Without Warning

By: John Birmingham

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad, as the world waits for war, a miles-high energy wave cordons a vast area from southern Canada to northern Mexico. In a moment, 99 percent of the U.S. population has been wiped from the face of the earth.

To fill the vacuum, heroes rise to meet the unimaginable challenges of the city of Seattle: James Kipper, chief engineer of the city of Seattle and Caitlin Monroe are on the trail of a Muslim fanatic ready to take advantage of what becomes known as The Disappearance, while General Tusk Musso and Admiral James Ritchie try desperately to keep the peace in a world gone mad with fear.

©2009 John Birmingham (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Solid, entertaining listen

Really a compelling listen. Tense, exciting writing, hard to put down. Author's choice of characters was unique and a bit unexpected, but managed to tie things together at the end. Epilogue was somewhat of a letdown... the huge mystery was left unrevealed, but I understand there are sequels in the works.
Narration was a bit gruff, but it worked for most of the characters.

End of the World?

I like John Birmingham's work--crazy Aussie. It's exciting. While this book postulates the end of 98% of the USA by a strange thing, the idea is well developed and the author offers several political, social, legal and economic vignettes that could result from massive loss like that. I found the several parallel stories fascinating. I'll read the next book in the trilogy.

Once I started reading I couldn't stop

This story is like a combination of Stephen King's Under The Dome and a Tom Clancy political thriller. And the "wave" seems like something from Left Behind. This story is something like all of all those together. My favorite characters so far are Jedd and, of course, Kipp. I am on to book two now and I am excited to see where things end up in book 3.

not what I expected but very good!

A really fun, maybe not fun but interesting book. It sucks you in and has some neat twists to it. I'm glad the whole trilogy is out - don't want to wait months to keep moving with the story.

Come on 20th, where is that new credit ...

Truely without warning!

The charactor and acton had depth but the story jump toward the end, There seem to be parts missing or edited out. The last few chapters jump in time and the end was so abrupt it was disappointing.