Weapons of Choice
World War 2.1 - Alternative History Science Fiction
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4.8 • 11 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
The impossible has spawned the unthinkable.
In 2021, a quantum military experiment goes horrifically wrong. A multinational taskforce of ultra-modern warships is suddenly transported back in time to 1942... right into the path of the US naval battle group bound for Midway Atoll.
History is rewritten in an instant as the future smashes into the past, and high-tech hardware goes head to head with World War Two technology. In the chaos that ensues, thousands are killed, but the maelstrom has only just begun. The veterans of Pearl Harbour have never seen a helicopter, or a cruise missile - let alone nanotechnology, ceramic bullets, and F22 Raptor stealth jetfighters.
Allied and Axis forces are then caught in a desperate struggle to gain the upper hand - each hoping to tip the balance with a fist full of twenty first century firepower.
What happens next is anybody's guess - and everybody's nightmare...
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.
