Books written in the TW2000 timeline

[James Langham]

I started thinking the other day about what books might be written about the Third World War - I came up with the following:

Famous literature of the war

Many novels have been written about the Third World War but the following are regarded as classics that have often been added to school reading lists or studied at universities. It is only a short sample of the works published, many more novels have been published but few have gained such status as these.

“In the Shadow of Death’s Cloud” Sean Goulding (US) – Anti-war novel of US soldiers in Europe by a draftee ex-serviceman of 1st Armoured first published in 2020. Deals with the fate of a platoon of Mech Infantry *through the war. This book is less studied than the others at a junior level but is often at least mentioned at university level as the author makes frequent allusions to classical and renaissance literature. Pre war he was a post-graduate student of literature in Boston and after the war has returned to the new university there as a professor.

-********* “Alpha through to Omega” Julio Ramirez (US) – a novel of US troops in Europe and the horrors they inflict during Operation Omega. It ends with the lead character turning in her rifle and wishing never to see it or use it again. This became a popular best-seller and forced the US to face up to what had occurred during the operation. It was first published in 2012 and has not been out of print since. It is often used as a school text. The author is believed to be writing a sequel entitled “The Return” about the character's life after the war haunted by her dreams.

-********* “Final Flight” Alison Holland (UK) – story of a B52 crew on a long mission to drop a nuclear weapon on an unknown target. As they head there mysterious voices on the radio turn out to be historical characters making the crew reflect on how history will see them and makes them confront their own natures. Voices include a young Adolph Hitler on the following of orders in the trenches, Trueman on the decision of using atomic weapons against the vast casualties expected in an invasion of Japan, a worker who died of radiation poisoning at Chernobyl after willingly staying exposed longer than was safe to stop more leaking and Robert Oppenheim on the possibility the atmosphere would have ignited in a chain reaction during the Manhatten Project. Written by the wife of a USAF pilot of a B52 who went missing on a raid over Poland in 1998.

-********* “ But it’s MY Turn!” Johan Schmidt (Hanover) – an illustrated children’s story of how two monsters can’t play together and eventually set fire to the board and break all the pieces. Ends with them ominously getting out a smaller game but with matches and fuel already to hand. Schmidt has gone on to become the mayor of Hannover and as a result the book has become popular with British families in the area who have brought the story back to the UK. It was one of the first books to deal with the war, especially for children when it was first published in 2006.

-********* “Private Zhukov’s War” The Unknown Soldier (really Boris Dosavich) (Soviet) – the war told in two parallel accounts. The first on the left page is a soldier’s diary. The second on the right page are the letters he writes to his mother, wife and unborn child. The novel ends with a letter addressed to all 3 from a friend telling how Piotr Zhukov dies in action followed by the soldier’s own diary carried on in Zhukov’s book giving the truth that Zhukov committed suicide. Popular in typescript format passed from friend to friend. Published in the West in 2033 to popular acclaim under the author’s real name. Many critics have praised it as the Third World War's answer to All Quiet on the Western Front from the First World War. Dosavich never lived to see the fame of his work spread, he died of lung cancer in 2011 caused from exposure to nuclear explosions during his service in the Red Army.


If anyone else can come up with a short synopsis I will see about integrating them into later versions.

[simonmark6]

How about this?
*****"Plains of dust" (Rebecca Mitchell)(Chicago): The story of a suburban family living on the outskirts of Chicago during and after the war. The first part deals with the family's flight from the nuclear blasts that destroyed Chicago and their plight in the freezing refugee camps that barely kept them alive. One by one members of the family are torn away from the group through conscription, cold and starvation. Eventually the heroine and two younger siblings join the trek from the drought-ravaged plains to a safe zone in Oregon. Mitchell was hailed as the Twenty-First century's Steinbeck, dealing with lives of little people in hugely adverse circumstances. Mitchell was a minor organizer in FEMA who eventually became a Senator for Oregon. The novel was first published in 2018.

