3 Stars
In his Axis of Time trilogy, Australian author John Birmingham wondered what might have happened had a near-future military experiment accidentally sent a 21st-century armada back in time to the Second World War. In Without Warning, the first volume of a new series, he ups the ante by destroying most of North America through a mysterious "Wave" of energy that liquefies all large animals and apparently settles permanently upon the continent. This inexplicable event, dubbed the Disappearance, occurs without warning one day in March 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.
Immediately things fall apart into a nasty and brutish war of all against all, and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, complete with prominent quotation of Hobbes and Yeats. The effects of the Disappearance ripple around the globe, as uncontrollable fires burning in depopulated North American cities cast a toxic shroud across the northern hemisphere, the global economy is shocked to the point of collapse, and countries large and small recalculate their interests and options in light of the new global balance of power. Even for those spared by the Wave itself, there can be no shelter from its fallout.
Without Warning is divided into three parts, the first set on the day of the Disappearance, the next a week later, and the third a month later. This structure allows Birmingham to keep the story moving without sacrificing his detailed style and many plot lines. He uses a sprawling cast of characters scattered across the world, with the unfortunate result that they all end up being rather cartoonish. The worst is Caitlin Monroe, assassin and superspy in the mold of Jason Bourne, who has to combat a downright farcical plot to take over France in the name of Islam. Veteran war reporter Bret Melton is somewhat similar, though he at least gets a few decent chapters in between being blown up.
The most promising plot line is that of Seattle civil engineer James Kipper, who struggles to restrain mass hysteria near the edge of the Wave, at the same time pushing back against attempts to impose order through heavy-handed military rule. But his story also veers to the ridiculous once he hooks up with the slick "fixer" Jed Culver, who is searching for a suitably Presidential figure to stitch together the remnants of the United States. Other central characters include the general in charge of Guantanamo Bay, the admiral in charge of Pearl Harbor, and, of course, a rag-tag crew of smugglers with hearts of gold -- the surfer bum, the redneck runaway, the aristocratic expat, the tenth-generation Chinese pirate, and their ever-growing crowd of hired guns and hangers-on.
Though the mechanics of Birmingham's writing seem to have improved, on the whole Without Warning is weaker than his Axis of Time books, where he at least had some historical constraints to guide him. Even expecting fluff, it was hard for me to stop rolling my eyes, which interfered with the apocalyptic mood Birmingham sometimes tried to establish. Still, fluff has its place, and I expect to read future volumes in the series, though I'll probably get them from the library.
(3 February 2009)
