Customer Reviews

Final Impact (Axis of Time, Volumn 3)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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. It didn't disappoint me.

The full "Axis of Time" trilogy is

Weapons of Choice

Designated Targets

Final Impact

In the first book, "Weapons of Choice" a multinational force from the 21st century is accidentally sent back in time to 1942 when a scientific experiment goes wrong. The first unfortunate effect of their arrival is that the Japanese fleet which was about to be sunk at Midway gets wind of something unusual, retreats and consequently survives. The second is that elements of the multinational force turn up all over the world and some are captured by the Imperial Japanese, Nazis, and Soviet Union - all of whom resolve not to repeat the mistakes which in our world consigned them to the dustbin of history.

In this volume a very different and even more brutal second world war is grinding towards its conclusion. The Allies, the Soviets, and the Nazis are all desperately trying to expedite their Atomic weapon programmes, and Stalin is determined that when the Axis powers have been defeated he will control much more of the world than in "original" history so as to go into the Cold War in a stronger position.

Meanwhile the men and women from the 21st Century face a continuing struggle both to adapt to the very different 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 an RN 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 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. and has some very funny lines. Another moment which had me laughing was the incongruity of Himmler struggling with a Windows laptop and threatening dire revenge against the family of Bill Gates.

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 innocent people since E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series.

Bottom line: if you are into alternative history or war stories, you will almost certainly enjoy the "Axis of Time" trilogy.

I really loved the first volume of the AXIS OF TIME trilogy. I enjoyed the second one as well, though, like most trilogies, I thought it not up to the first. I was prepared for the third installment to make everything right once again. Unfortunately, it was the least of the series.

The scenario is that of a multinational naval task force from the year 2021 finding itself thrust back through time to the second world war. This causes disruptions for both the allies and the axis. Most of the fleet winds up in the hands of the allies but a few wind up in Japanese or Russian hands. The armaments of this fleet of the future are quite welcome but the historical references to things that have not yet happened are bound to be chaotic. Even more intriguing are the interaction between those from the future and those from the 40s. Black or Japanese officers are treated with suspicion and women are not really taken seriously. It would be expected that the Nazis would be insulted by having so many of their plans thwarted by a woman commanding an uptime British ship and they consider their injuries even worse since the woman is of Muslim descent. The really awful thing is that she is treated as a pariah by her own countrymen as well. This is just one of the many examples of cultures in conflict.

In this third installment, things finally come to a climax. The Russians under Stalin have been busy and want to avoid the mistakes of the alternate history. That they are the first in this world to develop nuclear weapons seems to put them in the catbird seat. The American admiral from the future recognizes the Soviets as an even bigger threat than the Nazis and Japanese but passions are so inflamed over the latter that his warnings are not taken seriously until too late. The uptimers are in conflict with the downtimers (who appreciate the toys but don't want to play by "modern" rules) and it is a wonder that anybody really has time to fight a world war.

In the first two volumes, Birmingham did a good job of setting up conflicts and situations that the reader would reasonably expect to be solved by the third volume. They were but they were not done so in a particularly pleasing manner. What seemed like major story lines are solved with hardly a whimper and the war itself is ended almost on a note of anticlimax.

Having read the first two, this one was certainly worth the effort to finish but it could have been more. The story ends with the possibility of further sequels but now I am unsure if I would want to invest time in them.

Final Impact concludes World War 2.1 with literally a bang. Or, perhaps, a whole lot of bangs as the Allies, armed with the weapons developed by crew of the 21st Century battle fleet that popped into the middle of the Battle of Midway, close in on both Nazi Germany and Japan. But the Nazis and the Japanese, armed with their own weapons and a desperation born from the foreknowledge of what was due to happen to them in the old timeline, will not go down without a fight. And the Soviets, who are also armed to the teeth, will not accept the verdict of original history and go into that good night.

Though the revised version of World War II concludes with a blood letting even greater than what occured in our history, it may be only the beginning. John Birmingham has allowed himself room for ample sequals for a Cold War 2.0, which may not be "Cold" for very long.

Highly recommended for fans of technothriller, action, and historical fiction.

What an excellent read!

John Birmingham really did himself well by this - and he did even better by the fans of his earlier books in this series.

