects and the composition and capabilities of the United States and Soviet arsenals. With a desire to write a book that explored the complexities and issues of nuclear war, Red Hammer 1994 was designed to provide thought-provoking realism while captivating readers. Crafted with expert accuracy, this amazing novel sets a new standard for military thrillers.

    Set in S.M. Stirling’s epic storyworld of The Change, ‘Fortune and Glory’ drops readers into the dead heart of post-apocalyptic Sydney.

    He and his new bride, Wallis Simpson, are preparing for their coronation.Winston Churchill is a prisoner on the Isle of Man.The Prime Minister, Oswald Mosley consults the new Chancellor of Germany, and his close ally, Adolf Hitler on a more 'permanent' solution to the 'Jewish problem'.The secret police have Britain in an iron grip.But one man, James Armstrong , a hero of the Great War, is organising the resistance against the government . While 'the leader' is determined to see him hang, Armstrong, constantly on the run, is every bit as clever and resolute as his enemy.

    Although tensions have always been fraught between the Western nations and the members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, common sense has prevailed. Until, as a consequence of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the shooting down of a Korean passenger aircraft in 1983, and the relentless build up of Soviet military strength, everything is about to change. In a panoramic novel, readers travel from centres of power to the front lines - a war is brewing and events are happening at every angle.Is the Cold War about to turn hot? Can NATO forces endure a mass strike by thousands of Soviet tanks? Can the West survive? Follow the series of gripping events that culminated in 'The Red Effect', in the firstinstalmentof Harvey Black'sThe Cold War trilogy.

    A catastrophic event has crippled the alien's technology and they must interact with the species they were sent to observe. Europe goes dark. A decade of silence. Western countries fear war is on the horizon. Mandatory service and war readiness are the reality. When war finally comes, It’s on US soil. Jimmy Crandall and his fellow infantrymen are thrust into combat against the Korth supported Red Army. It’s a brutal and bloody clash of superpowers. MaryAnn Larkin joined the Army Air Corps, her superior reflexes are a perfect fit for the nation’s top fighter…the P51 Mustang, but she'll be battling alien enhanced Russian fighters and will need all her skill to survive. Navies, Armies and Air Forces clash and North America becomes a battleground. With the humans effectively at each other’s throats, the Korth continue their secret mission, which, if successful will mean the end of Earth as we know it. Get book one: Strike Force Red and prepare to stay up late.

    . . within seconds, flaming gasoline was pouring out, burning white and orange . . .” Told by the men who fought in the tanks, with all the searing aggression and violence that they experienced . . . the shocking first hand stories of the SS panzer troops themselves. These are crews of the Panzer IV, the Stug, the Panther, Jagdtiger, Tiger and King Tiger . . . hear the authentic voices of the gunners, commanders and drivers who fought in some of the deadliest battles in human history. In 1962, a German researcher conducted a series of interviews with former members of the Waffen SS Panzer troops who had fought in World War 2. He intended to probe their motivations and psychology, but found them unwilling to discuss these matters in depth. The SS veterans were willing, however, to describe their combat experiences, and gave astonishing accounts of tank battles in Operation Barbarossa, Normandy, Italy, the Russian Front, the massive conflict at Kursk, the Ardennes and during the final desperate battles against the Soviets within the Reich and for Berlin itself. These were men whose memories of the battles were still vivid, and were ready to relate the physical details of combat – the explosive sights, sounds, and sensations of tank fighting, the weapons and tactics that they used, their triumphs and humiliations. Told in ice-cold, clinical detail, with phenomenal drama and sense of crisis, these first-hand accounts stand out today as one of the most remarkable testimonies to the experience of tank warfare in WW2. They will fascinate anyone interested in tank combat, the Waffen SS and the use of armor from 1941 to 1945. This is Book 2 in the series, covering tank battles in: Normandy (Panther) The Ardennes (Jagdtiger) Prussia (Stug IV) Berlin (King Tiger and Wirbelwind) Book 1 in the series ('SS Panzer SS Pride - Barbarossa to Italy') covers battles in: Operation Barbarossa (Panzer IV) Onslaught in the East (Stug III) Kursk (Tiger I) Italy (Elefant and Panther) The full set of interviews from Books 1 and 2 is available in the book 'SS Panzer SS Voices.' This edition also has a preview of the latest publication of eyewitness panzer battles from Sprech Media, 'Hitler's Children - Spitting Fire.'

    Meanwhile, one man also has to live his life.A thought provoking and engrossing novel by Douglas Jones set in Eric Flint's 1632 Universe.An earlier version of this story was serialized in the Grantville Gazette.

    We are happy to offer this unitized edition.