Stalin’s Hammer: Rome, by John Birmingham

A failure to realise that the Stalin trilogy of novellas was a follow-up to the Axis of Time trilogy of novels meant the first couple of chapters of Rome were largely incomprehensible. A prologue would have been useful for the stupid and the unwary. Fortunately the story soon takes over and it zips along, with only the occasional time travel reference causing confusion. Birmingham is a warfare hardware nerd. His gun descriptions are far too precise for the average reader, but they no doubt tickle the fancy of fellow nerds. Fortunately his engaging writing style and well-drawn, layered characters are more than sufficient to keep the ignorant interested. Several questions occur around the development of this alt-history post WWII, such as how the technology introduced by ‘uptimers’ evolved so fast and how one of them became US president within 10 years of arrival from the future. Likely most of them would not be an issue for those who have read the Axis books, although the presence and demeanour of Prince Harry still takes some explaining. Even without the useful foreknowledge Stalin’s Hammer: Rome is a good read, which whets the appetite for the next two – Cairo and Paris. It is probably a good idea to get hold of the Axis of Time books first though to catch up on the back story.