Without Warning-new from John Birmingham

hopper2cool

Tom_NUFC said:
My copy arrived from Amazon on Saturday morning, and I finished it on Tuesday evening. On the whole, a good read. I found it a bit hard to judge the situation in the UK. It was regularly alluded to of course, but it was still all snippets, so I found it hard to build up a picture of what was happening, but what was alluded to seemed to me a tad far fetched. I'm not saying there wouldn't be tensions but ethnic cleansing!!:eek:

I felt he was a bit stereotypical with the French as well.

On the whole, I enjoyed it and found it a very entertaining read as I did with the Axis of Time Trilogy. I find his writing style very likeable and I like the little touches of humour he throws in now and then.

My one big criticism is that there was no build up and immediate reaction to 'the wave'. I found that slightly disappointing.
Click to expand...


I wish that there had been less American view point characters so we could get a better POV of the world. All the characters except one were Americans and she was the most isolated. Also two high ranking officers?
Too many cliches also after America leaves. People go crazy too fast. Israel nuking everything is unlikely but could happen I suppose. China already starving to death in a year (they don't get that much food from North America) seemed really unlikely. And France having a 2 or 3 way civil war about 1 month later that is every single French cliche turned up to 10.5. Oh yeah and the world is starving but let's just ignore Canada's farm land that has no one to sell to. Heck they don't even sell to Seattle.
I liked the book a lot and will buy the others. Honestly making a book where things happen but people don't act like dumbasses must be really hard because it rarely happens.
Oh and Puerto Rico doesn't exist.
 
Leo euler

Leo euler

Ok, Birmingham just said on his website:

"My apologies for the spinal chord thing. That was a red herring which came from rushing out the door and typing without thinking.

The Wave took primates.

It killed or temporarily incapacitated vast numbers of verterbrates, but only the primates were Taken.

Birds, btw, instinctively fly away from the Wave, unless they are in it, in which case they get knocked out of the sky, either dead or unconscious."

According to him, this is canon.

http://www.cheeseburgergothic.com/archives/226#comments
 

hopper2cool

Leo euler said:
Ok, Birmingham just said on his website:

"My apologies for the spinal chord thing. That was a red herring which came from rushing out the door and typing without thinking.

The Wave took primates.

It killed or temporarily incapacitated vast numbers of verterbrates, but only the primates were Taken.

Birds, btw, instinctively fly away from the Wave, unless they are in it, in which case they get knocked out of the sky, either dead or unconscious."

According to him, this is canon.

http://www.cheeseburgergothic.com/archives/226#comments
Click to expand...


Fair enough things like that happen and really only matter to people like us.
 

Wanderlust

hopper2cool said:
Fair enough things like that happen and really only matter to people like us.
Click to expand...

Yeah. And to be fair he's never said The Wave was the focus of the story. If we do get more detail and explanation about it, I count that as a bonus :). Probably not though - just look how stumped the Scientist (And Lt. Kwan. Dammit, I liked her... Vaporised off-screen... Sad) was.
 

RealityBYTES

I just finished reading "Without Warning" a few minutes ago and, I must say, it was a mostly enjoyable read, albeit dystopian in nature. (Or, in other words, thank God I wasn't in that particular timeline when the Wave hit.)

I thought the weakest parts of the book were the segments that took place aboard the Aussie Rules. I guess I'm just not that much into what happens to a particular band of smugglers in a post-Wave world.

The parts set in Hawaii, Cuba, Europe and the Middle East were winners, though. Still, I can't help but think that, in this timeline, Israel can no longer be viewed with sympathy — after all, they're now the world's most murderous nation, having annhilated between 85 million and 170 million people in the Middle East. In fact, I'm kind of surprised Russia and China simply didn't hammer Israel into oblivious immediately after the nuclear holocaust in the Middle East.

Last, but not least, I want to learn more about the Wave in "After America." C'mon. Something that nails only primates sure as hell isn't natural in nature, unless you go totally space-bat, in which case it kind of detracts from the overall story.

