To outsiders, the former USSR is always been a place where everything is strangely different. All the more so in the Exclusion Zone around the ill-fated Chernobyl power plant, where after a secret experiment went wrong in 2006, the laws of physics are bent and mysterious phenomena manifest.In 2011, another Zone is apparently created after Al-Qaeda detonated nukes in Afghanistan. Ukrainian authorities send a research team to verify the claims. The scientists go missing and a search and rescue operation is launched.For Mikhailo Tarasov, officer in the armed forces who desperately try to contain the Exclusion Zone, this mutant-infested wilderness is his home turf. But when he sets out on his mission into the New Zone, he soon finds himself facing perils he has never encountered before. His mission becomes a struggle against evil permeating the wastelands, confronted with the shadows of the country's troubled history. Tarasov is aided by unlikely allies - outcasts, adventurers, renegade US Marines and a mysterious woman who appears to be the keeper of dark secrets. But beyond all the perils, the ultimate danger awaits: betrayal."Whatever power had created the Zone, it has outsmarted us and it has happened again. You will look at the New Zone with fresh eyes... like Strelok did here when everything began."Major Alexander Degtyarev, 2014STALKER: Southern Comfort, the highly acclaimed first English novel from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, is now available as a free to download e-book on Smashwords.

The sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort, the first English novelization from the acclaimed game series by GSC Game World.Life goes on in the Exclusion Zone around ill-fated Chernobyl - adventurers calling themselves Stalkers hunt for valuable artifacts, mutants hunt for Stalkers and the Zone still decides over the fate of souls living within its wild frontiers. Behind the scenes, the Ukrainian Secret Service is forcing a fallen hero to betray a friend. In the New Zone, the Exclusion Zone?s vast twin phenomenon and apparently created after nuclear warheads devastated Afghanistan in 2011, renegade US Marines calling themselves the Tribe patrol the mountain ranges, Stalkers try to establish themselves in ruins of Bagram Air Base and mutated predators migrate to the anomaly-infested plains. All these dangers can not dissuade those hardy souls who brave the New Zone. But whatever their motives, however great their courage, a new power is arising and its vicious plan threatens to destroy them all. Major Tarasov, a Spetsnaz commander turned renegade, knows the New Zone's darkest secrets. While in a land far away, he receives alarming messages from the Exclusion Zone. Is an old friend in danger? Does someone else know the secrets he discovered? Or could it be a trap set by his former masters to lure him back?

To outsiders, the former USSR is always been a place where everything is strangely different. All the more so in the Exclusion Zone around the ill-fated Chernobyl power plant, where after a secret experiment went wrong in 2006, the laws of physics are bent and mysterious phenomena manifest. In 2011, Al Qaeda detonates nuclear warheads in Kabul. In what was once the Afghan wilderness, apparently a New Zone is created. Three years later a scientific expedition tries to find out if the creation of the New Zone could be connected to the Chernobyl experiment. When the researchers disappear, a search and rescue operation is launched. For Major Mikhailo Tarasov, a veteran of the Exclusion Zone, this mission into post-apocalyptic Afghanistan is more than just another dangerous task: in the land where his father died, he must also confront the ghosts of the Soviet past. Major Tarasov and his Spetsnaz commandos soon find themselves at the mercy of a hostile environment worse than anything they had encountered before. But beyond all the perils of the New Zone, the most lethal danger awaits: betrayal.

Life goes on in the Exclusion Zone around ill-fated Chernobyl — adventurers calling themselves Stalkers hunt for valuable artifacts, mutants hunt for Stalkers and the Zone still decides over the fate of souls living within its wild frontiers. Behind the scenes, the Ukrainian Secret Service is forcing a fallen hero to betray a friend. In the New Zone, the Exclusion Zone’s vast twin phenomenon and apparently created after nuclear warheads devastated Afghanistan in 2011, renegade US Marines calling themselves the Tribe patrol the mountain ranges, Stalkers try to establish themselves in ruins of Bagram Air Base and mutated predators migrate to the anomaly-infested plains. All these dangers can not dissuade those hardy souls who brave the New Zone. But whatever their motives, however great their courage, a new power is arising and its vicious plan threatens to destroy them all. Major Tarasov, a Spetsnaz commander turned renegade, knows the New Zone’s darkest secrets. While in a land far away, he receives alarming messages from the Exclusion Zone. Is an old friend in danger? Does someone else know the secrets he discovered? Or could it be a trap set by his former masters to lure him back? The sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort , the first English novelization from the acclaimed game series by GSC Game World.