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A review by Nathan Brazil
"Roosevelt realised that he was absorbed by the sight of these men and women, generations removed from his own. They
all wore flight suits of some kind and carried rocketeer helmets, probably because they flew so high."
Back in 1980, Kirk Douglas starred in a light SF movie called The Final Countdown in which the USS Nimitz was flung
back in time to World War II, where the crew encountered the forces of Imperial Japan, and the dilemma was whether it
was wise change their own history. John Birmingham -- who has apparently never seen the movie -- has the same basic premise
for this work, but that is where the similarities end.
Birmingham's tale sprawls across several years, beginning with a catastrophic accident that tears a hole in time,
throwing an international fleet from 2021 back to 1942. The uptimers emerge at night, slap bang in the middle of the US
task force heading toward Midway Atoll. A major problem is a side effect of the unexpected time travel which causes most
of the future crew to arrive unconscious, or barely functional. Sensing the danger, their computer controlled Combat
Intelligence acts in defence when elements of the '42 fleet attack, quickly leading to all guns blazing on both
sides. By the time the error is realised, the future fleet has decimated their 1942 counterparts, and suffered severe
damage itself.
The impact of the uptimers arrival has many strands, which the author explores to fine effect and in both
directions. That is to say, we get the perspectives of the culturally very different uptimers finding themselves at a
pivotal point in their past, and the 'temps, (short for contemporary), characters reacting to the shock of having what
to all intents and purposes is a wave of immigration from a world they don't understand. Future tech is a Pandora's box,
including ship destroying missiles, metal storm anti-aircraft batteries, and flexipads, which are portable computers
like PDA's, but with the power of a quantum desktop model. Birmingham's tech is every bit as well thought out and convincing
as anything devised by Tom Clancy, and his plot rolls and pitches in a highly entertaining fashion. Huge cultural impact
is caused by public access to Fleetnet, a vast digital archive that contains banks of future movies, all genres of
music, and crucially historical material. It is fascinating to see how the 'temps deal with what was scheduled to be
their future. Was, because the presence and actions of the 2021 forces cannot help but precipitate changes. Equally
interesting is the social trials and adaptations required for the uptimers to coexist in their past. Not everyone is
happy for them to be there. Remember, in 1942, no serviceman had imagined there would ever be a black colonel, or a
British naval commander who is both a woman and half-Pakistani. Something that sets this work above most other alternate
histories, is the author's meticulous attention to multi-culture, credible charactersation, and rapier thrusts of graphic
violence to remind the reader of what a horror war presents. While the systems of destruction may be glamourised, their
use is certainly not. As the opening novel draws to a close, the terrifying possibility arises that other elements of
the 21st century task force may have fallen through time, and into the hands of the Axis powers.
"After all, who had created Bin Laden, the first of so many Islamist heroes? And whose appetite for oil had funded the
Saudis, who in turn funded the madrassas of so many of the Wahhabi lunatics who had overrun the slums of Paris? It was the
United States, Le Roux mused, who had turned the Middle East into a sinkhole of violence and islamist revolt thanks to
its support of Israel, its occupation of Iraq, its bombing of Iran, and its wars against Syria and Yemen."
Designated Targets moves the story into high gear, as history shifts and changes due to the Transition. With
the benefit of future technology, and crucially, the historical records, Yamamoto, Stalin and Hitler make drastic changes
to their original strategies. A Russian-German ceasefire allows the Fuhrer to turn his full might against England, while
in the Pacific Japan invades Australia, and ferments an ingenious plan to seize Hawaii. All major combatants race toward
the development of reverse engineered weapons systems, aircraft, and ultimately atomic bombs.
The problem here is that
knowledge is not, of itself, the means to the end. Knowing how to construct an atomic weapon, is a long, long way
from having the industrial infrastructure and level of science required. However, this does not stop all sides from
making use of what fate has dumped in their laps, and the future tech is used decisively when required. But it is a
finite resource that dwindles as the story progresses. The 2021 fleet was originally tasked to fight in a limited
conflict, not a years-long global war. As supplies run out, compromises are made and weapons retrofitted. Similarly,
the political and social landscape shifts like quicksand, as both sides struggle to adjust.
