Alternative History Science Fiction (Axis of Time Trilogy)

I don't normally read action or military books, but I couldn't resist this one because of the great concept. I wanted to see how the author would develop this plot, after an entire fleet is displaced into the past by a bad science experiment. I could not put this book down! I loved the little tidbits of "history" throughout the book, and it was really interesting to see the author's view on how certain things turned out after our current history. The characters were very well-described and felt real. The military aspects seem legitimate to me, but I'm not knowledgeable about a lot of that. The plot was interesting, and the book was very well written. Highly recommend this!!

This is a great read - fast paced and very entertaining. The science seems feasable and the story is very engaging. Can't wait to read the next book.
This book was so good I bought the kindle and paper version

Interesting alternative universe view of the second world war, fast paced and difficult to put down. The perspective of Australian author Birmingham is also refreshing without the patriotic chest beating that can accompany American military stories.

If you are a fan of alternate history, particularly alternate war history,this is the book for you. The pace is excellent and the issues raised concerning the clash of past and future, in both military and cultural terms, is compelling. Aside from Turtledove's works this is probably the best alternate history book I have read in recent years.

The biggest problem I have is when science-fiction authors lapse from science fiction to fantasy. This book was written almost like a screenplay where cute phrases and name recognition and political correctness take the place of an actual story.
Last month (Dec 2012) I happened to read Wikipedia (not the best source of knowledge) about the retirement of CVN-65 the USS Enterprise. That led to reading about the next generation of CVN's (The Gerald Ford Class) and their weapons systems/fighters going forward for the next few decades. this was known in 2004 when the book came out. Obviously, this author needed to spend more time than I did researching the book. If you mess up on the little stuff then it becomes harder and harder to buy into the rest of the story.
Science fiction takes a crazy premise and usually requires the author to flesh out the details. Harry Turtledove's, "Guns of the South," did this effectively with good characterization and Birmingham must have read Turtledove because he names an officer after him.
While most people gave this a good review I think this book had the potential to become something more than Final Countdown 2. (By the way, Caidin's book (not movie tie in) fleshed out details the movie subtracted them, this book was more movie than book.)
This four book set might have made an interesting single book without the filler.

Having read John Birminghams Without Warning and After America,I am totally disallusioned on reading Weapons of Choice. Just couldn't connect with it, it seems so scrabbled and hard to follow each minute of each ship in of all times, 1942. I found this book impossible
to get involved in and finally abandoned it all together. Most likely will not complete the trilogy, after spending my hard earned bux to find all three. Alas....

Blacks and women in positions of authority. As one would expect, a book that speaks to the truth of these realities is anathema to hardcore conservatives. The rest of us easily accept reality and a book that paints its canvas with such a brush.

Great writing with exquisite detail. Reminiscent of Tom Clancy, S.M. Stirling, and Eric Flint.
Author seems quite knowledgeable and his characters have a lot of depth.

I'll be looking for his next novel.

What a relief to finish this unimaginative book. I was sorely disappointed after having read the reviews. My only wish is that the muslim extremist had succeeded in blowning up the ship at the end and this silly "trilogy" would die the quick death it deserves. The pacing was painfully slow, the characters were numerous and not one of them were developed into anything that would make one care whether they survived or not. I wish a black hole would swallow this whole book away where it belongs...

There are so many better books out there that to say this book is anything but lousy is a wonder. What do these people read who rate this book worthy of anything other than kindling? They must read worse books than this so that this looks good in comparison. Good grief.

Do yourself a favor and pass this by.

Birmingham goes out of his way to produce a gross, un-P.C. WWII cast of characters that attack all persons other than white males who have arrived from the 21st century. The caricatures are laughable.

Even worse, he takes 21st century women journalists and turns them into the lowest form of no-self-esteem sex maniacs.

From both groups the language is foul and unappealing. It adds nothing to the story. I waded through 75% of the book, first because I like time travel and second because I like to find new authors/series. I appreciate that it was free and I would have been willing to pay full price for the "next in series".

In this case I feel like I need to go take a shower.

Don't waste your time. Definitely don't waste your money (you can likely get this book from your local library, or thru Overdrive). The scope is too broad, filled with too noble characters from the near future thrust into a 1942 world filled with racist misogynists. The author did not think enough about containing the scope of his book to actually tell a good story, the battle scenes are not very good and the other scenes (generally the future folk gritting their teeth as the talk about having to deal with racist misogynists, or the 1942 "temps" gritting their teeth about having to deal with uppity non-whites, uppity women, uppity non-white women, and white men who don't understand how wrong this all is).
In addition, the story is set in 2022 - which is now so near that the existence in the book of weapons systems that were cancelled years ago grates in me. And the widespread use of technology (eg AI) that is nowhere near to development is similarly irritating. Also irritating, but in a different manner, is the portrayal of 2 women news correspondents as perfect, strong and independent women of the 21st century - I guess the authors time working for a psuedo-news organization really impressed him.
The final straw for me was when I realized with wasn't just a trilogy, but the author had decided to keep milking this new universe for more money with more books. I had a hard time taking just one, I may have pushed thru 2 more, but I won't even attempt to continue now that I see that there are even more books waiting in the wings.

There is a line beyond which readers will not pass, when it comes to believably. Mr. Birmingham--an ardently left-of center Australian writer--without so much as a trace of irony, expects that we will accept a fleet of near-future cultural postmodernists, with all their unlimited psychological/diversity baggage, meeting with a warm welcome with WWII-era westerners.

