Abouts Books

By Sunil Tanna

In the 1980 movie, The Final Countdown, a modern US aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitiz, travels back in time through some kind of vortex to December 6th 1941, and seems to get the opportunity to intervene and stop the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This type of scenario is very popular in alternate history discussion forums and newsgroups (see also ISoT), and John Birmingham's "Axis of Time" trilogy (the first of which is Weapons of Choice), is also based around this device.

A multi-national (principally American, British and Australian, but also including some other nationalities too) naval task force from the year 2021 is magically sent back to 1942. The majority of the ships arrive in the middle of the US naval fleet heading for the Battle of Midway, although others are scattered all over the world. We then get a revised, and very different, World War II.

This book could easily have fallen into the trap of pure unadulterated technolust. I won't deny that there is some interesting military technology in the story, but there's a bit more to the series than that. First of all, the Germans and Japanese don't just sit around waiting to be defeated - they respond in a rational way to the changes in circumstances. We also get a none too flattering portrait of the social and racial attitudes of the Western Allies in the 1940s, as well as a somewhat unnerving insight into the changes that War on Terror may cause on the present day military. I should also emphasize that there is a streak of inside humor in the story; for example, there are a number of veiled and not-so-veiled references to other alternate history authors.

This book is a lot different, and a lot better, than you'd probably assume from the point of departure. Yes, the basic premise of the book may be lacking in plausibility, but John Birmingham has nevertheless managed to produce an enjoyable and entertaining novel that is worth reading.

By S. Tanna. First published at http://www.alternatehistorybooks.com/p1_books_weapons_of_choice.php. For more alternate history books, please visit http://www.alternatehistorybooks.com/