| Weapons of Choice (Axis of Time, Book 1) |  | Author: John Birmingham
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: eBooks
In Stock
Rating:  155 reviews
Sales Rank: 3,466
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
Publication Date: June 1, 2004
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Product Description
On the eve of America-s greatest victory in the Pacific,
a catastrophic event disrupts the course of World War II, forever changing the rules of combat. . . .
The impossible has spawned the unthinkable. A military experiment in the year 2021 has thrust an American-led multinational armada back to 1942, right into the middle of the U.S. naval task force speeding toward Midway Atoll-and what was to be the most spectacular U.S. triumph of the entire war.
Thousands died in the chaos, but the ripples had only begun. For these veterans of Pearl Harbor-led by Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, and Spruance-have never seen a helicopter, or a satellite link, or a nuclear weapon. And they-ve never encountered an African American colonel or a British naval commander who was a woman and half-Pakistani. While they embrace the armada-s awesome firepower, they may find the twenty-first century sailors themselves far from acceptable.
Initial jubilation at news the Allies would win the war is quickly doused by the chilling realization that the time travelers themselves-by their very presence-have rendered history null and void. Celebration turns to dread when the possibility arises that other elements of the twenty-first century task force may have also made the trip-and might now be aiding Yamamoto and the Japanese.
What happens next is anybody-s guess-and everybody-s nightmare. . .
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 155
 Disappointing, pass this one by August 21, 2010
David W. Griffin (Smyrna, GA USA)
When I found this book's description, I thought I'd found a modern vs. WWII book similar to Final Countdown, but with a more satisfying story. Instead I found I was even more dissatisfied than I was with the movie. First books in series need to grab the reader with a great story that holds his interest. Instead we get an interminable painful telling of "transition" to 1942 such that both the modern multinational fleet and the WWII U.S. Pacific fleet virtually annihilate each other. This would be bad enough but to take up so much of the text of the book with this initial brutal pointless exercise made me page forward until it was over (the first time I can remember doing that in any book). There ARE no epic clashes with the Japanese and such battles as exist are at the end of the book where they reach an unsatisfying and poor resolution. It's not really an integrated story, just a very bad introduction to a badly written, badly plotted story.
And the plot isn't the only problem. The multinational group is composed of fairly good characters, if a little 2 dimensional - the hard driving embedded reporters, the smart and tough fleet commander, etc. But the characters from 1942 are cartoon caricatures of wartime personalities from movies, only more so. There are some interesting treatments of the clashes between the 2021 navy's attitudes and the less enlightened attitudes of 40's but they're lost in the poorly threaded plots. It's a shame too because when the combat comes it's not badly written. It's too bad it's not more plausible and there isn't more of it. After all, what the book promises but doesn't deliver is the spectacle of the Germans and Japanese finding themselves up against modern weaponry - something we were ultimately denied in Final Countdown. I won't be buying the sequels.
 Best Alternate History I've read! August 20, 2010
Jeff Pruett (Dunwoody, GA USA)
From Wikipedia, "Alternate history or alternative history[1] is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate history works may use tropes from any or all of these genres."
I must admit that I'm a sucker for novels involving some form of alternate history. Most of them, alas, are rather simplistic; "What would happen if Hitler had died in WWI and there had never been a Nazi Germany?" They seem to center around battles and daring do.
S.M. Stirling has written some excellent stuff (see his Trilogy, "Island in the Sea of Time"). Also someone rather new, Taylor Anderson, is writing some interesting stuff.
But by far, the best of this genre I've ever read is The Axis of Time trilogy by Steve Birmingham. Bold talk, I know. but if you read his stuff, I think you'll agree. The premise is rather simple. A strange experiment in the 21st century pacific throws a bunch of warships (mainly American) back in time to 1942. Most of the ships end up in the pacific, but enough get scattered around the world for all the players, Hitler, Japan, US to get their hands on some.
While there's plenty of gore and battle scenes, what sets this apart from others of the genre is the time and effort put the political, economic, and social impart of a large body of people with very advanced technology suddenly appearing. How Birmingham describes that is fascinating! Well written, the characters are fully realized (even the actual historical persons), the plot makes sense. Damn good read!
Really Great Book May 2, 2010
LV 702 (Las Vegas,NV)
One of the best books I've read. I couldn't put it down. Starts out with what seems like boring information, but you must read all the background information about the ships and the people involved because it will be useful later. I found myself turning back the pages to re-read the background info. It starts with a BANG! and never lets up. It mixes sci-fi with history and creates and alternate history and does a great job. I highly recommend this book and will get the next. My first purchase was a kindle freebie, but I'm hooked on the series will buy the rest.
Great book, and I could not put it down! February 26, 2010
Jerry & Heather (Iowa)
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!!
 Decent novel, but 21st century morality imposed on 20th century war January 8, 2010
R. Harvey (London, England)
In full disclosure, I downloaded this novel when it was available as a free Kindle download, for which I want to thank Mr. Birmingham; it was a generous thing to do, and I enjoyed the time rreading.
This is a good alternate-history/timeline-jumping military science fiction story with a number of elements that make it it unique and a fun read. There are some blemishes, some of which are hard to get past, but overall do not distract from the enjoyability of the novel.
First, the good:
The novel is a lot of fun for the first 3/4's of the novel. There is a completely expected juxtaposition of a modern (2020) military force and a 1940's military force on its way to Midway. The mechanism by which this happens is given away in the first 50 pages or so, so it's no spoiler, and the fun begins after that anyway.
The weapons systems, military jargon, and general treatement of the way a naval warship works is authentic and well-researched, as is the stark difference between the 1940's technology and the more modern technology of "our future".
The pace is gnerally good, except that the initial battle is too drawn out, and suffers a bit from narrative jumps that are sometimes hard to follow, since the various ships have not been well introduced at that point.
It's a fun read, as I have already stated. I came away with no great insights, but it is a meat and potatoes sort of military science fiction novel, and I did not expect much in that respect.
The bad:
There were moments of discontinuity for me as American characters used British vernacular and slang. "Have a go", is one that stood out, rather than "have a try" which is the American colloquialism. Because I have lived in the UK for 6 years, I am attuned to this, and it stood out for me.
In addition, the debate in the book about understanding the culture and motivations of the Axis is a slice from modern-day GWOT (we can't call it that anymore, can we?). This doesn't seem to be working for us now. I guess it's just wishful thinking, but I would hope those working this problem 10 years from now would have caught on by then.
The imposition of 20th century morality and judgements on the 1940's era personnel was a little over the top in my opinion. What we are to believe is that there was more or less universal bigotry and visions of ethnic purity in the 1940's, which, as a child of two early 1900's parents, doesn't strike me as quite accurate. More to the point, military personnel who spent their time away from the U.S. were probably much less bigoted than usual, and certainly a little more understanding of cultural concepts than the people in this novel. The author would have us believe that almost no one from that era would meet this group half-way, either they completely abandon their cultural upbringing in favor of the new cultura mores of the travelers (hard to believe) or they would be completely and totally obstinate in their beliefs (also hard to believe).
Finally, I fail to understand why in his quest to create strong female characters, the females are almost universally cursed with male sex drives, including the drive for indiscriminate multiple sexual trysts. This required more than a normal suspension of disbelieve for me. This may be cultural; the female American reporters strike me in language and sexual aggression as more typical of British women. That may explain it, but a foul-mouthed harlot is still a foul-mouthed harlot. The author had no problem creating a criminal American character, and his motivations and thought processes were much clearer.
All in all, a good novel that should appeal to many.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 155
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