They even elect the fleet commander President of the United States in a sequel.

To say that this is a staggeringly idiotic premise is to vastly understate it. Given one glimpse of what is left of the 21st century West, WWII-era Americans, Brits and Australians would simply drop their weapons. An honest writer would have acknowledged that this needed to be reflected, and not simply gloss over it with a flimsy, dull and unreadable plot line.

An interesting premise, but overly burdened with cliche views of superiority of everything "modern". Weapon systems of the future compared to WWII era equipment are one thing. The supposed superiority of future social conventions extrapolated from today was tiresome and mostly irrelevant. The author wrote a book comparing extremes of behavior in 1945 with supposedly more "evolved" and enlightened future projections and came to some really odd conclusions. Why, for instance, would three future soldiers be able to hold off a bar full of GIs in a fistfight? Not a remotely plausible scene unless one conjectures some form of "Blackcollar" improvements, which the author did not.

Would have been much more interesting to see a Clancy-like treatment of advanced weaponry with its maintenance-intensive nature against WWII technology. I didn't find even this bit of the novel either accurate or believable.

Birmingham goes out of his way to produce a gross, un-P.C. WWII cast of characters that attack all persons other than white males who have arrived from the 21st century. The caricatures are laughable.

Even worse, he takes 21st century women journalists and turns them into the lowest form of no-self-esteem sex maniacs.

From both groups the language is foul and unappealing. It adds nothing to the story. I waded through 75% of the book, first because I like time travel and second because I like to find new authors/series. I appreciate that it was free and I would have been willing to pay full price for the "next in series".

In this case I feel like I need to go take a shower.

Don't waste your time. Definitely don't waste your money (you can likely get this book from your local library, or thru Overdrive). The scope is too broad, filled with too noble characters from the near future thrust into a 1942 world filled with racist misogynists. The author did not think enough about containing the scope of his book to actually tell a good story, the battle scenes are not very good and the other scenes (generally the future folk gritting their teeth as the talk about having to deal with racist misogynists, or the 1942 "temps" gritting their teeth about having to deal with uppity non-whites, uppity women, uppity non-white women, and white men who don't understand how wrong this all is).
In addition, the story is set in 2022 - which is now so near that the existence in the book of weapons systems that were cancelled years ago grates in me. And the widespread use of technology (eg AI) that is nowhere near to development is similarly irritating. Also irritating, but in a different manner, is the portrayal of 2 women news correspondents as perfect, strong and independent women of the 21st century - I guess the authors time working for a psuedo-news organization really impressed him.
The final straw for me was when I realized with wasn't just a trilogy, but the author had decided to keep milking this new universe for more money with more books. I had a hard time taking just one, I may have pushed thru 2 more, but I won't even attempt to continue now that I see that there are even more books waiting in the wings.

There is a line beyond which readers will not pass, when it comes to believably. Mr. Birmingham--an ardently left-of center Australian writer--without so much as a trace of irony, expects that we will accept a fleet of near-future cultural postmodernists, with all their unlimited psychological/diversity baggage, meeting with a warm welcome with WWII-era westerners.

They even elect the fleet commander President of the United States in a sequel.

To say that this is a staggeringly idiotic premise is to vastly understate it. Given one glimpse of what is left of the 21st century West, WWII-era Americans, Brits and Australians would simply drop their weapons. An honest writer would have acknowledged that this needed to be reflected, and not simply gloss over it with a flimsy, dull and unreadable plot line.

An interesting premise, but overly burdened with cliche views of superiority of everything "modern". Weapon systems of the future compared to WWII era equipment are one thing. The supposed superiority of future social conventions extrapolated from today was tiresome and mostly irrelevant. The author wrote a book comparing extremes of behavior in 1945 with supposedly more "evolved" and enlightened future projections and came to some really odd conclusions. Why, for instance, would three future soldiers be able to hold off a bar full of GIs in a fistfight? Not a remotely plausible scene unless one conjectures some form of "Blackcollar" improvements, which the author did not.

Would have been much more interesting to see a Clancy-like treatment of advanced weaponry with its maintenance-intensive nature against WWII technology. I didn't find even this bit of the novel either accurate or believable.

This is my first John Birmingham book. I accidentally stumbled upon it, and once I read the first page, I cannot put it down.

Why? Is it that good? No. But because the background of the story is about my country Indonesia. The year is 2021, not so far from our current time. An American led (yeah, ho hum) multinational force is positioned near East Timor, just outside Indonesia's territory. They are preparing to overthrown the Jihad rebellion who just won the civil war, by retaking Jakarta. Yes, Indonesia has become the next Taliban, in 2021. Maybe it is too far fetch, but still I find the story interesting.

The Background: Indonesian legitimate government (President and loyal staff) is seeking refuge in Geneva. Indonesian Armed Force (TNI) had been divided, some are supporting the Jihad. And the last standing force, protecting the legitimate government, is-yeah-the Marines (Marinir TNI-AL). I believe that the author has done his homework. He used to work as researcher in US Defense Department, and he knows the role played by Marines during 1998 Jakarta riot. Marines was the only effective armed force at that time, the other: army, police, were just disappeared!

And the story goes, the multinational force, accompanied by two of Indonesian frigates, KRI Sutanto and KRI Nuku (yes, the author is using KRI as the term), which are refitted frigates bought from East Germany during Habibie's term as president (yes, he said that), which are a part of national armed force still loyal with the government.

