History Literature / AxisOfTime

Birmingham is now continuing the story with a series of novellas called ''Stalin's Hammer''.

* FrenchJerk: Subverted ''and'' played straight-- most of the captured French missile frigate's crew puts up major resistance against the Nazis, wiping data and sabotaging what they can get their hands on, and all of them but four die for it--and the one actively collaborating is a racist, ultranationalist, insubordinate, sloppy disgrace of a sailor who wants to avert America's rise to power, [[InsaneTrollLogic blaming them for the Islamic riots and terrorist attacks in France]]. The other two are implied to be neo-Nazis. The last sailor says he's getting revenge for his sister, who was raped and murdered by two US Marines, [[spoiler:except that's a lie. His sister's alive and married to J. Lonesome Jones. He sabotages almost the rest of the missiles for the strike on Hawai'i, but fails to get the last few and blows the racist's head off before Hidaka guns him down.]]

** Thanks to future data, he has also eliminated many capable commanders, including Rommel.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Hoover resorts to more and more of this as his standing erodes away, as does the FrenchJerk who helps the Japanese [[spoiler:attack Hawai'i]]. The latter reasons that America's politicking and crusading against Muslims flooded France with ultraconservative jihadi in retaliation, never mind that France has had a long history of bad relations with Muslims themselves. He is stated to be wrong as ''hell''.

** JerkWithAHeartOfGold: The former softens up, and the latter [[spoiler:attempts to defend Hawai'i during the invasion.]]

** ''USS Amanda L Garrett'', the ship that get transported near Antartica and sunk minutes after the Transition is named after the [[Literature/AmandaGarrettSeries Amanda Lee Garrett novel series]], the first book taking place in Antartica.

** ''USS Amanda L Garrett'', the ship that get transported near Antartica and sunk minutes after the Transition is named after the [[Literature/AmandaLeeGarrettSeries Amanda Lee Garrett novel series]], the first book taking place in Antartica.

** USS Amanda L Garrett, the ship that get transported near Antartica and sunk minutes after the Transition is named after the Amanda Lee Garrett novel series, the first book taking place in Antartica.

* TykeBomb:

* AlternateHistory: The most important seafaring vessel is the USS ''Hillary Clinton'', named after the assassinated president. Plausible in 2004, when the first book was published; not so plausible in the wake of Clinton's defeat in the 2016 election.
** The 'future' War on Terror as described in the books is much more extensive than in real life. In addition to the Iraq occupation, by 2021 the US and allies have also warred with Syria and Yemen, defeated attempted Chinese invasions of Taiwan and Siberia, and developed more advanced military and medical technology. Jihadi influence is also stronger worldwide, with Indonesia collapsing into civil war at the start of the series.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: After the HMAS ''Havoc'' lets a Japanese kamikaze-carrier live, allowing it to destroy a Soviet A-bomb facility, the sub quickly sinks the carrier, ''after'' receiving a message about the ceasefire. Also a case of removing witnesses, as the sub lingers to make sure there are no survivors.

* DefectorFromDecadence: Colonel/Major General Paul Brasch is horrified to learn about the Holocaust when analyzing history documents aboard one of the captured future vessels, especially since his son has a cleft palate and was born deaf, and will be an easy target for the T4 program. his child and wife escape thanks to an allied spy's effort. In response, he sabotages much of Germany's efforts to build new weapons based on the future tech.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The cause of a lot of tension between the racially and gender-egalitarian 2021 military and their 1940's counterparts. For starters, a fight breaks out on board a future ship and contemporary ship that ended up fused together via NegativeSpaceWedgie when, in the aftermath of a firefight, a female medic slaps one of the contemporary crew members when he indirectly asks for blood that doesn't come from a non-white person (a disproportionate number of the future ship's crew are either black or Chinese-American).

* FrenchJerk: Subverted ''and'' played straight--the captured French missile frigate puts up a major resistance against the Nazis, wiping data and sabotaging what they can get their hands on, and all of them but four die for it--and the one actively collaborating is a racist, ultranationalist, insubordinate, sloppy disgrace of a sailor who wants to avert America's rise to power, [[InsaneTrollLogic blaming them for the Islamic riots and terrorist attacks in France]]. The other two are implied to be neo-Nazis. The last sailor says he's getting revenge for his sister, who was raped and murdered by two US Marines, [[spoiler:except that's a lie. His sister's alive and married to J. Lonesome Jones. He sabotages almost the rest of the missiles for the strike on Hawai'i, but fails to get the last few and blows the racist's head off before Hidaka guns him down.]]

* InsaneTrollLogic: Hoover resorts to more and more of this as his standing erodes away, as does the FrenchJerk who helps the Japanese [[spoiler:attack Hawai'i]]. The latter reasons that America's politicking and crusading against Muslims flooded France with ultraconservative jihadi in retaliation, never mind that France has had a long, long history of abusing muslims themselves. He is stated to be wrong as ''hell''.

* WorldWarThree: With Stalin determined to avoid the mistakes of the past (e.g. a prolonged UsefulNotes/ColdWar), it seems inevitable that it will inevitably happen. [[spoiler:The Cold War goes hot near the end of ''Stalin's Hammer'', although it's not nuclear year]].

* CutHimselfShaving: After capturing Jisaku Hidaka, who's responsible for killing nearly 90% of the population of Hawaii, Kolhammer and Jones discuss what to do about him. Both really want to Sanction 5 him (a truly monstrous way of execution uniquely designed for a person), but Kolhammer convinces Jones to hand him over to the 'temps to stand trial. They do, however, have a female marine do a ''Sanction 3'' on him (a brutal beat-down) before giving him to Spruance. Later, Spruance asks about Hidaka's injuries. Kolhammer calmly says that Hidaka fell. Jones adds that he fell a lot. Naturally, Spruance is unconvinced but lets it slide. When Jones asks why Kolhammer lied, Kolhammer points out that Hidaka did fall a lot... as he was being beaten. Had Spruance directly asked him if Hidaka was sanctioned, then Kolhammer would tell him the truth, but Sprunace didn't want to know the answer. Oh, and Hidaka himself said the same thing when asked, embarassed at his dishonorable capture (he was [[ADateWithRosiePalms taken captive while masturbating]]) and a beatdown by a woman.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: An alternate future version of Prince Harry who travels back in time to a point where his [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII grandmother]] is a teenager. This Harry is extremely mature and excels in leadership. He's also not married to Creator/MeghanMarkle, but there's no way the author could have known that.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: An alternate future version of Prince Harry who travels back in time to a point where his [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen grandmother]] is a teenager. This Harry is extremely mature and excels in leadership. He's also not married to Creator/MeghanMarkle, but there's no way the author could have known that.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Right after the Multinational Force gets sent back in time, one of the contemporary ships, spotting a Japanese flag, believes them to be hostile and opens fire. It's mentioned the crew noted the flag was "different from the Rising Sun, but the red circle on a field of white was unmistakable". While the State of Japan has changed their flag, the Japanese Navy continues using the Rising Sun and thus should not have been flying anything different from Imperial Japanese ships in 1942.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

* IWantMyJetpack: Year 2021 has come and gone, and widespread use of weaponized lasers, futuristic pulse rifles, fusion warheads, holographic displays, cybernetics, artificial intelligence or any other technological wonders that UN PRO FLEET brought with them to WW2 is still nowhere near in sight.

* PortalCut: The HMS ''Fearless'' is at the very edge of the expanded wormhole and gets cut in half by the Transition. Its boilers blow up a few minutes later when all that seawater rushes in. The explosion itself is not strong enough to destroy the ship, but it ignites ammo storage not far from there, which in turn ignites missile magazine, which in turn ignites propellant gas tanks, [[ChainReactionDestruction which in turn...]] Well, it's easy to guess what happens.

* NotSoDifferent: Quite a few 'temps comment on the field executions of Japanese personnel and burying procedures mirroring the Japanese's own methods.
** There is the subtle difference that under their rules of engagement, the uptimers are required to thoroughly document evidence of war crimes before summarily executing the criminals, and if a review of that evidence were to show that execution was unjustified, they would theoretically be executed themselves.

** As per NotSoDifferent above, the mass execution and burial of Japanese [=POWs=].

* WorldWarThree: With Stalin determined to avoid the mistakes of the past (e.g. a prolonged ColdWar), it seems inevitable that it will inevitably happen. [[spoiler:The Cold War goes hot near the end of ''Stalin's Hammer'', although it's not nuclear year]].

** The HMS ''Trident'''s Combat Intelligence is nicknamed "Posh" and, according to Halabi, speaks with a "flawless imitation" of the ship's previous captain, [[Music/SpiceGirls Lady Beckham]].

* [[NamesTheSame Name's Almost The Same]]: The Captain of a new experimental stealth ship named after a major WWII turning point is a black person with the name of "Da____ Anderson." Are we talking about Captain Daytona Anderson of the ''USS Leyte Gulf'' or [[Franchise/MassEffect Captain David Anderson of the ''SSV Normandy?'']]

** Lt. Ali Moertopo, the first mate of the Indonesian corvette ''KRI Sutanto'' mentions that their president bought thirty-nine such ships some time ago. In reality, ''Parchim''-class corvette's entire batch was twenty-eight units (twelve ships built in USSR and sixteen ships built in GDR -- the latter ones were indeed sold later to Indonesia).

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: An alternate future version of Prince Harry who travels back in time to a point where his [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen grandmother]] is a teenager. This Harry is extremely mature and excels in leadership.