So, FWIW, I'd recommend "Without Warning" — with a caveat or two, as mentioned above.

RealityBYTES
 

Wanderlust

Aw no. I loved the bits onboard the Aussie Rules. I found them a welcome break from all the nastiness, grimdarkness and politicking going on elsewhere, and it had the most enjoyable characters (Oddly the least screwed-up ones in the book... Aside from Kipper, maybe). Each to their own I suppose :)
 

jacobus

Jack_Straw said:
Perhaps as well off as the world was without hide-under- the- bed Sweden's involvement during WW2. Oh, that's right...you guys DID sell all that iron ore to Germany.Oh, and thanks for imprisoning all those airmen from Britain and the US who landed there because their planes were too shot up to make it back to England...that was a big help.
Click to expand...

I don't believe you're being fair to Sweden. All neutral countries intern belligerents who enter their territory, in compliance with international law. Sweden treated Allied and Axis aviators the same, which they were obligated to do. And let's say the Swedes had decided not to trade with Germany, despite the proverbial gun to their head. In fact, let's suppose they had gone so far as to declare war against the Axis powers. How much help could the Americans and British have given them, realistically? They would have been left on their own, to face an enraged Adolf Hitler, who would have gone out of his way to punish them for having joined the Allies. The best the Swedes could have hoped for would have been eventual "liberation" by the Soviet Red Army, which would have been no improvement over Nazi occupation. The Swedes did the only thing they could, and in doing so, spared their country a lot of suffering.
 
Last edited:

WilyBadger

I read this book a couple months ago. Here's my take.

The bad:

1. France meltdown due to an Evil Muslim Conspiracy helped by a bunch of Surrender Monkeys. Yeah, not buying it. Also not buying the UK's reaction to it (blowing up the Chunnel?).

2. Israel plays Happy Fun Nuke Time! Not buying that, either. One would hope they wouldn't do anything that insanely evil. I'd say it'd be better for a nation to let an entire generation of theirs pass from the world than do something like that. Also, had I been the American the Israeli ambassador talked to, I'd explain politely but firmly that Israel nuking everyone would result in a few over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in the hopes they'd change their bloody minds.

3. We never hear anything about Guam, CNMI, the USVI, PR or American Samoa. Not that I expected to, but it would've been nice.

The good:

1. Seattle was well-handled! I was born in Olympia, a mere 60 miles south of Seattle, and spent most of my adult life in Seattle. He's nicely captured the attitudes and the feel of the city. It's a bad place for the military to try and run. Washington in general is, given how liberal the western side of the state is.

2. Some very vivid imagrey, particularly during the invasion of Gitmo by Hugo "Cuckoo Bananas" Chavez's military.

3. The temporary collapse in order pretty much worldwide. We can't forget the psychological implications of seeing that curtain over a large part of the world. People around the planet would be wondering when one might hit their country. Sure, by the end things have stabilized, but then the damn curtain disappears and that'll probably reignite a lot of the tensions.

There were some other minor problems, like the fact that Canada's surviving population had no real involvement in the story. I'm guessing in book two we'll have some new nation that merges the remnants of Canada and the USA, thought what will be really interesting will be seeing what comes of all that empty land that lots and lots of nations would love to have.

Anyhow, it kept me up for a couple nights, wondering and thinking and that's not a bad thing, really. :)
 

Father Maryland

RealityBYTES said:
I just finished reading "Without Warning" a few minutes ago and, I must say, it was a mostly enjoyable read, albeit dystopian in nature. (Or, in other words, thank God I wasn't in that particular timeline when the Wave hit.)

I thought the weakest parts of the book were the segments that took place aboard the Aussie Rules. I guess I'm just not that much into what happens to a particular band of smugglers in a post-Wave world.

