British author John Birmingham was on vacation back at the beginning of this century when he heard a comment from someone that they “wished America would just disappear.”  That comment sparked an idea that he put into play in his new trilogy of books that begins with Without Warning.

In early 2003, American forces are poised to invade Iraq. The war on terror is in full swing, with agents planted in Europe, trying to get a handle on terrorist cells there.  Guantanamo Bay is receiving “prisoners” on a regular basis.  Suddenly, a mysterious energy wave covers North America, seeming to wipe out every human and animal under its cloud.  This covers most of the continental United States with the exception of Seattle (Hawaii and Alaska likewise remain untouched), most of Canada with the exception of the Northwest, a good part of Mexico, and into the Caribbean, splitting the island of Cuba itself.  Indeed, it almost seems like the base at Guantanamo Bay is on the front line of this wave.

The result is chaos around the globe.  The United States is left without any leadership.  Following the chain of command, there’s one Cabinet member who was traveling who could be put in place except she wasn’t born in the country.  The generals from Tommy Franks to the heads of bases on Guantanamo, near Seattle, and in Hawaii, try to figure out what to do, but especially in Seattle, this doesn’t sit well with the remaining citizenry.  There, one City Engineer begins to rise as he is whisked from his hiking vacation to try to keep the city in some kind of order, and manages to rebuff attempts by the Army to run roughshod over them.

In Europe, chaos results as militant Muslim immigrants in various countries take the disappearance as a sign and rise up.  Food supplies begin to run short as well.  Toxic rain falls and the cities are covered in pollution as the cities in the U.S. still under the cloud go up in flames and power plants explode.  South America descends into chaos as well.  One opportunistic smuggler thinks they can make out good on the deal, only to learn the hard way it’s a new world entirely.  And Israel now feels it has no choice but to do the inconceivable to survive.

It’s hard not to read Without Warning and come away with mixed feelings.  It would seem to be Birmingham’s argument that the U.S. has done much to keep order in the world up until now, without addressing the damage that the United States acting as the world’s policeman has caused as well.  It also buys into the thought process that “See, without the U.S. you’d just have all these Muslim terrorists destroying the world.”  It’s quite the argument that the world needs the United States, whether they want to admit it or not.

However, I think just taking the United States out of the mix at a time when many of us here in the States have misgivings about the actions that were taken really provides some great fodder for a story.  If it can be regarded just as such, a fantasy of sorts, I found it quite enjoyable.  However, there are too many people out there right now who still want to lap up the jingoistic politics that exists that paints us in quite a different light than we are regarded by the rest of the world.  They will see something like Without Warning as the type of literature that reinforces their beliefs, rather than the fantasy couched in a bit of reality that it is, sort of a 24 for literature. 

The characters are interesting.  Many of them could have more depth to them.  In this way, I found Birmingham could be like the other alternate history author I love, Harry Turtledove.  He hammers certain points home again and again while not letting us get to know more about them.  The character of Caitlin, an agent undercover in Europe, is subjected to horrific torture and violence, and it’s hard to really get to feel for her.  At the same time, he manages to couch the characters’ motives pretty well though.  One character who seemed like an opportunistic lawyer who was just in the right place at the right time turned out to be something quite different than I expected. 

Birmingham certainly has no love for military leaders, although he seems to give balance to them that works.  Where the General in Seattle, Blackstone, seems to want nothing more than to grab all the power he can, Franks and others are a bit more pragmatic.  Still, there is a definite feeling that the military wants to take over in the wake of what’s happened and the citizens push back.  This has enough of a real feel to it, especially after living through 9/11 and the push to strangle our civil liberties in this country.

In his Axis of Time series that I read previously, one thing I really enjoyed was Birmingham’s attention to detail in terms of the military and the weaponry.  That’s here too, although not quite as prevalent as it was in that series.  Still, for those who like that bit of detail, it’s here.

The pace to this was good, until I got to the end.  There’s a jump in time to preface the next book in the series, After America, that feels like a bit too much of a jump.  Still, it whets the appetite for what’s to come.  I still prefer his first series, Axis of Time, over this.  The first book in that series grabbed me quite a bit more than Without Warning did.  Still, I enjoyed this in terms of alternate history fiction and will no doubt continue the series.

Next book in the series: