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Stalin's Hammer

The Axis of Time Series

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Stalin's Hammer

By: John Birmingham
Narrated by: Jay Snyder
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About this listen

Ten years have passed since Admiral Kolhammer's 21st-century battlefleet was dragged into a wormhole and thrown across oceans of time, emerging with disastrous consequences and shattering the history of the Second World War.

Hitler and the Nazis have fallen, but Stalin rules half of Europe and Asia. The great Soviet engines of state power turn and burn to 'set history right'. Not just of the war, but of all future time.

In Rome with his lover, Julia Duffy, an older, mellower Prince Harry is drawn into Stalin's plans when a simple game of spies goes horribly wrong. Underneath the eternal city, former Spetsnaz officer Pavel Ivanov fights a running battle with the NKVD's executioner in chief as Stalin's minions fight to preserve the secret of a weapon that could destroy the West with one fearsome blow.

Moving from Rome to Paris to Cairo, Harry and the uptimers must fight a shadow war against the communist superstate and the suspicion and prejudices of their forebears. They can save the world, but the world does not want saving by the likes of them.

"A weapons-grade military techno-thriller.... It's like a Clive Cussler novel fell into a transporter beam with a Stephen Ambrose history, and they came out all fused together." (Time magazine, on the original Axis of Time series)

©2016 John Birmingham (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Science Fiction Fiction War Stalin Military Middle East Rome

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Critic reviews

"Birmingham sets new standards in alternate history, time travel, and sheer dancing-on-the-edge-of-the lava gonzo inventiveness. Solid and wild at the same time." (S. M. Stirling, author of Dies the Fire)
All stars
Most relevant
John Birmingham... I hate you. I now have to get the next one... but where is it?... The story rolls on without slackening but without losing its edge or drifting into a mediocre storyline..... off to spend a credit to fill the time

Getting thete

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This book picks up the storyline of the original novels 10 years on. Whilst there is a big picture story/plot the narrative is mostly about small-scale actions. The descriptions of violence are frequent and graphically gory, which I found off-putting. The focus on Harry seems excessive, but despite these issues I enjoyed the book and hood there is another instalment, since the alternative history premise is fascinating, the plot twist at the end was good.

Not as good as the original trilogy but a great listen nevertheless

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A fabulous series, compelling characters, a fantastic story, preformed exceptionally well, the interconnected characters, times and mashup of “uptime” ideas and “temp” realities works perfectly. More please!

History re-written with hindsight

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The idea is interesting but ti felt it was underused.
The first half of the book is hard to get trough mostly because of the forceful use of slang and the awful narration.
All the 'guvnor's are so cringeworthy that i almost gave up.
Thankfully by the second half it gets dropped and most of the characters are killed out of the nowhere.
Overall it is a fail for me.

Could have been good

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