Del Rey, Jun 2004, 15.95, 434 pp.
In 2021, a 12,000 United Nations multinational military force gathers in the Pacific to end the ethnic cleansing of Chinese and Christians by a brutal Islamic Fundamentalist regime in Indonesia. However, an experiment goes awry aboard one of the ships, the Joint Research Vessel Nagoya; much of the joint task force is sent through a wormhole to 1942. Most of the vessels end up in the middle of the American fleet heading to battle off Midway Island; however some fall into the hands of the Japanese.
The two allied navies struggle to interrelate as the mid twentieth century one is 100 percent white male while the twenty-first century group is diverse and multiracial with a high percent of human females on board. When the future force fire power comes into being along with their knowledge of the war's outcome, the American navy feels confident until the reality that the crew of the USS Hilary Clinton and others has changed the future. The Japanese now sees the technological means of winning the war with the vessels they have captured.
This is an alternate history tale with battles that military science fiction readers will appreciate. The individual cast members are overshadowed by the varying collective attitudes of the future and “present” militaries. The 1940s navy is racist and sexist while the 2021 navy has women and minority in leadership positions.
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner