Final Impact

Final Impact

John Birmingham

SUMMARY:
The Sequence of event of the Second World War was altered forever at the very moment the task force of ultra-modern stealth warships emerged from a rip in the time-space continuum. Hurled back from 2021 to 1942 after a quantum experiment goes horribly wrong, no one could have predicted the impact of this futuristic fighting force. Chaos ensues...In the third and final gripping instalment of the Axis of Time trilogy, the revised history of the War is more alarming than ever. Hitler and the Japanese race towards atomic capability; Stalin plots to tear down the future and rebuild it in his own image; and the allies begin their Great Crusade, with the weapons of know-how of the twenty-first century.The final battle of the war is about to begin...
Weapons of Choice

Weapons of Choice

John Birmingham

From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Australian author Birmingham's stellar debut novel, a United Nations battle group, clustered around the U.S.S. Hillary Clinton (named after "the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States"), is tasked in the year 2021 with stopping ethnic cleansing by an Islamist regime in Indonesia. When an experiment goes horribly wrong on a special ship doing research on wormholes, most of the battle group is deposited in the middle of the U.S. fleet on its way to Midway in 1942. The WWII carriers and supporting vessels attack a Japanese Self-Defense Force ship, triggering devastating computer-operated defensive fire from the 21st-century fleet. While the action sequences are outstanding, this book really shines in depicting the cultural shock that both navies experience. The Clinton group reflects a multicultural society that finds the racist and sexist attitudes of 1942 America almost as repugnant as those of the Axis powers, while the mere thought of non-whites and women not just serving in uniform but holding command drives many Allied officers and civilian officials apoplectic. The author also subtly shows the ways in which 20-plus years of the War on Terrorism have changed our attitudes. Unlike many alternate histories, the novel avoids the wish-fulfillment aspect inherent in the genre. This is the first of what should be a hugely (and deservedly) successful series.
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Review
"This is an excellent combination of near future military SF and alternate history, and a riveting story to boot."–Eric Flint, author of _1632 and 1634: The Galileo Affair
_"This book has everying: time travel, the British royalty, things that go boom, and unrelenting action. Read the opening at your own risk: you won't be doing anything else until you finish it."–Sean WILLIAMS, co-author of Heirs of Earth and Star Wars: Force Heretic: Reunion