Stephen M. Ray Jr. has narrated 8 audiobooks on Listento.it by 1 author. The most-rated is Red Dawn.
The Pillars of Hercules
Summary
The Pillars of Hercules is the third book in the Timeline 10/27/62 series set in a world in which the Cuban Missile Crisis went bad, and the Swinging Sixties did not happen. The Ancient Greeks called the Straits of Gibraltar the "Pillars of Hercules". The Rock of Gibraltar was the northern pillar; Monte Hacho in Ceuta, its probable southern analogue. To the ancients, the "Pillars of Hercules" delineated the western end of the known Mediterranean world. Beyond lay the limitless, impassable vastness of the Atlantic wherein lay monsters.... It is December, 1963, and the tensions that have been simmering since the October war came to a boil in an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion so poisonous that nobody in England or Washington, DC, realize that in the background, there is a third, malignant force at work. When the CIA is implicated in the attempted assassination of the British royal family, a United States aircraft subsequently attacks two British destroyers off the coast of northern Spain and takes part in a devastating surprise raid on the Maltese Archipelago. The belligerence of General Franco's government over Gibraltar and the sabre-rattling of the new Fascist government of Italy suddenly assume the proportions of a Machiavellian-American plot to drive the final nail into the coffin of the British Empire. In England, the hard-pressed United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration is struggling to feed and house its survivors, and every time it tries to talk to the Kennedy administration, nobody is available to take its call.
©2015 James P. Coldham and JAMES PHILIP (P)2018 James P. Coldham and JAMES PHILIP
The House on Haight Street
Summary
The House on Haight Street is a novella featuring Miranda Sullivan and Joe Calleja, culled from material originally included in the body of Warsaw Concerto (Book 13 of the Timeline 10/27/62 series). It did not make the "final cut" for two reasons: Firstly, I thought it was one sub-strand too many and therefore interrupted the flow of the rest of the narrative; and secondly, the book was getting very long even by my standards! Normally, such "exclusions" would never see the light of day. Having lopped a good 30- to 40,000 words out of Warsaw Concerto, I discovered that within the supposedly extraneous or distracting material I had removed, there was the bones of a story capable of standing on its own feet. Moreover, it was a story that serendipitously reintroduced two characters who will be important players in forthcoming instalments of the Timeline 10/27/62 saga, brought their stories up to date, and passed the test of adding another layer of context to the events playing out in both Warsaw Concerto (Book 13) and Eight Miles High (Book 14). I hope that you, my fans will allow me this indulgence. Mostly, I just hope you enjoy the novella. In either event, I am sure you will let me know what you think of The House on Haight Street! It is the first of a series of Timeline 10/27/62 stories that will appear in between the release of forthcoming Main Series books.
©2019 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip (P)2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip
The Burning Time
Summary
The Burning Time is book five of the alternative history series Timeline 10/27/62. It is February 1964 in a world in which the "swinging '60s" never happened. The atomic mushroom clouds over the Mediterranean have dispersed, and now, as the world teeters on the brink of a new thermonuclear war, it is dawning on the "victors" that their "victory", far from being absolute, was tragically pyrrhic. In the uneasy half-peace, the United States stirs from its post-Cuban Missiles War slumber. But will it awaken soon enough to overcome its own divisions to confront the new and terrible forces unleashed by Red Dawn's first paroxysm of violence? Now is a time for betrayal. Now is judgement day, when all the mistakes of the months since the October War will come back to haunt the "victors".
©2015, 2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip (P)2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip
The Lost Fleet
Summary
In the aftermath of the October War, Armageddon rumbled on. The cataclysm had struck, the missiles and the bombers had wrought global havoc, and the survivors, everywhere, were picking up the pieces as they dazedly looked at the brave, new post-nuclear war world around them. The war had been fought, won, and lost in less than a day, but regionally and locally, the fighting and the settling of scores went on for years. The US Seventh Fleet wiped out what remained of the Red Navy in the North Western Pacific in the days after the war. Sporadic fighting went on in Germany for many months, civil wars broke out like brush fires in a dozen lands, and even in the heartlands of the "victors", civil order disintegrated for days, weeks, or months thereafter in some places. In the aftermath of the October War, Armageddon rumbled on. The war had been fought, won, and lost in less than a day, but regionally and locally, the fighting and the settling of scores went on for years. It was hardly surprising that the fate of three ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy should be, if not forgotten, then allowed to slip under the ‘radar’ of the world. However, no history of the October War is complete without at least a footnote about that "lost fleet". This, insofar as anybody can know at this remove, is its story. However, no history of the October War is complete without at least a footnote about that "lost fleet". This, insofar as anybody can know at this remove, is its story.