[95th Rifleman]

"Rats at war" Colonel William Archer (UK) Published 2030

Taken from the war diaries and first hand accounts of the 7th Armoured Brigade. Colonel Archer writes a gripping and honest history of the third world war through the eyes of the soldiers who fought. the victories and defeats, the acts of cruelty and the acts of mercy, nothing is left out in this criticly acclaimed history.
Starting with the tension-filled months prior to hostilities and finishing with the aftermath of life after the treaty of Warsaw that finaly saw an end to histilities.
Colonel Archer makes an effort to reveal the grim reality and sense of abandonment felt by the troops in Eastern Europe during the "forgotten war" the period when foces of all nations where left to their own devices in the field as governments put themselves together.

"If you read one book about the British army during WW3, then you must read this one"
Daily Mail

"The personality of the men (and women) who served with the 7th Armoured Brigade comes to life in this collection of diaries and personal accounts.This is not a dry, boring work of fiction but a gripping and thought provoking testament to the realities of war."
International book review



Colonel Archer served as a lieutenant in the Queen's Dragoon Guards, he lives in Suffolk with his wife and three children.

[Rainbow Six]

"Clear The Way" the wartime memoirs of one of the British Army's most decorated soldiers, Belfast born Lieutenant General Sir John Irvine GCB, CBE, DSO, MC. Published in the UK by Pen and Sword in 2017.

A Major at the start of the War, Irvine took command of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rangers in the summer of 1997 and came to worldwide attention when a rousing eve of battle speech he gave to his men during the siege of Warsaw was filmed by a Sky News camera crew and broadcast on 24 hour news channels across the globe. Following the BAOR's return to the UK in 2001, he went on to command a Brigade during the liberation of Cornwall. He retired from the Army in 2011, having commanded a Division and, latterly, I British Corps.

Clear the Way takes the reader on a journey from the plains of central Germany to Cornwall via the BAOR's advance towards, and subsequent retreat from, Warsaw. Particularly recommended are the chapters describing the siege for Warsaw which bring the battle for the beleagured Polish Capital to life with an intensity that makes the reader feel as though he or she is in the thick of the fighting.

The title is an English translation of the motto of the Royal Irish Rangers, Faugh a Ballagh in Irish gaelic.

(No prizes for guessing who the author is based on...)

[atiff]

"RESET - tale of the new beginning" by James Archibald (Cambridge Press, 2012)

The historical account of the RESET papers, their travels across Poland, and the people who had a key part in their recovery. Archibald was able to interview four of the people whose hands touched the papers on their unlikely journey, and relates how the new beginning of human civilization got off the ground after destruction of WWIII.



"Our Lady" by Pawel Jankowski (Jagiellonian University Press, 2018*)

Thought lost during the early part of WWIII, "Our Lady", otherwise known as the Black Madonna, became the rallying point for the nationalists of Poland as they recovered their country in the aftermath of the war. Jankowski blends known facts with historical myth in his tale of the icon that catalyzed the recreation of the Polish state.
* published on the 10th anniversary of the formation of the Polish Fourth Republic.

[Legbreaker]

"So far from home" by Andrew Grant. Published 2013.
The story of the Australian 9th Infantry Brigade in Korea and their struggle to find a way home.
Caught in a war nobody expected, the 9th Brigade was almost exclusively made up of reservists and equipped with obsolete equipment replaced in most other units a decade or more before. With all other units preparing to fight the expected Indonesian invasion, they were deployed in June 1997 in response to the UN call for troops to bolster the South Korean defences. Initially tasked with rear area security, they soon found themselves pushed forward into the nuclear battlefield.
This is their story and how they fought through six years of hell and came home heroes.

[simonmark6]

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. A father and his son undertake an epic journey across America to the coast. They battle marauders and cannibals to reach the ocean where they find an enclave of survivors and begin to rebuild society.

When asked about his inspiration, McCarthy said, "I thought that nuclear war would be the end of everything. My vision of Armageddon was incredibly bleak, the real thing was more like a walk in the park than the death of my imaginings."