Everything is ready, until something goes wrong. One ship, which is a research vessel is conducting a top secret science experiment, accidentally creates a worm hole which transports the entire fleet backward in time, to 1942, in the middle of Midway naval battle, creating huge confusion in the Allied fleet. The multinational force from the future, is destined to change the history of World War II. Will history repeats itself, or will it change forever?

Well, interesting, right? There are lots of characters, and some of them are historical figures, such as Roosevelt, MacArthur, Churchill, Hitler, Yamamoto, even Einstein. There are also a lot of tension because of the "clash of culture", between the future American, and the old American. The author is also quite accurate in depicting Indonesian culture. The naval officer is hoarding pirated movie and music in his ship, for long period on-board entertainment! He also makes reference to clove cigaret, and rice cake wrapped with banana leaf (or lontong)!

Those are the strong parts, now the weak parts. Birmingham seems undecided about whether he will make this novel a "lesser history", such as Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, as historical account of the foot soldier, or a "major history" such as The Second World War, as the account of generals. By mixing them, he is loosing the focus.

There are also too many point of view characters. By doing that, each characters only has small portion, therefore the character development is sacrificed. You cannot have a deep sympathy for the character, such as in Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest or A Game of Thrones.

The story also looses the steam in the middle, only to catch up near the end. Birmingham is genuine in creating the social tension caused by the "Transition". But he just failed to blend the tension in the story; it felt like a nuisance instead of strengthening the story line.

Final verdict: 3.5/5. Potential to be a 4 star, actually. Just not enough.

This is an excellent piece of alternate history. I'd go so far as to say that Birmingham is even better at this game than other big names like Turtledove and Flint. The description of Tom Clancy meets Harry Turtledove really is apt for this book. The setup is intriguing, the characters are interesting, the social consequences of 21st century American military units being dropped into 20th century America are explored in a thoughtful manner, and more than anything the books are just damn fun page turners!

I wasn't able to put this down when I first read it a decade ago and I've been eagerly awaiting a followup ever since. If you're a fan of alternate history then you owe it to yourself to pick this up and give it a read.

Having read through the entire trilogy (starting in the middle and working back and forth as I found the books) I was initially thrilled, but quickly grew to feel "meh".

A large part of the problem is the way the trilogy skips huge chunks of time; true, some of the information from that "missing time" is filled in later, but often as not it's vague and unrewarding, especially when it comes to prominent characters or events.

And the characters...this is where the book's appeal is lowest to me. The characters feel poorly fleshed out in many cases, or follow a single ideal--ie., all the woman are portrayed as hard-edged, ultra-feminist types without an ounce of warmth or compassion, for example, leading one to wonder how the author sees modern women. The men get a bit more variety--Brasch and Dan Black are good examples, at least. The problem is there seems little depth to anyone--they are little better than machines.

Also, the habit of introducing then forgetting or killing off characters after only a few pages or chapters, often as an afterthought (we don't often see their deaths, only hear about it after the fact) is a poor way to do things.

While the technology is interesting and seeing it applied against a more "primitive" time is fascinating it also feels very compartmentalized, as if each battle is a single separate story outside of the whole, with no real connection. Also much of it isn't explained well, so my inner geek who loves military hardware was left badly wanting.

Overall the trilogy is an interesting if not entirely entertaining read; it's not as dry as Harry Turtledove's works nor as talky (and the author--to his credit--avoids using big words when small ones will do) but it still feels lacking.

Quite detailed speculations about the impact of a 2021 fleet into 1942. Parts of the book also touch on aspects of the war often ignored in books of fiction or non-fiction written for a US audience. General MacArthur is shown in his Brisbane headquarters, and a brief narrative sidenote is made of his good relations with the Australian Prime Minister Curtin. Plus there are other scenes in Australia. Outside Australia nowadays, it is usually forgotten that several hundred thousand US soldiers and sailors were stationed in Australia during the war. The war was after all a global conflict, so standard histories of it barely have room to touch on this. Being Australian, I found it refreshing to see a story with credible Australian scenes and dialog. For the latter, an example is where a person from 2021 says she went to "uni", whereas an American would say "college". The author is an Aussie, so that is how we see these nuances.

The book is heralded as one of a trilogy. Good, because a later book may correct one thing that seems to have been omitted here. The technology from 2021 is too advanced from 1942 for the latter to easily make the weapons and tools used by the newcomers. But the computers can be used as computational engines, immensely exceeding the electromechanical dinosaurs of 1942. In fact, a German character points this out. But thus far in the plot, none of the Allied characters seems to have done this.

There is a very specific and obvious application. The Manhattan Project. By 1942, it had the world's greatest concentration of scientists. A big problem for them, and the engineers, was getting numerical results from equations. Richard Feynman, for example, organised a group of women as cellular automata, passing computed numbers back and forth. Each woman had a slide rule or a calculator.

To the Project, simply having a few computers, possibly with personnel from 2021 to operate them, would be a huge step forward. Also, the scientists of 1942 would certainly have been able to learn a programming language of the computers. Forget any fancy graphics. Just being able to code in a pure number crunching language like Fortran would have led them speed up the design of the weapons.

Of course, there are all sorts of other factors. Just knowing that a fission bomb is possible would have helped morale. (In our timeline, we had to have Trinity to be sure.) Plus, the 2021 fleet seems to have had nukes. So there are possibilities like using a few of these, disarmed, to guide the Project's design. Assuming that the nukes are not too advanced to make this infeasible.