In the US, a special
zone is created in California, where 2021 laws and customs rule, creating an environment for rapid technological
development and cultural advancement. Not that J. Edgar Hoover sees it quite that way. In the free world, future history
is widely disseminated, and used in all manner of ways for the advancement of companies, and individuals. Movie makers
exploit their uptime creations, and one enterprising individual signs up the seven and half year-old Elvis Presley, whose
lifetime recordings are already public knowledge. Birmingham also teases with glimpses of 2021 history, such as Hilary
Clinton having been a US President who was even more hard line than George W. Bush. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, news from
the future is tightly suppressed. Stalin exploits his knowledge ruthlessly, thinking nothing of using up millions of
lives to advance his atomic program, while the ceasefire gives him time to prepare for a decades long struggle against
all who would oppose Communism. In Germany, the secrets of the future are also kept hidden, available only to the
trusted few, and used by the SS to eliminate the entire families of anyone revealed to have been less than 100 percent
committed to the Nazi cause. Information, above all, is shown to be power. But how, where, when, and by whom that power
is applied makes all the difference. Encompassing politics, social engineering, technological advance, and the sheer
brutality of conflict, Birmingham writes an almost perfectly balanced middle book.
"Do not tell me what is possible and what is not. You have boasted often enough about the impossible tasks you have
achieved on Projects One and Two. Surely building the bomb was the major impossibility. I would have thought dropping
it posed no problem at all. It is just a bomb after all, Beria. It is meant to be dropped upon someone, yes? And please
do not tell me otherwise, or I shall have you nailed to the thing when it goes off."
Final Impact begins with a serious lurch, as the author dropkicks his plot beyond expected battles and character
developments that, logically, lay in wait at the end of the previous volume. This, at first, feels like a cheat, but there's
so much going on, it melds into the general disorientation of D-Day. Fortunately, what began as a unwieldy cast of real
historical characters and fictional additions has at this point been slimmed down to the essentials, which makes the
story easier to follow. The dismantling of the Nazi war machine and smashing of Japan, goes hand in glove with the
covert rise of Russia as a superpower, ultimately leading to a Cold War years before it happened in the records from
2021. Another great plus is that Birmingham never loses sight of the personal stories, the tragedies and triumphs,
without which all the action could easily be just another movie on paper. Unusually for an alternate history, the
fictional characters seem every bit as realistic as those taken from history, and the historical characters are
drawn as people rather than legends. Possibly because Birmingham is an Australian, care is taken not to Americanize
everything. Instead, the reader is given credible perspectives according to nationality and national interest, with
only the bare minimum of clichéd stereotypes.
Even then, the author has fun showing that what you see is not necessarily what you get. Heroes can sometimes be
zeroes, and as for the zeroes, well, even they have feelings. Are there problems? Yes, but none that present
major stumbling blocks. When compared to what has gone before, Final Impact feels a little rushed, leading
to significant events such as the Final Solution being mentioned, but not dealt with as a priority, which can seem
odd from the perspective of the future characters. Perhaps if Axis of Time has been planned as a four
book sequence, there would've been room. I was also unconvinced that a large, 2021 multinational task force, including
submarines and a giant aircraft carrier, did not come equipped with a handful of nukes. But, of course, if they were,
the story might have been much shorter, and consequently nowhere near as entertaining. Other minor issues concern
the use of Victoria Beckham's voice, for an AI called Posh, and the recurring character of Prince Harry Windsor,
who in 2021 is an SAS soldier. Posh, probably seemed like a good joke at the time, but ends up scratching
credibility. Prince Harry as an heroic, major character, was always going to be a risk, and falls flat on its face
now the world knows the real Harry is a toy soldier. But, these quibbles aside, the Axis of Time trilogy delivers
handsomely on almost all levels. The good news is that another two novels in the same world are planned, the first
a prequel, set on this side of the wormhole, before the task force is thrown back to 1942, and the second set around
a decade after events depicted in Final Impact.
Copyright © 2007 Nathan Brazil
If Nathan Brazil were dyslexic, he'd be the dog of the Well world. In reality, he's an English bloke who lives on an island, reading,
writing and throwing chips to the seagulls.
Drop by his web site at www.inkdigital.org.
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