This tale could easily have devolved into an overblown fanboy raving where the good guys get all sorts of super high-tech weaponry to mow down endless waves of cardboard character bad guys. Thankfully, Birmingham didn't fall for such banal writing and setting.

The whole Axis of Time series is very intelligently written and smartly focuses on its characters with the high tech stuff coming in a distant second. Birmingham takes a step away from the standard tropes of the genre by examining the political and social changes that such an arrival of highly advanced and highly different, socially, solidiers from the future would wreak upon even their allies - let alone upon their enemies. The result is a far more believeable and far more "real" read.

I found this one as much a page turner as the previous two. Sure, as a fan, I wanted more and would've been happy enough to have every bit of what happened be completely detailed in the telling of the tale. But, I can also appreciate the need to prune some things and to have others happen "off stage." Otherwise the book would wind up an almost unreadable six inches thick and thus appeal only to a few die hard fans. I appreciate the way Birmingham handled this as it did not reduce the impact of the story nor seem otherwise out of place. I wish other authors could exercise such discretion in the way they tell their tales.

All in all this was an excellent read. The plot was realistic and briskly paced. The characters were at the forefront of the tale and the technology depicted was realistic and described just well enough to support the rest of the story while not overwhelming it. This series would be an excellent introduction into the alternate history genre as it does a wonderful job of examining the political and social changes such a history altering event might have.

As a last thing, please ignore the cover illustration chosen for the US edition of this book. Why the publishers felt compelled to go with such an appallingly awful image is beyond me. It has nothing to do with what's in the book and you shouldn't let that dissuade you from plucking it off the shelf and diving right into its pages.

Madoc

Waited patiently for this book for 2 years. Started reading it and found it very enjoyable until the last 3rd. The reason for this is I realized in the last third of the book that there was no way the writer would be able to wrap up everything in the pages left. Well he did and I find it was not done too well. He closed out too many story lines way to quickly. I get the feeling he was writing and then realized that he had too many pages and would have to cut the endings/wrap-up short. And he did.

Did I like the book? Yes. Was I let down by the ending? Yes.

If you are reading this review then no matter what I or anyone else says, you will read this book. This is a not a stand alone book nor is the second one. I am not reviewing this book but rather the whole series because this is one long story cut into three sections. When you start this series, it becomes an investment of your time. Mr. Birmingham has created a very detailed and thoughtout epic. The only thing that I can compare it to is Harry Harrison's STARS AND STRIPES series.

The main complaint is that things that were set up in the previous books are dealt with a single sentence or short paragraph. The re-taking of the Hawain islands, the invasion of Austalia, the death of Hoover, and the death of several historical characters are "swept" under the rug.

The end is sad and not the rousing ending that I would have liked. Mr. Birminghan makes historial people, like Roosevelt, sound human and petty at the same time. The ending leaves the reader with a new and way different world than that of our time.

Finally the series is worth your time. This book seems rushed and choppy. Satisfing? No, but I don't know if it could end any othe way.

P.S. The cover picture is great but has NOTHING to do with the book!!

Final Impact is a book I finished within 24 hours of bending the first page.

It's a multi-character, multi- plot, multiversal hitech rollercoaster that slots into the Axis of Time trilogy conclusion as tight as an armour-piercing round into an automatic weapon. I enjoyed the fast pace, the constantly changing POV and the constant clashes between the `old' and `new' cultures which let me view our own developing military `war on terror' culture in a new light.

Like all good Alt history fiction this title continued to send me scurrying to on-line sources to see what happened to characters, battles and places mentioned in the book. Mr B has really done his research on some of these incidents.

As good as Harry Turtledove, with more violence and laconic humour. Read it to see what should have happened to J Edgar Hoover.

Birmingham writes a creditable final book in this trilogy. It ends World War 2, while deliberately leaving several loose ends at the individual character level, and a major strategic event of a possible future war between the US and the Soviet Union. Clearly, depending on the response for this book, there might well be the start of another series, for World War 3 perhaps? Like what Turtledove did with his Civil War books.