Plus, simply from a storytelling vantage, if the author brings in the Project, it lets him have luminaries like Oppenheimer, Teller, Bethe and Feynman walk across the stage.

The entire "Axis of Time" series is good stuff and it starts here. An excellent read for those who like alternate history, sci-fi, military, or techno thriller spy fiction. The action is fast, the characters have depth, and the plots are surprising. As the series progresses there enough twists and turns to keep anyone surprised. Definitely worth the money for the reader, and I'm sure JB wants to keep "author" as his day job as much as I do.

Incredible is the detail how the author brings the story to life. The first pages are quiet and deadly, bringing into focus the near-future military might of the US and its allies navies like a mine floating just below the surface of the ocean. Then suddenly an explosion rips reality from the pages and you find yourself reading frantically to find if the characters can find their future in the past...

It's January 2021, and an international task force headed up by the USS Hillary Clinton (a George Bush class supercarrier), is off Indonesia, responding to a political crisis caused by the overthrow of the legitimate government and its replacement by the extremist Caliphate. Because of the haste with which the task force was thrown together, they've got with them a research ship that had to come along with its protective escort-no time and no spare forces available to send it off to a safer distance. While the rest of the task force waits and prepares for action, the scientists continue their experiments-which, contrary to the official story, do not involve sea floor mapping. Something goes horribly wrong, and major pieces of the task force find themselves someplace else, surrounded by unfamiliar ships behaving in a hostile manner. It's now 1942, and the unfamiliar ships turn out to be very familiar, once the naval history buffs recover enough to identify them. It's the US fleet steaming toward Midway. Unfortunately, the two fleets do major damage to each other before the 21st century officers realize they're all ostensibly friendlies, and then manage to convey that message convincingly to the 1942 Americans.

Conveying this message convincingly is somewhat hampered by the fact that they've got a Japanese ship with them, as well as some German officers. And of course life is further complicated by the racially mixed crew, and the fact that both women and blacks are well-represented among the officers. But with major damage to both fleets, including the fact that some of the 21st century task force apparently didn't make the trip successfully, they have to learn to work together if they're going to prevent a disaster at Midway.

It's extremely well-done, fast-paced and exciting. The characters, from Admiral Phillip Kolhammer on the Hillary Clinton, down to Able Seaman Slim Jim Davidson, on the USS Astoria, are mostly well-rounded and convincing (although some of the 1942 British officers do seem to have been cobbled together out of left-over cardboard. Birmingham, by the way, is Australian.) And mostly the history seems correct, up to the point where it starts changing, and if any of the military details are wrong, I'm not knowledgable enough to catch them. There is one minor error, though, demonstrating why it's dangerous for British and Australian writers to assume that America is as much like their homes as the language sometimes suggests: At one point, Birmingham has two of his 1940s American enlisted seamen, Moose Molloy and Slim Jim Davidson, talking about American "Girl Guides." While it's perfectly correct that the organization was originally founded as "Girl Guides of America" in 1912, they changed their name to "Girl Scouts of America" in 1913. Moose and Slim Jim would never have heard the name "Girl Guides," much less used it in casual conversation. This is such an obscure bit of information that googling "Girl Guides of America" takes you to the Wikipedia article that explains this in its first few sentences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Scouts_of_the_USA This does give me some concerning, wondering what other details he missed that may be glaring to someone else.

Nevertheless, it's a fun book and I recommend it.

A United Nations-sponsored force lies off the coast of Indonesia when a science ship brought along because its escort was drafted into the impromptu force runs a test--and accidentally cascades the entire fleet back into 1942--just off the island of Midway. The local US navy responds instantly, believing that the Japanese fleet had somehow come into range and a bloody battle ensues. Resolving the misunderstanding doesn't resolve more basic issues, though. By the standards of 2021, the local Americans are hopelessly racist, sexist, homophobic, and ignorant. By the standards of 1942, the Americans and others of the future are arrogant killers (with a peculiar fetish about rescuing prisoners).

Although the main fleet, lead by American Admiral Kolhammer, ends up allied with the local Americans, the Japanese are lucky enough to stumble onto two smaller and less well-equipped ships--ships that give them an idea of what they face in time for them to abort the Midway offensive. They, and their German allies, decide to learn from the future. Japan draws back from its Chinese offensive and the Germans seek to end their costly war with Russia. Given time, and the rate of weapons usage by the future fleet, they just might be able to use what they've learned from the future to develop technologies to allow them to win the war--at a minimum, they can avoid the disasters (from the Axis perspective) of Midway and Stalingrad.

Author John Birmingham does an excellent job describing the near-future weapons of 2021, and contrasting them to the strikingly dumb weaponry and defenses of 1942. The real strength of the story comes not from the techno-thriller aspect of future weapons, however, but from the clash of culture between the integrated (but desenitized to death, torture, and ignoring the rules of war) forces of the future and the bigoted (but in some senses more honorable) military of the past.

Birmingham set up the situation for a conflict between the down-time governments (the British, for example, wanted the British elements of the UN fleet returned to Atlantic waters and to down-time naval control), but didn't really develop it--perhaps this will follow in future volumes of the Axis of Time trilogy. I thought he missed a chance to let the future warriors to see World War II as not really involving them. With a largely black force, the legal racism within the U.S. could have at least let them question whether to support either side. Certainly they would have been strong enough to stand back--or perhaps even force a solution on the battling forces. I also thought Birmingham missed a chance to look into the mixed emotions with which the Japanese contingent in the UN force might have been faced.

