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A review by chrisam
Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham
4.0
This is a time travel story in which a naval experiment gone wrong catapults a group of military vessels and their crews back from the year 2021 into the Pacific War of the 1940s. A multinational force, its crew including women commanders and people of various ethnic backgrounds, runs straight into the white, male world of the US Navy as it heads for Midway Atoll. Fighting ensues. Weapons of Choice put me in mind of 'The Philadelphia Experiment' (a Navy experiment makes ships disappear and reappear at random) and a clunky 1980 film called 'The Final Countdown' where an American aircraft carrier from the (then) present day goes back to 1941.
What is John Birmingham doing here if not painting himself into a corner? If you drop modern ships into the Pacific Theatre you are going to change history; doing for the Navy what Dean McLaughlin's "Hawk among the Sparrows" did for the Air Force, only better, because McLaughlin's supersonic jet fighter was unable to get a fix on the small slow wood-and-fabric aeroplanes of World War 1, whereas here the Multinational Force, armed with long-range missiles and guns like the fearsome MetalStorm, are quite capable of putting holes in a 1940s-vintage battleship without being able to see it. This Will Change Matters, surely, and the more so once the Navy of 1942 realises the Multinational Force isn't the enemy.
The 21st century has been at war for many years: the War on Terror has spread and widened and what the MNF is doing in that part of the Pacific involves the politics of the nation we know as Indonesia. Everyone has a smartphone-like terminal linked to the ship's computers, and with it they can show the natives of the 1940s what happens in The Future. So what happens to their future now that the people in the past know all about it? And is the '1942' we see here even ours?
I liked the characterisation in this novel. Some characters make their way through the culture shock better than others, and the shock isn't always what you expect (for example the 1940s sailors rely on street-fighting skills for hand to hand combat while their 21st century counterparts were trained in much deadlier methods). Subverting cliche, many of them adjust better than expected once they realise the kind of people they are dealing with. There are a few tips of the hat - to SM Stirling's "Draka", and Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series where World War 2 is interrupted by intelligent alien lizards. Certain other historical characters get a look in also, which is partly where the book falls down - too many strands to follow, it is too long and would have benefitted from better editing - which the author has admitted elsewhere. Shortening descriptive passages and not bothering with the corridors-of-power bits would make for a tighter read.
What is John Birmingham doing here if not painting himself into a corner? If you drop modern ships into the Pacific Theatre you are going to change history; doing for the Navy what Dean McLaughlin's "Hawk among the Sparrows" did for the Air Force, only better, because McLaughlin's supersonic jet fighter was unable to get a fix on the small slow wood-and-fabric aeroplanes of World War 1, whereas here the Multinational Force, armed with long-range missiles and guns like the fearsome MetalStorm, are quite capable of putting holes in a 1940s-vintage battleship without being able to see it. This Will Change Matters, surely, and the more so once the Navy of 1942 realises the Multinational Force isn't the enemy.
The 21st century has been at war for many years: the War on Terror has spread and widened and what the MNF is doing in that part of the Pacific involves the politics of the nation we know as Indonesia. Everyone has a smartphone-like terminal linked to the ship's computers, and with it they can show the natives of the 1940s what happens in The Future. So what happens to their future now that the people in the past know all about it? And is the '1942' we see here even ours?
I liked the characterisation in this novel. Some characters make their way through the culture shock better than others, and the shock isn't always what you expect (for example the 1940s sailors rely on street-fighting skills for hand to hand combat while their 21st century counterparts were trained in much deadlier methods). Subverting cliche, many of them adjust better than expected once they realise the kind of people they are dealing with. There are a few tips of the hat - to SM Stirling's "Draka", and Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series where World War 2 is interrupted by intelligent alien lizards. Certain other historical characters get a look in also, which is partly where the book falls down - too many strands to follow, it is too long and would have benefitted from better editing - which the author has admitted elsewhere. Shortening descriptive passages and not bothering with the corridors-of-power bits would make for a tighter read.