[Raellus]

Twilight Cruise -L.G. Milk, 2017

The incredible true story of a small group of NATO stragglers and Polish freedom fighters who fought their way down the Vistula river from Krakow to the Baltic Sea aboard an old Polish river tug in the fall of 2000.

[simonmark6]

Didn't Milk get shot in the head?

Maybe he had a ghost writer.

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

"Clear The Way" the wartime memoirs of one of the British Army's most decorated soldiers, Belfast born Lieutenant General Sir John Irvine GCB, CBE, DSO, MC. Published in the UK by Pen and Sword in 2017.

A Major at the start of the War, Irvine took command of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rangers in the summer of 1997 and came to worldwide attention when a rousing eve of battle speech he gave to his men during the siege of Warsaw was filmed by a Sky News camera crew and broadcast on 24 news channels across the globe. Following the BAOR's return to the UK in 2001, he went on to command a Brigade during the liberation of Cornwall. He retired from the Army in 2011, having commanded a Division and, latterly, I British Corps.

Clear the Way takes the reader on a journey from the plains of central Germany to Cornwall via the BAOR's advance towards, and subsequent retreat from, Warsaw. Particularly recommended are the chapters describing the siege for Warsaw which bring the battle for the beleagured Polish Capital to life with an intensity that makes the reader feel as though he or she is in the thick of the fighting.

The title is an English translation of the motto of the Royal Irish Rangers, Faugh a Ballagh in Irish gaelic.

(No prizes for guessing who the author is based on...)

Although the original was never filmed...

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by atiff

"RESET - tale of the new beginning" by James Archibald (Cambridge Press, 2012)

The historical account of the RESET papers, their travels across Poland, and the people who had a key part in their recovery. Archibald was able to interview four of the people whose hands touched the papers on their unlikely journey, and relates how the new beginning of human civilization got off the ground after destruction of WWIII.



"Our Lady" by Pawel Jankowski (Jagiellonian University Press, 2018*)

Thought lost during the early part of WWIII, "Our Lady", otherwise known as the Black Madonna, became the rallying point for the nationalists of Poland as they recovered their country in the aftermath of the war. Jankowski blends known facts with historical myth in his tale of the icon that catalyzed the recreation of the Polish state.
* published on the 10th anniversary of the formation of the Polish Fourth Republic.

Nice use of the background.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by James Langham

Although the original was never filmed...

LOL...artistic licence...

Mind you, I've just noticed a slight typo in my original post...you probably need to be shown on more than twenty four news channels to get worlwide fame...

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

LOL...artistic licence...

Mind you, I've just noticed a slight typo in my original post...you probably need to be shown on more than twenty four news channels to get worlwide fame...

Not necessarily in 1995 when the world was smaller.

I might actually incorporate bits into the main history too. Need to check where the unit is in the history.

Isn't the real life version in 22SAS at that point?

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by James Langham

Not necessarily in 1995 when the world was smaller.

I might actually incorporate bits into the main history too. Need to check where the unit is in the history.

Isn't the real life version in 22SAS at that point?

Have just flicked through the opening chapters of the real life version's book (Rules of Engagement). As you'd expect details of his time with the SAS are rightly vague. It's not 100% clear, but I think he may have been a Company Commander with 1 Royal Irish for a two year period which included part of 1997.

Pg 9-10, describing the Sierra Leone incident in summer 2000

I was now on my third Special Forces tour and had only been back with the Royal Irish for a two year tour as a Company Commander before being summoned back to Special Forces.

pg 27, describing taking over as CO

He had a brother in the mortar platoon who I knew well from when he first joined my Company in 1997.

As I said, not 100% clear, but those quotes suggest to me his spell as a Company Commander took in at least part of 1997. Would suggest the fictional counterpart takes over as CO sometime that summer, possibly following death of previous incumbent. Of course, in a T2 World, anything's possible.

In the canon history (v1) 1 Royal Irish Rangers was part of the 15th Armoured Brigade, 2nd Armoured Division (which didn't exist IRL) and 2 Royal Irish Rangers were part of the 1st Infantry Brigade, 5th Mechanised Division.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

Didn't Milk get shot in the head?