WEAPONS OF CHOICE made compelling reading--and set the stage for more stories set in this world. There were some loose ends, but I'm looking forward to them being resolved as the trilogy plays itself out. I especially like the fact that the Japanese and Germans have their own chance at the technology. With Germany's lead in rocket science, and American resentment of the women and minorities represented in the future UN force, it'll be interesting to see how the battle for technological supremacy unfolds.

Excellent book, with a ton of characters. Personally, I'm not into this kind of stuff so it will be my last in this series. If I was to rate it on what I like to read I'd give it 2 stars but because I thought it was well written and the plot a bit novel, though way out there, I gave it an honest 4 stars!

This book kicks off an exciting series of three books in which a force from the 21st century is accidentally sent back in time to 1942 and throws the history World War two onto a completely different course.

I found the first two episodes in this trilogy so fascinating that when I learned that the final instalment had been published in Australia several months before the US and UK releases I could not wait, but had to order this one from Oz. None of the books in the series disappointed me.

The full "Axis of Time" trilogy is

Weapons of Choice
Designated Targets
Final Impact

In this first book, "Weapons of Choice" a multinational carrier battle fleet from the 21st century is accidentally sent back in time to 1942 when a scientific experiment goes wrong. They arrive in the middle of the US fleet which would have been about to win the battle of Midway, which immediately causes some serious difficulties.

A different book might have given a military unit sent back to World War II a dilemma; should they intervene on the allied side, or try to avoid changing the timeline in the hope of getting back through the wormhole without changing the past?

Birmingham never gives his characters that option, as their arrival itself changes events beyond any hope of putting the timeline back in place: his 21st century characters have to make the best of the world they now find themselves in.

What happens at Midway is bad enough, although the the arrival on the Western side of a 21sr century carrier battle group is more than enough compensation. But a second problem is that, while the great majority of the multinational force is thrown back as a unit and arrive together, one or two ships turn up in other parts of the world and are captured by bad guys - which for this purpose includes the Soviet Union as well as the Imperial Japanese and Nazis. Consequently both some modern technology and the knowledge of what would have happened come into the hands of all major powers in the war. Once they have overcome their disbelief, Nazis, Soviets and Imperial Japanese alike resolve not to repeat the mistakes which in our timeline consigned them to the dustbin of history.

The men and women from the 21st Century face a continuing struggle both to adapt to the very difficult world they find themselves in, and to persuade the "temps" (short for contemporary) from their own side to accept such things as an African-American U.S. Marine colonel, and a Royal Navy Commander who is a half-asian woman. I would like to think that my parents and grandparents' generations would have treated members of the 21st century forces better than they are treated in this book: however, no doubt that Mr Birmingham is right that some people would have treated them well and others very badly. The captain and crew of a Japanese ship in the multinational task force have a particularly difficult time.

Mr Birmingham takes the view that they, and other people in an anomalous position such as a 21st century Russian special forces officer, would regard the current rulers of their home countries as tyrants and put loyalty to their 21st century comrades before loyalty to country. However, the "temps" have great difficulty trusting Japanese and this is perhaps the worst of the many difficult problems with the multinational force have in getting on with their new allies.

The action scenes in the book are very well done and make it almost impossible to put down; there is also some excellent use of humour. One of the members of the multinational force from the 21st Century is Prince Harry, who has become a Colonel in the S.A.S; throughout the trilogy there are some very amusing lines and situations involving him.

None of the books in this trilogy are suitable for those of a squeamish disposition. Faced with Axis and Soviet powers who have become even more cruel and ruthless in their desperation to avoid defeat, the allies have to be almost equally brutal to defeat them. I can't remember reading a story in which the "good" guys kill so many millions of innocent people since E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. (Much more so even than in the real WW2, which is saying something.) Birmingham rarely goes for the easy answer and this is a series in which horrible things often happen to good people.

Nevertheless, if you are into alternative history or war stories, and provided you are not squeamish, you will very probably enjoy the "Axis of Time" trilogy.

While it has a good premise and passable technology and writing, this book ends up being a complete disappointment. We jump into the action before we can even recognize any of the characters by name, much less care about them, and the action is a jumbled mess: too convenient in some respects, too confusing in others, too quick in some parts, and too tedious in others--and no, this does not just represent the fog of battle. All of this might be okay except that the time-travel is handled quite badly and inconsistently. That's not to say that there's not a pseudo-science explanation for it, but the jibberish has nothing to say about why most of the modern fleet appears one place (moved in space and time, but not in plane (i.e., the ships are still on the surface of the water, just conveniently atop another fleet, which would be like hitting an orbit for a stable planet on a random hyperspace jump)), but the rest are not. Worse yet, the secrecy of the time travel is handled terribly inconsistently and, at times, unbelievably and atrociously for a country at war. For instance, military messages about the event are sent by courier to prevent Japan from finding out, but the bars and brothels of Oahu are ordered to take modern money from the sailors from the future who are on leave. Are there no Japanese spies in Hawaii just after Pearl Harbor? The author likes to contrast the political and moral attitudes of his two-dimensional characters from different times, but has obviously given no serious thought to time travel or its actual reprecussions. Moreover, this is nowhere close to a complete novel, but is instead a prelude with no resolution leading to an undisclosed next book, which is not so much a sequel but an apparent continuation of the muddled plot of the first. Incomplete books which are part of a hidden series always have a full star taken away from any review I do and guarantee that I will never read the rest of the series or anything else by the misleading author. Don't bother and don't expect much if you do.