©2020 J.P. Coldham (P)2020 J.P. Coldham
Puerto Argentino: A Timeline 10/27/62 Story
Summary
This is the second of a trilogy of Timeline 10/27/62 novellas about the invasion and the occupation of the Falkland Islands in 1964. Nearly four years have gone by since the Argentine seized by force majeure the Falkland Islands Dependencies from the United Kingdom. To the Argentine Republic the archipelago, Las Malvinas, and all the other British territories taken by force of arms – South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the British research stations in the Antarctic – is now a part of Argentina. The situation is so calm that the officers and men of the Argentine garrison of Las Malvinas, are bringing their families out to the islands as if the conquered territories are as safe as any mainland base. As time goes by the last vestiges of British administration are being systematically erased. Stanley, the capital of Las Malvinas is now Puerto Argentino, East Falkland is Isla Soledad and all bar a handful Kelpers (the name the former Falkland Islanders by which they referred to each other) have long been exiled. The atrocities of the invasion, the scars of the fighting in April 1964 have been built over, forgotten by the new masters of Las Malvinas; nobody thinks the British are ever coming back but that does not mean that the occupiers are not forever looking over their shoulders. Yet the colonists and their families still keep coming; even though the surge of national pride – almost national rebirth – which initially followed the re-taking of the Argentine’s "lost" territories in the ocean the Junta now calls the Mar del Argentina, has long since run its course. The first visit by the US Navy since April 1964 seems to offer some hope that the international community has put the "Malvinas" issue to bed. But is everything quite what it seems? Back in 1964, in a world still struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of the October War, the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands had been a faraway thing that had happened to a couple of thousand kelpers living on a few islands in the South Atlantic, 8,000 miles from England, about which the British people in their post-October War travails, knew little and cared less. Now, complacency in Buenos Aires and the threat of further budget cuts is beginning to question the ability of the Argentine forces of Las Malvinas to defend the conquests of 1964. The British have not returned, yet. But does that mean that they well never return?
©2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip (P)2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip
A Kelper's Tale
Summary
Kelps are seaweeds which proliferate in veritable forests around the shores of the Falkland Islands. To kelp, is to harvest the same from the sea, dry it, and burn it to produce a soda ash primarily consisting of sodium carbonate with high concentrations of iodine and alkali, traditionally used in soap and glass. For as long as anybody recollected, Falkland Islanders had proudly referred to themselves as kelpers. A Kelper’s Tale is the third in the trilogy of stories-novellas about the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Island dependencies in April 1964, and its aftermath. La Argentina and Puerto Argentino tell two histories, that of the invasion and the years of occupation, and ask questions about where truth really lies. A Kelper’s Tale is one young woman’s story, told in her own words; of a drably idyllic childhood at the ends of the earth, of invasion, exile, repatriation and a growing awareness that ultimately, the first and last casualty of war is truth. Over four years have passed since the bloody events of 1964. What will the new year of 1969 bring for the peoples of the United Kingdom, the Argentine Republic, the occupiers of the Falklands Archipelago and the once British administered dependencies in the South Atlantic? The Argentine believe the time of danger, that the likelihood of an attempt to reconquer Las Malvinas has passed but perhaps, the shape of the future is written between the lines of the story of one young woman?
Public Domain (P)2020 J.P. Coldham writing as James Philip
Cuba Libre
Summary
This was where it had started; and ought to have ended. Cuba... Initially, it was estimated that over 90 percent of the population of the main island - over six million men, women, and children - had died on the day of the war. In fact, although the western provinces of Cuba were devastated and the capital Havana utterly wrecked, some two million people had probably survived the US Air Force retaliatory strike, mainly because great care had been taken to avoid the US enclave at Guantanamo Bay, situated near its southeastern extremity from being inundated with radioactive fallout. Fatefully, in early 1963, the decision had been made - in great secrecy - to contract the problem of ensuring a second Castro-like regime could never again arise to the CIA and its exiled Cuban surrogates. Thereafter, distracted by other more pressing matters, the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations had tried their level best to forget all about "that goddamned island"! However, that was then, and much blood and treasure later, the still secret, dirty war for the eastern province of Oriente - known as Santiago de Cuba before 1905 - has sucked in 30,000 US infantrymen and marines to prop up Central Intelligence’s brigade of as many as 20,000 former mobsters, Batista-loyalists, and soldiers of fortune. It is 1969. The casualties are mounting, and the new man in the Oval Office, working through his in-tray has got to the file marked "Cuba: Options for Consideration". There is a great deal of unfinished business for the newly inaugurated 39th president of the United States, and "Cuba: Options for Consideration" file has briefly found its way to the top of his to-do list!
©2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip (P)2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip
Red Dawn
Summary
It is January 1964 in an alternative timeline in which the Swinging '60s never happened. A little over a year has passed since the Cuban Missile Crisis of late October 1962. Red Dawn, spawned as Josef Stalin's answer to America's atomic monopoly in the late 1940s, has fomented full-scale insurrection in Washington, DC, and almost sparked a war between the world's two remaining nuclear superpowers. But the real fury of Red Dawn - Krasnaya Zarya - is unspent, and time is running out. Now is a time for charismatic leaders to come forward....
©2015 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip (P)2019 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip