2003: In Paris, an assassin wakes from a coma. In Kuwait, American forces are assembled for their invasion of Iraq. In the pristine forest of the Cascades, a lone hiker watches a plane fly into the side of a mountain. And just north of the Equator, a modern-day pirate, a rogue Tasmanian, is witness to the unspeakable. A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into America. And destroyed it. In one instant, all around the world, from Cairo to Canberra, things will never be the same. Now, allied soldiers are fighting a war without command; a correspondent files a story for a newspaper that no longer exists. The line of Presidential succession is in tatters; the functioning remnants of government are in Pearl Harbor, Guantanamo Bay, and one desperate, isolated corner of the Pacific Northwest. For the jihadists, Allah has performed a miracle. For Sadaam, it is a chance for revenge. Iran declares war, but on an America that doesn't exist, except in the hearts and souls of the men and women who want it to. For US allies, Armageddon has arrived. Israel acts. Australasia, far from the noxious waste darkening Europe's skies, beckons as a possible oasis. Without Warning tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality. Here is a world without its sheriff, its Great Satan, or its saviour...
Industry Reviews
Birmingham (Final Impact, 2007, etc.) begins a new apocalyptic science-fiction trilogy.In 2003, as U.S. forces gather to invade Iraq, a teardrop-shaped field engulfs most of the continental United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Inside the field, animals and people are reduced to puddles of goo. After this desperately hard-to-swallow event, the author follows the adventures of a select group of individuals. In Seattle, the only U.S. metropolis outside the zone of death, city engineer James Kipper struggles to maintain order and essential services against terrified rioters and a threatened army coup. In Hawaii, Admiral James Ritchie marshals the largest surviving concentration of American naval power against - what? In Guantanamo, General Tusk Musso finds himself cooperating with what's left of Cuba's army. At Coalition headquarters in Qatar, army journalist Bret Melton struggles to understand what's happened and fears what might come. In Paris, secret agent and assassin Caitlin Monroe wakes, bewildered, in a hospital, to find that her jihadi-terrorist target has vanished and she has developed a brain tumor. In the Pacific, Pete Holder's cheerful band of smugglers board the vast, opulent, now-deserted yacht of Aussie golf legend Greg Norman and wonder how to keep what they've grabbed while surviving attacks by pirates and renegade Peruvians. The situation deteriorates rapidly: Israel unleashes its nukes; France succumbs to a fifth-column - inspired civil war; Britain barricades itself; and what's left of America considers how to choose a new chief executive and survive with dignity - but above all, survive. The implicit assumption is that humanity's worst instincts will surface.Narrated with crisp, fluid expertise, Birmingham's ultrabloody and violent yarn exerts a dreadful, morbid fascination. Three volumes of this should satisfy the most avid cravings. (Kirkus Reviews)