While Weapons of Choice is marketed as Alternate History,I think that term is misleading; to me Alternate History is a story built around something that plausibly might have happened, such as: What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo? or what if the plot to kill Hitler in July of 1944 had succeeded? or maybe what if Nixon had not been forced to resign? All these things might have happened; a multinational force from the year 2021 could not travel back to the year 1942 because of a worm hole experiment gone wrong. Therefore the events of Weapons of Choice are not an alternative under any circumstance, I'd prefer to think of it as science fantasy.
And on that point, author John Birmingham does a very good job of making the impossible seem viable, a necessity in pulling off any good fantasy. He also has a good sense of the action scene and an almost Tom Clancy like ability to describe modern weapons and systems. He also puts in a few clever in jokes concerning other Alternate History series.
Much has been made of the clash of cultures depicted when the modern multiracial military force interacts with the world of 1942; Birmingham has been criticized for making all of the 20th Century characters excessively racist and sexist, and rightly so. I was raised by people of the Greatest Generation, in the South no less, and can testify that such attitudes as expressed in this book were not universal. I think the author was trying to milk the dramatic potential for conflict between two vastly different Americas for all it was worth, it's just that he lays it on way too thick at times. All of the modern characters are often too good to be true, as if racism were completely eradicated by 2021. And a ship's captain who's black and a lesbian? Again, laying it on a bit thick. And the female reporter from the 21st Century is just too over the top.
There is one other problem, and it's the central one to all historical fiction: the real historical personages always make the fictional characters seem as flat as wallpaper when they interact, this is because no made up character could ever be as compelling as Adolf Hitler. But I commend writer Birmingham for doing his homework and giving us quite accurate portraits of FDR, Admiral Yamamoto, Einstein and Douglas MacArthur.
If anyone wants to read a great historical account of the battle of Midway, I would suggest searching out The Winds of War and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk. It does true justice to the brave men of 1942.
All in all, Weapons of Choice is a good read despite its flaws, and if you liked other books in this genre, you'll enjoy this one as well. It is the first in a series, so don't expect everything to be wrapped up by the last chapter.

After seeing this novel at my local book store completely by accident, I picked it up and like a good number of people drawn to this book, I couldn't help but notice the incredible similarities (some would say outright copy) of the early '80's movie, 'Final Countdown' with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. In that tale, the USS Nimitz, on duty off the coast of Hawaii, encounters a mysterious weather pattern which follows and eventually envelops the carrier and when they emerge, they find themselves captive in the same world, but the date is December 6th 1941 -- the day BEFORE the sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor by the Naval & Air Forces of Japan. Coincidence? It would seem ridiculous to say this story wasn't at least partially influenced by that movie.

With that aside, the story begins rather fast and the journey from the year 2021 back to 1942 doesn't take long at all...however, as another reviewer also mentioned, the author seems to take quite a bit of unnecessary time setting the stage for the Multi-National Forces as they are unexpectedly and instantly transported smack in the middle of the American Task Force on the way to Midway to battle with the Japanese Navy. The resulting shock to both sides and the unfortunate battle that takes place was well done...but again, after so many pages I couldn't help but wonder when it would end. It seemed to last forEVER. MUCH too long. Yes, it was filled with great military descriptions and great battles, but it just went on for way too many chapters. Had the editors, or even the author chopped this down to a more appropriate length, this first novel by John Birmingham would have rated at LEAST 4 stars. Well written and quite entertaining (for the most part) I found it an easy read overall and found myself rather curious as to where the story would lead to next.

One more thing: Like a few other reviews I have read here, I couldn't help but feel as though this entire story most likely could have been done in one single, large volume rather than over the course of a multi-novel arc. I understand the marketing value of such a plan, however unfortunately as it so often does, it ends up diluting the story so much in order to s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out that the entire series suffers needlessly. Maybe it could have been done in two books, but any more than that and well, everybody suffers -- especially the readers. I DO hold out high hopes that I am proven wrong in this matter and the author totally redeems himself with the second novel, 'Designated Targets'...I AM planning on buying and reading it, but until I am proven wrong, and somehow I believe deep down I won't, I'll stick with my initial beliefs. All in all I would have to say I enjoyed the book for the most part, and do look forward to picking up the next installment. Time will tell, however whether or not it will meet, exceed or fall flat compared with this one.

In 2021, a 12,000 United Nations multinational military force gathers in the Pacific to end the ethnic cleansing of Chinese and Christians by the brutal Islamic Fundamentalist regime in Indonesia. However, an experiment goes awry aboard one of the ships, the Joint Research Vessel Nagoya; much of the joint task force is sent through a wormhole to 1942. Most of the vessels end up in the middle of the American fleet heading to battle off Midway Island; however some fall into the hands of the Japanese.

The two allied navies struggle to interrelate as the mid twentieth century one is 100 percent white male while the twenty-first century group is diverse and multiracial with a high percent of females on board. When the future force fire power comes into being along with their knowledge of the war outcome, the American navy feels confident until the reality that the crew of the USS Hilary Clinton and others has changed the future. The Japanese now sees the technological means of winning the war with the vessels they have captured.

This is an exciting alternate history tale with terrific battles that military science fiction readers will appreciate. The individual cast members are overshadowed by the varying collective attitudes of the future and "present" militaries. The 1940s navy is racist and sexist while the 2021 navy has women and minority in leadership positions. Finally how the futurists see terrorism after two decades since 9/11 is subtly superb with the 1940s crowd unable to envision Twin Towers let alone jets destroying them. John Birmingham opens his Axis of Time Trilogy with a fabulous comparative analysis of then vs. an extrapolated conversion of a future now.

