Without Warning
by John Birmingham
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Book Summary Information
Author: John BirminghamEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-07-06
ISBN: 0345502906
Number of pages: 533
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Without Warning
Book Review: If you want The Stand: Part II, then just go read Cronin's The Passage and skip Without Warning.
Summary: 3 Stars
Without Warning opens with a super-secret spy, Caitlin. I thought this was strange beginning and it really set the book off on a bad start for me. I mean, I guess it's just because I'm an American, but if a book is going to use the premise (and focus) of America's destruction I think the obliteration of America should have been the focal point of at least the first 1/4 of the book, not setting up a confusing sequence of a super-secret spy.
Okay, so America is destroyed by a "Wave," but Birmingham doesn't seem to want us to understand the wave at all. Nothing is really ever mentioned about the wave besides the fact that it showed up all of a sudden, encompasses all of the continental United States except for Seattle, WA-and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba-and everything carbon-based except for plants were reduced to smoldering scraps by it. Beyond that, it seems as though Birmingham simply didn't want us to know what the heck was going on, or didn't feel like talking to a scientific researcher about what a possible wave like this could do or be caused by. (Even Stephen King's Under the Dome premise of "aliens did it" idea would've been palatable, but no explanation?).
The problem with Without Warning, besides the fact that the Wave is never explained, is that the storylines are by and large "ho hum" boring, without much in the way of verisimilitude (A super human assassin that is viewed as a "blur" to "mere mortals?") and often I found myself skipping ahead (or past entire parts of a given person/group of people's story) desperately searching for something to fascinate me and pull me back into the novel. The novel felt like several mini-novels slapped into one semi-coherent book.
However, I did really enjoy Birmingham's geopolitical/sociological/economical portrayals of the world after America's destruction much more than the action sequences. From the U.S. dollar eroding into worthlessness, to in-fighting between the military and civilian police forces in Seattle, it was amazing and really hit me with realism. As a former soldier, I can totally see clashes between police chiefs and Army colonels over how to handle food rationing, curfews, and the like.
Speaking of the military, the jargon is laid on really, really thick, and had I not spent 4 1/2 years in the Army, I'd have been truly lost through some parts of the novel, where Birmingham waxed lengthy on things such as "NBC gear", which to a civilian might sound like swag from the National Broadcasting Company, but is instead one of many, many military acronyms, and refers to Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical gear (Also known as MOPP gear). Speaking of MOPP gear, Birmingham uses that acronym 3 pages later, when referring to the same gear as he did before. MOPP is an acronym for Mission Oriented Protective Posture, and is associated with certain levels (e.g., MOPP Level 3 dictates the wearing of boots, and gloves, but not hood). Birmingham writes scenes with so much of this jargon that at times I had to scratch my head and wonder how he expected anyone who hasn't been in the military to be able to follow the personal, important dialogue between characters when it was bogged down with acronyms. However, it seemed to me that this novel suffers from good characters with muddled interactions. And the acronyms are only a small part of that. As an example: In the middle of a fire fight, with bullets zinging over head, grenades exploding near by, and typical urban warfare occurring around them, the journalist character asks the soldier he's hunkered down with if he has any "chew." True, "chew" or "dip" is really popular in the Army and military, and putting some lines in the book about lends itself to authenticity. This is a conversation that could undoubtedly occur between two soldiers, but including it in this particular instance (particularly when the unit was quite obviously losing the battle) was just all wrong from this veteran's standpoint.
And if seeming authentic was good enough for me, I'd be fine. But John Birmingham goes too far, too often, and it seems like he's just trying too hard in some aspects (acronyms and out-of-place dialogue), and just ignoring other aspects completely. Like the damn wave. Yes, the thing that was the crux of America's destruction, the thing that wiped out 300 million people in an instant, the thing that changed the entire world for generations to come. That thing that Birmingham's fictional scientists work only for a few pages, haphazardly and ambivalently, to try to figure out. You'd think that someone from Japan, or China, or somewhere would spend some time trying to actually study the wave, beyond just flying unmanned assault vehicles through it and remarking about how empty everything looks. Instead, that entire possible storyline is largely ignored, and we're expected to read on as if it was completely plausible that this strange force just obliterated people out of nowhere. And why were there only some peoples' clothing smoldering on the ground? Since Birmingham wanted to forgo the more traditional country-obliterating nuclear attack (Sum of All Fears) in favor of this more outlandish idea then, in this reviewer's opinion, he owes us some explanation!
Summary of Without Warning
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 runner and a pirate is witness to the unspeakable. In one instant, all around the world, everything will change. A wave of inexplicable energy slams into the continental United States. America as we know it vanishes. From a Texas lawyer who happens to be in the right place at the right time to an engineer in Seattle who becomes his city?s only hope, from a combat journalist trapped in the Middle East to a drug runner off the Mexican coast, Without Warning tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality.Literature & Fiction Books
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