The parts set in Hawaii, Cuba, Europe and the Middle East were winners, though. Still, I can't help but think that, in this timeline, Israel can no longer be viewed with sympathy — after all, they're now the world's most murderous nation, having annhilated between 85 million and 170 million people in the Middle East. In fact, I'm kind of surprised Russia and China simply didn't hammer Israel into oblivious immediately after the nuclear holocaust in the Middle East.

Last, but not least, I want to learn more about the Wave in "After America." C'mon. Something that nails only primates sure as hell isn't natural in nature, unless you go totally space-bat, in which case it kind of detracts from the overall story.

So, FWIW, I'd recommend "Without Warning" — with a caveat or two, as mentioned above.

RealityBYTES
Click to expand...


I don't really believe sympathy is needed. Israel in the book did what it thought it needed to do to survive. We can condemn it all we want but if any other nation was in a similar position bombs would most likely fly. I think the Chinese at this point were too busy starving and russia is in range of some of Israels longest ranged missiles.
 

gtrof

WilyBadger said:
2. Israel plays Happy Fun Nuke Time! Not buying that, either. One would hope they wouldn't do anything that insanely evil. I'd say it'd be better for a nation to let an entire generation of theirs pass from the world than do something like that. Also, had I been the American the Israeli ambassador talked to, I'd explain politely but firmly that Israel nuking everyone would result in a few over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in the hopes they'd change their bloody minds.
Click to expand...

Wily, this is the only thing I disagree with you. Israel has a complete history of striking first. 67, they wanted to in 73 but didn't for political reasons, Lebanon in the 80s and 2000s. With the US gone Israel has lost its major backer, weapon supplier, and a economic partner. The other Arab states are going crazy with the notion that Allah smashed America prior to OIF. US and UK forces deployed for OIF have their own problems and can't help them. It looks like the Iraqis, Syrians, and god only knows who else is coming. Plus no one at that point in 2003 knew Iraq's WMD program was bogus. I think a massive Israeli strike is realistic also no that American won't be around to hold them back.
 

Jack Uphill

Does it talk about the financial effects? I mean, China and Japan would be pretty much pooping their pants since the treasury bills they hold are literally just paper now. Heck, all american currency and securities are essentially paper as well.
 

Slacker

Also, did Birmo ever address Puerto Rico? It's kind of a big deal, considering its population and all, in the grand scheme of things.
 

Wanderlust

Jack Uphill said:
Does it talk about the financial effects? I mean, China and Japan would be pretty much pooping their pants since the treasury bills they hold are literally just paper now. Heck, all american currency and securities are essentially paper as well.
Click to expand...

Yes - China practically dissolves because of it, but it's not covered in much detail. Not much is said about Japan. I'm re-reading the book, so I'll come back if I missed anything.

Slacker said:
Also, did Birmo ever address Puerto Rico? It's kind of a big deal, considering its population and all, in the grand scheme of things.
Click to expand...

No, oddly :/. Probably the most major oversight, after Canadia.

Ah well, he'll probably (he'd better) address them in book 2 - details of which have been unforthcoming, as yet.
 

stirlingdraka

Donor
The sequal will be published on the 27th of July next year. It will be called After America. There will also be a third one.
 

hopper2cool

Slacker said:
Also, did Birmo ever address Puerto Rico? It's kind of a big deal, considering its population and all, in the grand scheme of things.
Click to expand...


No he clearly forgets that Puerto Rico exists. I would have removed all of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Mainly because I think the idea of Jamaica as the main Carribean power as kind of cool.
 

Grimm Reaper

According to the map Canada's total surviving population, not counting tourists/peacekeepers/etc who could well be numerous, is probably in the low hundreds of thousands at best.

WilyBadger, China and Russia probably didn't strike because the Israelis kept a few nuclear missles while the Americans couldn't threaten Israel because the chain of command was broken. Even many weeks later the commander calling for a nuclear warning strike off Venezuela isn't sure the sub he called will actually obey him.

As I interpreted the situation in France, absurd though it was, the Muslims were actually the victims of the true, far right, conspiracy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top