Harriet Klausner

In WEAPONS OF CHOICE, John Birmingham describes an alternate history America of the type that brings to mind films like THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT or any novel by Harry Turtledove. In 2021, a multinational fleet is sent to Indonasia to quell an ethinc cleansing, the roots of which began in our timeline. On one of these warships, scientists have built a device that reconstructs the temperature one nanosecond after the Big Bang. Such colossal heat punches a hole between their time and 1942, sucking the entire fleet and placing it smack dab in the midst of the Battle of Midway. Such a concept of time travel by a powerful military group is inherently interesting not only for the inevitable paradoxes that altered history may cause in future history texts, but also for the correspondingly inevitable clashes between the racist mindsets of both Axis and Allied mentalities and the more utopian and advanced non-racist non-sexist attitudes of the Western world circa 2021.

Part of the charm of this novel lies in the peeling away of 1942 contemporary attitudes not only by the more enlightened personnel from the future but also by the racist and sexist characters from both the Axis and Allied forces. In the former case, the transplanted future fighters have an intense moral qualm: do they resist the lawful orders of President Roosevelt to replace the female and minority senior combat officers with white males or do they bow to the inevitability of recognizing that such officers can not exist for another eighty years? In the latter case, both American and Fascist warleaders agree that the need to remove such personnel from positions of authority is more important than what these officers can accomplish with their wonder weapons from the future. As I read through WEAPONS OF CHOICE, I could sense that this book is a novelized polemic. Its purpose was not to titillate the reader with the the need to rewrite future history texts, but rather the author wants to show that as time passes there is a concommitant advance in both weapons technology and people technology. The world can more easily accept the wonders of atomizing a far distant enemy by merely pushing a few buttoms than the far more difficult task of accepting the belief that all men (and women) are created equal, whether in a combat or civilian context. In WEAPONS OF CHOICE, John Birmingham presents the first of his Axis of Time trilogy that is sure to raise the cackles of manly men who have a mindset fixed in the mold of 1942 or 2005.

Well written comprised with good pacing together with well rounded characterization. The plot line is very intriguing --- what if 21st technology just showed up one day in 1942 during WWII? The first part of the novel was a bit tedious, especially when the MNF suddenly and violently meets the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Perhaps, that part could have been shortened but that is my only complaint. I am currently reading the sequel and it is proving to be just as entertaining as this novel.

Weapons of Choice is a fascinating book that flows well with an adequate plot. Characters are over the top which proved useful in contrasting 'uptimers' from the 1940s characters. I had a problem towards the end of the book with the 'uptimers' target for their all out attack. I would think that battling terrorist and engaging in a battle against terrorist they would emphasize the philosophy of Kill the Head and the Body Dies.

I didn't have as much of a problem with the soldiers and marines being the paragons of good. In a volunteer and professional military, the overall standard of personnel will be much higher then the general draft of the 40s.

Pro- Exciting combat scenes, contrast of how alien the future can be, drives the point home how much technology and ideology has changed the last 50 years

Con- Unrealistic military choice of target, characters were slightly over the top,

Another reviewer complained that "Every one of the 1942 era individuals in the book is a borderline fascist, homophobe, bigot." Well not _all_ are, but most. Yet this was reality in the 1940s military, when blacks were not allowed in combat units, filipinos were only mess attendants, and woman were drivers and typists. Homosexuals were at best shunned. The real issue in the story is that the modern contingent is a bit too smoothly integrated.

When I first saw the back cover blurb, I thought it was going to be a ripoff of "The Final Countdown," but Birmingham takes quite a different path. The issue of merging a 21st century naval battle group with a navy that is almost at 19th century technology levels is one he starts to approach, but actually puts off for the sequel. By which time the newcomers will have expended most of their ammunition and other consumables. There is a twist at the end when Yamamoto makes a stunning, and brilliant strategic move.

P.S. The edition I read (not the one listed here) could have used better editing. Names and ranks are sometimes out of sync with who is in the room, which is annoying and confusing.

The new John Birmingham novel Weapons of Choice is a book most of us might at first shy away from. It is about a US-led naval task force based around the aircraft carrier USS Hilary Clinton ("America's most uncompromising wartime president") been sent back by accident from the year 2021 to 1942. There it proceeds to kick Imperial Japanese butt. The military hardware, fireworks and explosions are all the stuff from the fantasies of teenage boys who haven't discovered girls yet.

The book could be read on this techno-masturbatory level, but it wasn't written by some Neocon American armchair military geek. Instead Birmingham is one of Australia's leading fringe journalists. He achieved his notoriety and fame in 1997 he wrote He Died With a Falafel In His Hand, a hilarious semi-autobiographical romp around the streets of Brisbane in search of beer, dope and the opposite sex. So has he sold out in return for a six-figure cheque from his publisher, with the promise of more where that came from milking another two books to make up the trilogy? What's the story here?

What's happened in this novel is the fusion of Birmingham's style of well-researched journalism together with the laconic Australian humour of his other books, all crowded with characters he has the innate ability to bring alive with a few well-chosen words. Reviewers have hammered Birmingham for not having one central character, but that's not the deal with epics. Homer's The Iliad didn't, and like the ancient blind Greek dude, Birmingham draws drama from his characters pulling against, or letting themselves be pushed around, by events they don't understand or have control over.

