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Loading... Final Impact (2007)by John Birmingham
None.  wisemetis | Jan 26, 2011 |  Apart from the fact that there would appear to be a book missing here, this final installment in the Axis of Time series is as action packed as it's predecessors. The action starts a couple of years after the last book finishes, with the allies commencing operation Overlord, striking at the Pas de Calais as the German forces already know that they should be invading in Normandy. The action sequences are all that you could ask for with that strange mixture of modern and past technologies that make you blink. However, there has been definite developments in our cast of characters that would make it appear as if there is a missing book between Designated Targets and Final Impact - it's almost as if Mr Birmingham realised he could easily have had another book between the two, but was, for whatever reason, constrained to limit the series to a proper trilogy (not like Douglas Adams's trilogy in five parts :-)). (  )1  JohnFair | Aug 3, 2008 | Not spoiler free. If you've continued this far you'll be happy to know that JB has cheerfully and ruthlessly not deviated from his mission of messing with your expectations, as the end of this trilogy has produced a world much uglier then what was actually experienced. Multiple nuclear weapons have been used, Hitler & Stalin have behaved in an even more beastly fashion then they did in real life, and World War III seems scheduled to begin in 1950. My main question at the end of the second book was just how Birmingham was going to wrap up World War II as a trilogy. The answer is to skip 1943 and end the war in 1944! This means that many stories that looked imperative in the second book are merely backstory here, and which ones I'm not going to give away. All in all, this is one of the best alternate history series I've ever read and I look forward to seeing what Birmingham does next with his characters; be it prequel or sequel. (  ) Shrike58 | Jul 5, 2007 | rivkat | Mar 4, 2007 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 034545717X, Mass Market Paperback)“The action is nonstop, the characters very real–and very different from each other–and, to coin a phrase, it makes you think.”–S. M. Stirling, author of Island in the Sea of Time In the year 2021 a multinational fleet–experimenting with untested weapons technology–pitched through time, crash-landing in 1942. The world is thrown into chaos as Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, Tojo, and Stalin scramble to adapt to new, high-tech killing tools, and twenty-first-century ways of war. For “uptimers” like Britain’s Prince Harry and the men and women who serve aboard the supercarrier USS Hillary Clinton, war is a constant struggle with their own downtime allies, who are mired in ignorance and bigotry. As the Allies counter the Nazi assault and set off for the coast of France, Japan begins to buckle, soon every battle will be played out in a lethal dance of might and intelligence, unholy alliances and desperate gambles, and each clash will be fought with the ultimate weapon; knowledge from the future. Thanks to the historical records, all sides know that two superpowers will emerge, while the losers will be pounded into submission. But time has shifted on its axis, so none know who will survive, or how peace will take hold in a world turned upside down. These are the questions that John Birmingham brilliantly answers in his critically acclaimed adventure of war and imagination. Praise for John Birmingham’s Weapons of Choice “Birmingham’s enthralling battleground mixes provocative historical fiction and socially conscious futurism.” –Entertainment Weekly “High-tech intrigue and suspense similar to the works of Tom Clancy.” –Library Journal From the Trade Paperback edition. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:46:37 -0500) The Axis and Allied forces race to build an atom bomb while a revitalized Soviet Union threatens to unleash a new wave of destruction, and Admiral Kolhammer and his team confront the consequences of disturbing the historical timeline. |
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One thing I *did* like was the ending, oddly, as many had complained about the multiple loose ends. I thought that it was very indicative of the journey and the role of the characters - they were pulled out of their own time in which they had been fighting a war that has gone on for 20 years, with no end in sight. They landed in the middle of another war, and even at its end, their job was still not done.
Overall, I'm glad I read this series. It was a very unique premise that could have been done better, but still told an adequate story. I think the series could have been much stronger if it had been three books longer. There were things that happened off-screen in-between books that really should have been explored in the prose, and many events that would have had a more meaningful impact if they had been fleshed out more. (