Without Warning

by John Birmingham

Book Overview

In Kuwait, American forces are locked and loaded for the invasion of Iraq. In Paris, a covert agent is close to cracking a terrorist cell. And just north of the equator, a sailboat manned by a drug... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345502892
• ISBN13: 9780345502896
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 516 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Birmingham's best novel yet

I just finished reading the book as I am writing this review and I find myself compelled to note that it is Birmingham's best novel so far. The mix of characters and stories in the novel include some fairly common folk in extraordinary situations and Birminham brings them alive with an almost disturbing accuracy. I have no doubt that some readers will see themselves in aspects of some of these characters. I also have no doubt, that like me, many readers will pre-order the sequel, "After America". I suppose simply saying that I'll be pre-ordering the sequel is review enough!

A disturbing and thoughtful -- but very entertaining -- apocalypse

"Without Warning" is a science fiction/military fiction hybrid in the "kicking over anthills" school of thought (see also "Dies the Fire" by S.M. Stirling), where the author make some enormous change to the world and then lets things plays out as they may. It is not strictly alternate history, although some may categorize it as such. The premise is very simple: an energy field of unknown origin wipes out all life - and makes impenetrable - the majority of North America. In one fell swoop, the United States is no more. What happens to the rest of the world, including the remnants of the USA (mostly the military, ex-pats, and citizens of Hawaii, Alaska, and Seattle, which are outside the field)? The book follows several groups of people as they make their way in this new world, including portions of the military, an ex-war reporter working for the BBC, the Seattle city engineer, a group of opportunistic pirates (almost, but not quite, with hearts of gold, of course!) and other various dramatis personae from around the world. Most fiction of this type doesn't deal with the in-depth motives of the players or deep character development, preferring to focus on the nitty-gritty of "what happens" and of course, action sequences. Rest assured, there is plenty of both -- excellent scenes of military activity, fighting, and general "weapons and warfare" goodness, but also a nice attention to some of the wider geo-political consequences of the excision of America from the globe (including the internal political struggles in what is left of the USA). In short, everything goes to hell (what else did you expect) but the specific descriptions and vignettes of various disasters, such as the descent into madness in Acapulco, the initial "day after" in Paris, and a horrifying series of events in the Middle East right out of some "end of days" preacher's fantasy should give pause to nearly any reader, and certainly had me alternating between deep thought and plain old chills. This is a damn good book, and anyone who enjoys military science fiction ought to enjoy it. There wasn't much I didn't like, although I would have liked perhaps a little more description of the wave itself, and its actual causes and effects, beyond a few early glimpses. This isn't a deal-killer by a long shot, the book isn't about the energy wave itself, except as a plot device -- the story is what happens to the rest of the world (and I suspect the wave itself will get further attention in future books in the series). "Without Warning" is highly recommended.

Birmo does it again!

In "Without Warning" John Birmingham once again presents us with a very real, very human, and very believable "alternate" world. This time, instead of 21st century battle fleets being thrown back through time to win World War Two, the premise of this tale is what would happen if the United States suddenly - and Without Warning - simply went away? In the blink of an eye, some unexplainable event causes every human being in the US (and in most of both Canada and Mexico) to simply cease to exist. The surviving Americans are stunned. The rest of world is either stunned or celebrating - at least for the moment. Then the real meat of the tale is served up - what would happen in the rest of the world if the biggest military power and the biggest economic power was gone? Chaos, collapse, disorder, violence and suffering - among other things - is the answer. The detailing of which is where this book excels. And it's not just the detailing of the technical aspects - though there is that aplenty. Some have said that John Birmingham delivers up a "Clancy-esque" thriller. I disagree. It would have been to easy for Birmingham to have simply spewed reams of precise militaristic sounding facts and figures into page after page (after page) and call that fiction writing, as does Clancy. What John Birmingham has done instead is to strike a far better balance by keeping the tech-level present but not overwhelming while he sticks to telling his tale about the people involved. Not the machines, not the functioning of the machines but of what happens to the people in this scenario. That's what makes this tale engaging and keeps it compelling. There are no one dimensional characters in this tale and there's damn few two dimensional ones either. John Birmingham does an excellent job of fleshing out his characters, making them fully three dimensional so that they become real to us and thus they draw us in ever deeper to the tale he is telling through them. This book makes for a romping read. Its premise is fascinating and its detailing of that premise is enlightening. His characters and the plights they find themselves in are what makes this tale work and it is the tale of those characters who provide the richest rewards in having read through John Birmingham's latest great book. I highly recommend this one!

Epic in Scope

The scope of Without Warning is epic in scale and John Birmingham weaves many complex threads into a satisfying whole in this ambitious effort. Sure, there is the requisite "explodey goodness" that was at the center of his Axis of Time trilogy but this outing is clearly more character driven and, because Without Warning is set in our world, it makes for a far more accessible and satisfying read. The scope of the disaster is so overwhelming that the sheer scope of the plot could have easily gotten away from Birmingham. His decision to tell the story from the viewpoint of geographically divergent characters that have independent (and sometimes conflicting) story lines allows him to explore various facets of the impact of the loss of America in a coherent way. You see the story play out through the eyes of a city engineer in Seattle, pirates off the coast of South America, an embed reporter in the Middle East covering Desert Storm and a deep cover spy tracking a terrorist in Paris. Additionally, I found that the inclusion of real world figures as central characters, in particular General Tommy Franks, provided a nice counterpoint to the fictional characters. The depiction of, and actions taken by, the character Franks (and the US military), post-wave, rang true to me. There are other real life characters depicted but I wouldn't want to spoil any surprises. When I first read this novel the most immediate comparison that came to mind was the Stephen King classic The Stand. I know that this comparison will draw the ire of many but the sheer scale of the plot coupled with the vivid, well executed characters begs for the comparison. This is John Birmingham's breakout novel and I predict that Without Warning will appeal to more mainstream thriller readers (as well as his core military SF fans that loved Axis of Time) and will be a bestseller.

An unparalleled universe

Without Warning explores what would happen if, in the buildup to the Gulf War, all of contiguous USA, apart from a sliver of the Pacific Northwest, had suddenly disappeared behind a mysterious shroud that kills all behind it. Luckily, all is not lost, as some of Canada and Mexico are also impacted. Without Warning explores the state of the planet at intervals of time following the immediate aftermath. Birmingham's character development is peerless, as the reader can't help but relate to the players, through whose eyes we see the unfolding new socio-economic order, as old friends, enemies or even high-school adversaries. If you liked Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy but struggled to keep track of all the players, you'll be pleasantly surprised with Without Warning, where the emphasis is clearly on the quality of character development rather than quantity. Without Warning also has less military-porn, but still had enough old-fashioned explodey goodness to keep this aficionado reading well past bedtime. Birmingham's wicked sense of humour again permeates his work, so keep an eye out for the many Easter Eggs he has scattered through the pages. My only criticism is that it needed more sausage references.