The future warriors are battle scared veterans who have spent the last two decades fighting the War on Terror. On one hand they have a war crimes unit that is as important to them as any of their weapons, but on the other they have the attitude of shooting first, and asking questions later.

The characters from 1942 at first come across as a bunch of bigoted racists not far removed from the Japanese or Nazis they are fighting, but as the novel progresses like the rest of us, they become more then the some of their parts. All of Birmingham's characters live inside the cracks of their imperfections.

The allowance of imperfection in the characters, while at the same time empathising their situations that are made clear as the story unfolds, makes it easy to suspend your disbelief. The science fiction weapons soon begin to break down, or run out of ammunition, because the characters need to use them if they don't want to die.

By the end of the novel, it is the knowledge of the future that is bleeding into the culture of 1942, causing conflicts, which, by high lighting aspects of society in 1942 and 2021, allow us to reflect on our own time. Apart from writing a novel which is an exciting as it is interesting, the gentle metaphor it provides about the change going around us here and now makes it worth reading.

This is an exciting fast paced sci-fi thriller. The plot; A naval task force that is escorting a scientific vessel doing advanced physics research finds itself caught in a time warp and right in the middle of a key WWII battle in the pacific. This was once done in a Kirk Douglas movie about 25 years ago('The Final Countdown)'. That unsatisfying movie barely explored the intriguing possibilities that time travellers arriving in the middle of WWII would create. In contrast this book delves fully into all the changed timelines. Any good writer knows that you can't just show up from the future and have a look around without changing anything. The naval task force from 2021, lead by an Admiral of German ancestry causes a lot of political and social turmoil in 1942. The well crafted story delves fully into all the social, political disruptions.

The speculative aspects of 2021, such as the HAL like computers overseeing the advanced weaponry, are very plausible. The tensions between members of the all white US Navy of the 1940s and the multi ethnic, multi racial 21st century Navy fleet are also well detailed in the book. The Japanese and German officers who have racial and cultural hatred for Americans (and each other)are also well developed. When the time travellers from the future bring historical information about their future demise the Axis powers seize upon this as an opportunity to change strategy and find victory.

Also prominently mentioned and I believe quite accurate is how ordinary Americans of that time were believed to be so emotionally fragile that they couldn't cope with the thought of racial hatred so malevolent and so intense that it would lead to a well organized attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish race. Whenever the time travellers insert the holocaust and other WW II atrocities into the war planning discussions the contemporary 1942 military and political leaders(or 'temps' for short)display emotions that indicate they really aren't ready to talk about it. From what I've learned about the war Allied intelligence had received reports about atrocities being committed when the Nazi's controlled Europe but they never made that information public or pressed Hitler on it. It's clear that the author is well versed in the historical biographies of the famous and infamous WWII actors such as MacArthur, Yamomoto, Hitler, Stalin, Lord Halifax, Churchill, Nimitz, Roosevelt and even the young JFK. I enjoyed this book immensely(and the other two in the trilogy)and recommend them all.

WOW - Fantastic book that looks at things in ways I never really thought of. When I read reviews about the problems that would arise when a task force from the future pop up in the middle of WWII, I was a little worried.

You see, I wanted to read about battle not a book on social political problems.

Rest assured, you get battle all right and to my surprise, the social problems are well integrated into the story and are a real head turner. I LOVED it!!!

Personally I'm a 1st contact, time traveler, alternate history buff and this has it all.

You see a unique problem from all sides of the war and it's not only the good guys that have access to the new and future technology. Don't get this confused with the World At War series by Harry Turtledove (another GREAT work), there are no aliens in this series, however, the 2025 Task force is as alien as can be to the 1942 solders. Good lord, blacks and woman giving orders to whites? And what about the German and Japanese ships in the Task Force, should they not be arrested?

Buy the book - you will love it.

I can't wait for book 2.

I'm a huge fan of alternate history, from authors like harry turtledove to William Forstchen and to movies like final countdown. The premise of what if an american 21st century fleet led by the carrier u.s.s hillary clinton confronts the events of WW2 isn't new. The u.s.s nimitz in final countdown was in such a mess, but unlike this book it took the easy way out. Unlike final countdown, this book takes to another degree, the complicated social enviroment maybe me say, man would i act in a similar fashion. I can't wait for the others. Note to author, you got a fan, get those books out. One thing, I hope the allies do win. That can't change.

There is enough in the book to keep you interested, and turning the page. The idea is intriguing, but it is Science fiction after all. Without rehashing the content of other reviews here I found the Idea of the culture shock Ok but totally overblown. The concept of being able to accelerate the development of technology given information from the future is an intriguing one. Also the idea of the fact that by changing the past the strategic knowledge that you brought with you from the future would become useless pretty quickly. The political aspects of the novel are less satisfactory. But I will follo through on the trilogy to see how it pans out

The premise is an excellent but not original one (The Final Countdown was based on a very similar premise) but that said, Mr. Birmingham treats the subject quite well. I like his style. What I had a harder time with were the characters. Those from the future were a little too perfect and polished, those from the past almost uniformly racist, sexist and not a little stupid. This was actually my major complaint: that the greatest generation came off so poorly and two dimensional. I think it pays to remember that this same generation was in power during the sixties and although those who were young at the time made a big noise it was this same generation that enacted the legislation and made the change. That doesn't mean they should be shown as paragon of virtue, just that those from the future should not be either. I would recommend it.