Maybe he had a ghost writer.

It's by his daughter, Lashonda.

[TiggerCCW UK]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

(No prizes for guessing who the author is based on...)

His dad and mine used to work together and he and my brother used to play together when they were nippers. If memory serves me right (I was very wee at the time) they lived facing one of the TA barracks here in Belfast - wonder how much that influenced his future career?

[Legbreaker]

"Behind enemy lines" by Thor Halgeirsen (2014)
A journey into madness and back.

[weswood]

"I'm not supposed to be here" ; William Tell Sacket (2007)

Autobiography of a civilian photojournalist and a handfull of survivors from the U.S. Army's 5th Infantry Division and thier epic tale of being stranded behind enemy lines for over 6 months.

This book also chronicles thier return to the United States, the hardy group of warriors are intsrumental in the reformation of the Lone Star Republic.

Hundreds of color and black and white photographs.

[pmulcahy11b]

The Death and Rebirth of Hope: A platoon of survivors describes the confused disintegration of the 5th Infantry Division, and how they strike out across Europe to eventually make it back to the US. (2011; Author Bobbie Lee Stanson)

[Raellus]

Yes! A Bobby Lee reference. Well done, sir.

[Targan]

Gone Fission: The Untold Story of Operation Sunfire - by Dr Anthony Po, Colonel (retired), US Army Special Forces. [This from the hardback edition dustcover] The never-before-published, true account of how a NATO special operations taskforce was assembled and led by the author, then-Major Anthony Po, to insert, deploy and detonate the last known nuclear strike of the Twilight War, resulting in the utter destruction of the Warsaw Pact's Reserve Front Headquarters in Lublin, Poland in October of 2000. Failure was never an option. Gritty, personal and frank; a triumph of the human spirit.

[Closer to the truth] Published in the months leading up to the 2024 Presidential election as an ill-concealed propaganda piece designed to bolster Anthony Po's presidential bid. Key elements of the narrative were hotly disputed by several of the surviving members of SOG 1, Team Alpha following the book's publishing (including suggestions that evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity were omitted in the final draft).

[WallShadow]

"Making the Rubble Bounce: the Dogfight for Warsaw's Bones"--Kannave and Danko, 2028, Baldwin Press, Harrisburg. Chronicles the city's fiery death, its painfully slow rebirth, and the unending assaults on the pioneers who literally scraped a new life for the city out of the "prairie of ruins". Contains the results of piecing together thousands of hours of interviews, fragmentary military records, and cullings of EMP-damaged recordings. Includes the testimony of participants in the "Black Legion" war crimes trials and the only existing photographs of "Baron" Czarny's execution.

"A rivetting read, filled with the struggles for survival and the hard-tested, but undying faith of the urban homesteaders. Absolutely an essential for our future generations to grasp the totality of war's devastation and the resilience of the human spirit."--Panch Maurie, CSN News.

[atiff]

Apologies to our French friends in advance.... just smile as you read it, I only wrote it about you because the wording fits

---------------------------

And for something completely different... The underground hit of 2009, on the 50th anniversary of the song that inspired it... The musical description of how France rose as the new superpower after the Twilight War.

For foreign readers:
'nads = gonads, bollocks, family jewels, etc.
MAD = mutually-assured destruction


World going down in atomic suns
We fought the war but the French won
We fought the war but the French won
We needed glory, now we've got none
We fought the war but the French won
We fought the war but the French won

We'd creamed the Commies, kicked 'em in the 'nads
We had them on the run
They nuked us back, now we feel so bad
We fought the war but the French won
We fought the war but the French won

In the year 2000, tried an end-run
We fought the war but the French won
We fought the war but the French won
Cut off in Poland, we were on the run
We fought the war but the French won
We fought the war but the French won

The French took over and I feel so sad
I guess our time is done
We fought real hard but we lost to MAD
We fought the war but the French won
We fought the war but the French won

We fought the war but the French won

[TiggerCCW UK]

"Across Europe with rod and shotgun" Alasdair Forston-Smythe RAF Ret.
The epic story of one mans escape and evasion across war torn Europe. Forston-Smythe was a Tornado pilot shot down on a raid on Gdansk. Over the next three years he successfully journeyed across Europe to friendly forces. Widely applauded for its realistic depiction of the difficulties of surviving on your own wits. New expanded edition including details of his time in the Danish militia.