General George Patton appears in Final Impact, as strongly supporting the deployment of an all-Negro unit against the Germans. For those of you who have read biographies of Patton, this section of FI may seem dubious. Patton made numerous anti-Negro (and also anti-Semitic) diatribes. His views on racial integration of the armed forces were negative. In fairness, these were not significantly different from many senior American officers of the era. FI's depiction of Patton might be seen by knowing readers as not just fiction, but fantasy. Though under the circumstances of the trilogy, perhaps Patton could have modified his views, having been given a longer look at history.

The book studies both the social changes in the Allied nations and of course the military events of the war. Continuing describing the former changes after the war would itself easily lend to much writing.

But the book has a disadvantage, in common with its predecessors, and which is scarcely acknowledged by most other reviewers. At the strategic level, the battles between the Allies and the Axis are barely worth reading. Usually a walkover for the Allies. The disparity in capability between the forces means that a serious encounter often quickly ends in an easy victory for the Allies. They don't have to struggle that much. The Axis military are posited as straw dummies. Wait, you might say. Given the premise of the first book, with an Allied force from 2021, the 80 year difference would logically lead to such a disparity. But if so, this does not make for interesting reading, especially for a trilogy.

Birmingham tried to mitigate this in the other books, by having the newcomers run down most of their munitions. So that they had to help the contemps by upgrading the latter's armaments. In FI, this is done so successfully that the book's battles between the western Allies and the Axis are a formality. Thus, the destruction of thousands of German tanks in France, for example. He does attempt to make it more interesting, by having the Germans try a mass foray with enhanced jets in a surprise attack. But he cannot resist having this be detected and crushed. A better writer would have at least allowed the enemy some significant gains, somewhere. In order to give the Allies a tougher struggle.

This is the difference between a good novel and a great novel. It happens throughout the book and the earlier two. In FI, the only significant battle won by the Axis is when the Japanese fleet attacks the Soviets. But clearly because the Soviets are being set up as the next enemy in a future novel.

Here is an analogy. You read alternate history? Remember Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes trilogy on the American Civil War? A competent effort. But in terms of readership, far less well received than Turtledove's Civil War series. One reason might have been that Harrison's narrative had things too easy for the Union. A difficulty arises? Next chapter, boom! Defeated. A terrible struggle makes for greatness, but not in Harrison's story. Whereas, for example, Turtledove had the US grimly endure years of stalemate in the First World War, as described in several novels, before prevailing.

Birmingham has the potential to be an outstanding author. For example, in this trilogy, he is capable of drawing nuances between different attitudes of the contemps. Not all are shown as close minded. But if he will extend the trilogy, he should have the US take serious body blows from the Soviets. Heavily detailed as they occur, and not largely in retrospect, as he did with the Japanese occupation of Hawaii in FI. In doing so, it actually makes a future series stronger. Pragmatically, it can also have the effect of extending the series.

After the first two AoT books, which I thought both deserved 5 stars, I was ready for a smashing ending to WW 2.1. Unfortunately, Birmingham simply doesn't deliver. The book is about half as long, page-wise, as it should be.

The single biggest criticism I have is that too many exciting major plot sequences happen completely off-screen, so to speak. The Allied invasion and reconquest of Hawaii. The executions of Nimitz, Halsey, and most of the population of Hawaii. Hoover's resignation and suicide. The marriage and breakup of 21C journalist Julia Duffy and `Temp Naval Officer Dan Black and Black's subsequent death. The final resolution of the rape, torture and murders of two 21C Naval Officers (one female and Black, the other male and Japanese) in Hawaii near the beginning of Weapons of Choice.

The book reminds me of the old Saturday Morning Serials with cliffhangers in each episode. The hero is facing imminent death at the end of each episode, with no apparent way out. The next episode begins with "After our hero narrowly escapes death by ......"You go, WHAT? HEY! I wanted to see that!"

I don't know if Birmingham simply got lazy, got tired, wanted to finish up the Trilogy, or the decision was editorial in nature. But whatever happened, but I'm a very disappointed reader. Birmingham needs to redeem himself in the next two AoT books in my eyes. Maybe with a PRESIDENT Kolhammer in command.

End of a series. Read the other two first. Very good alternate history. Interesting aspects. Not what I expected. Was very realistic and plausible if you believe in wormholes and time distortion. If not still a good read.