an alternate ww2 novel with a very particular flavor. the author is a military technology historian
and the novel focuses a great deal on the technological improvements of various
weapon systems during the war. as with most alternate history novels, this book
is more enjoyable if the reader is somewhat familiar with the real-world
timeline and events.
ww2 is perhaps the most frequent setting for alternate
history, present in every medium: we’ve
seen/read guided missile destroyers (anime/manga - "zipang"), aircraft carriers (film
- "the final countdown"), whole fleets (novels - "axis of time") or just a single
person (twilight zone – "time out") travel to the past. in this novel, the time
traveler, called a “throwback”, has very little present day technology, only
the things he carries with him habitually, but is an historian whose expertise
is the technological developments, tactics and strategies of the second world
war. wisely, the author doesn’t go into details about how the time travel is
accomplished (it was probably alien space bats :p ).
the novel follows the time traveler as he takes part in planning sessions or reviews news from the front lines, interspaced with chapters from the points of view of soldiers, both allied and axis, who use or come face to face with some of the weapons. i greatly enjoyed this set-up of alternating technical discussions and planning with riveting action scenes. my only regret is that the book seemed too short (it should have been at least twice as long).
all the developments are very plausible and are merely existing technologies that entered the war later or real world prototypes that were never pursued in our timeline (there is no future tech). the throwback is a historian, not an engineer/physicist/chemist, so he can state that centimetric radar was used to great effect in spotting submarines from planes, but he doesn’t know how to build a resonant cavity magnetron to enable this technology. the appendix of the book provides a list of all the weapons and technologies that are present in the novel along with the real-world counterparts. if this subject interests you, i can also recommend “rapid fire” by the same author; a history book documenting the development of automatic cannons and machine guns for the armies, navies and air forces of the world.
the prose is adequate and the characterization is forgettable, but neither is really the focus of the novel. i had enjoyed it a lot, but it is not everybody’s cup of tea. have you ever wondered how ww2 would have turned out had the royal air force focused less on strategic bombers and more on maritime escort planes, if the royal navy had concentrated more on aircraft carriers and fast ships instead of large caliber battleships or if britain had fortified malaya and singapore against the japanese attack? then this book is for you.
there is also a freely available sequel “foresight america”, by paul adkins written during the national novel writng month of 2006 (here all the big six nations britain, germany, soviet union, america, italy, japan get their own throwbacks), but the novel is somewhat unfinished.
the novel follows the time traveler as he takes part in planning sessions or reviews news from the front lines, interspaced with chapters from the points of view of soldiers, both allied and axis, who use or come face to face with some of the weapons. i greatly enjoyed this set-up of alternating technical discussions and planning with riveting action scenes. my only regret is that the book seemed too short (it should have been at least twice as long).
all the developments are very plausible and are merely existing technologies that entered the war later or real world prototypes that were never pursued in our timeline (there is no future tech). the throwback is a historian, not an engineer/physicist/chemist, so he can state that centimetric radar was used to great effect in spotting submarines from planes, but he doesn’t know how to build a resonant cavity magnetron to enable this technology. the appendix of the book provides a list of all the weapons and technologies that are present in the novel along with the real-world counterparts. if this subject interests you, i can also recommend “rapid fire” by the same author; a history book documenting the development of automatic cannons and machine guns for the armies, navies and air forces of the world.
the prose is adequate and the characterization is forgettable, but neither is really the focus of the novel. i had enjoyed it a lot, but it is not everybody’s cup of tea. have you ever wondered how ww2 would have turned out had the royal air force focused less on strategic bombers and more on maritime escort planes, if the royal navy had concentrated more on aircraft carriers and fast ships instead of large caliber battleships or if britain had fortified malaya and singapore against the japanese attack? then this book is for you.
there is also a freely available sequel “foresight america”, by paul adkins written during the national novel writng month of 2006 (here all the big six nations britain, germany, soviet union, america, italy, japan get their own throwbacks), but the novel is somewhat unfinished.
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