"Barbed wire love" Henry Cluney
A true story of love across the divide in civil war Belfast. Now held up as a positive light for the future, this book was originally serialised in an underground news sheet produced by the Peace People during the darkest days of Ulsters history. Although clearly fictional in some areas the author insists that the lead characters are real people who still live in Belfast.

[Raellus]

McCarthy's Mad Dogs and the making of the Free City of Gdansk- The stunning true story of a small band of NATO stragglers (and other assorted misfits) and their pivotal role in the liberation and political reinvention of the historic Baltic port city of Gdansk.

[Legbreaker]

"Assassinations and war crimes," published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation organisation in 2009.
A graphic and damning chronicle of atrocities committed by NATO soldiers behind Soviet lines in the latter half of 2000. Written from accounts of witnesses and survivors of such events as the razing of Tarnobrzeg, massacre of Zwolen, assault on Otwock, ambush of Wislinka, and many more terrible incidents inside the city of Gdansk during the Polish governments August 2000 attempt to bring humanitarian aid and support to it's citizens suffering under the iron rule of the so called "International Brigade".

[James Langham]

Updated version. I've included some of the ideas people have kindly submitted. Some I haven't used but these are often as good. My main reason for non-inclusion was it not quite meshing with my campaign (Rainbow, I have something else in mind for your author...).

[Raellus]

A Beach Too Far: Task Force Inchon and the Siege of Elblag -Steve Hastings

The definitive history of the battle dubbed the "Chosin Resevoir of WWIII". During XI Corp's offensive in the summer of 2000, Task Force Inchon (a reinforced Marine battalion) was tasked with capturing the Elblag canal bridge over highway 21 in advance of the 8th Mechanized Infantry Division's raid into Soviet territory, and securing the rest of 2nd Marine Division's left flank, centered around Gdansk. What started out as a fairly routine operation turned into a bloody siege when TF Inchon was cut off by an unexpected Soviet counteroffensive. TF Inchon's epic struggle to hold out in the rubble of the city, and their eventual breakout and return to NATO lines is ably told here by renowned military historian, Steve Hastings.

[pmulcahy11b]

The Raid on Microsoft (James Farrin, 2007)

The story of the June 1997 attack (primarily with RPGs and small arms) on the Microsoft campus, in response to a worm planted by MS with the help of hackers in December 1996 that made much of the Soviet Air Defense Network ineffective for three weeks. The attack was undertaken by KGB agents who were given no hard targets, no real support, had only MS-made maps, and were all killed in the attack. A look at a classic bungled operation.

[simonmark6]

Not a book, but something for the Holidays.

Team New America: Trey Parker and Matt Stone
A satirical radio programme broadcast from Colorado in the early 2000s. The series featured the misadventures of a bunch of redneck New American Fascists as they tried to rid the US of the deadly trinity as their leader "Respect Ma Authority" Cartman referred to as "Kay,Dubbau and Ens". The show featured the running gag of one of the team being killed messily every episode. This was always Kenny, the point man.
The show achieved cult status when the New American authorities issued death warrants for the two writers and producers.
The last of the series took place just after a major defeat of the NA in real life and features General Cummings telling Cartman to "Suck on my salty chocolate balls" before emptying an M16 into him.
The show is often credited with helping to marginalise New America during the dark days when America was facing a three way civil war. Stone said "We never took ourselves seriously until Colonel White put a hit out on us. Then we knew we were making a difference. There's nothing like having a redneck firing at you out of a rusty pickup to say that your art's having an impact."

In 2015, the radio series was remade as an animated cartoon series that achieved cult status in its own right.