Designated Targets: The Axis of Time (Book 2)

This novel was better than the first one! It was explosive and daring. Some of the concepts regarding the treatment of terrorists/war criminals is daring and chilling (if only we could do that now without receiving world condemnation). Good thing all of the historical named characters are dead, because the depictions of such individuals like Hoover and MacArther are, what I believe, dead on but if they were alive now, would be refuting everything. Some items were predictable, like finding LT Kennedy, Elvis and Marylin Monroe before they were big names and exploiting them; however, the exploiting was for the benefit of raising funds for the future people so they could win the war and hopefully recreate the device that took them back in time (that may come out in volume 3). It was overall an excellent book and if anything else, learned a lot on combined arms strategic combat and up-in-coming defense and offensive systems that are just now being tested. Good job John Birmingham!

_Designated Targets_ by John Birmingham is the excellent follow up to his earlier alternate history science fiction novel, _Weapons of Choice_, a novel that began with the basic premise that a U.S.-led multinational naval task force from the 21st century is accidentally and suddenly transported to the Pacific right in the middle of the Battle of Midway. As most of this fleet came into the possession of the Allied countries (basically the United States), one might think that the advanced weaponry, ships, and trained personnel from the year 2021 would enable the Allied powers to quickly defeat the Axis, as certainly anything they had could outclass anything Germany and Japan possessed in 1942. Quite the opposite occurs, as the Axis, at the heights of its power at the time the future fleet arrived (an event now referred to as the Transition), redoubles its efforts to conquer the world, benefiting from it own captured weapons, ships, and personnel from the future as well as the wealth of information in the computer databases of those ships, decades of analysis and detailed histories of the Second World War and its aftermath, revealing the results of battles, the identities of spies and traitors, failed weapon systems, successful weapon systems that should have been better supported, etc. The Soviet Union and Germany quickly declare a ceasefire with one another (Stalin thankful for the break from the Nazi onslaught and eager to begin work to avoid being the target of later German aggression as well as seeking to avoid eventual Soviet defeat in the Cold War by the United States) and both Germany and Japan rapidly develop and execute radically different plans from what they did in our timeline. The conflict in the book is not just military in nature, as the officers, sailors, marines, and others of the multinational task force continually come into conflict with the culture and politics of the era. Admiral Phillip Kolhammer, as Task Force Commander, is forced into politics and administration in areas and on a scale he never dreamed possible as he became the governor of a new district set up in California to house the men and women of his task force, the Special Administrative Zone (or just the "Zone"), an area that not only allowed Kolhammer's people to train contemporary personnel and set up factories to rapidly accelerate the advance of contemporary technology, gearing up to provide everything from modern medicine and medical techniques to assault rifles to missiles to jet aircraft but also to be a region of the country that was under 2021 law, not 1942 law. The latter point became particularly important in the book as while political allies, personal friendships, and romantic relationships developed between "twenty-firsts" (people from the future) and "'temps" (contemporary people; twenty-first term for people not from the future), enmities developed too. Some saw political threats with the rising importance of Kolhammer and his other officers i

John Birmingham is a bastard. I spotted Designated Targets just before its official release at a bookshop in Brisbane airport, appropriately enough on my way to a meeting in the Forgan Smith building at the University of Queensland (the building features prominently about mid-way through). I had thoroughly enjoyed Weapons of Choice: World War 2.1 (as it's subtitled down under), and had hoped for another good read - airport style - to keep me entertained in the downtime that you inevitably get in a busy week spent away from home on business. Well, what happened was that 2.2 redefined my downtime over the next couple of days - 'downtime' was suddenly comprised of the compact slices of time where I tried to do all the trivial things not related to avidly reading this gripping yarn - work, sleep, drive, ablute, etc. This wretched, brilliant book completely ruined that week, and for that I am deeply grateful to its stupidly talented author. Designated Targets is absolutely great stuff - all of what we love and a bit more besides. Clever narrative, suspenseful design, well controlled scenario, thorough research, insightful invention, perceptive psychology, great dialogue, and terrific action. All in all, accursedly unputfckendownable. Birmingham handles the action genre as an adept - he obviously reads widely in it, and has paid attention to a range of movie genres as well (westerns, war flicks, Hong Kong martial arts, gangster movies, Arnie, straight out action, etc.). Clearly he has also taken a lot of inspiration from the different strands of alternate history, speculative SF and psychodrama that populate contemporary culture, both written and cinematic. There are amusing and perceptive commentaries on the past. Australian readers will enjoy the mischief of seeing the Brisbane Line become realised in policy, and Prime Minister John Curtin's relationship with MacArthur is well drawn, particularly read against John Edwards's recent book on the Labor war-time PM, as well as David Day's excellent biography. J. Edgar Hoover camping it up in a kimono is hilarious, but also a sobering embodiment of the righteous hypocrisy of censorious autocrats everywhere. Much more chilling is the cool precision with which Birmingham imagines the treatment handed out by the totalitarian dictators to those that history has exposed as less-than-impeccably loyal to their doomed regimes. There is perhaps room for more serious contemplation about how the Allied powers would respond to the same phenomenon (what might be the fate of the teenaged Che Guevara, for instance?), although the angle about how a JFK handles his sudden advance celebrity is illuminating. As for the warriors from the future, the speculations about their hardness and brutal pragmatism is clearly a reflection upon current trends and where they are taking us (the people from 2021 are, after all, either us or our children). Particularly poignant is the scene in which the post-postmodern rules o

As an avid fan of the first volume of the "Axis of Time" series, I was among the many fans looking forward eagerly to the release of the next installment. For me this book was well worth the wait, as John Birmingham avoids the middle-volume slump all too typical of trilogies. Picking up the action four months after the end of the first book, he shows how the impact of the accidental travelers from the future has dramatically changed the course of history - the Japanese have invaded Australia, the Germans and the Soviets have signed a cease-fire, and a vast industrial park is blossoming on the outskirts of Los Angeles as the Allies begin to leapfrog their technological development. What makes this book so enjoyable for me is Birmingham's imaginativeness. After reading the first volume, I wondered where he would take events from there. The answer is in surprising directions. On one level, it involves posing intriguing questions: What would the Japanese fighting World War II do with knowledge from the future? The Germans? The Americans? Birmingham's answers break away from the predominantly military focus of the first volume to areas that might be unexpected but entirely plausible. The result makes for an enormously entertaining read and one that kept me enthralled to the last page. The only problem I had when I finished was the same that many others have expressed - the prospect of having to wait for the final volume of the series to be written. As frustrating as it may be, I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for Birmingham to produce a conclusion so satisfying.