Without Warning by John Birmingham
John Birmingham , Sci-Fi , Titan Books / January 8, 2013

In Kuwait, American forces are locked and loaded for the invasion of Iraq. In Paris, a covert agent is close to cracking a terrorist cell. And just north of the equator, a sailboat manned by a drug runner and a pirate is witness to the unspeakable. In one instant, all around the world, everything will change. A wave of inexplicable energy slams into the continental United States. America as we know it vanishes. From a Texas lawyer who happens to be in the right place at the right time to an engineer in Seattle who becomes his city’s only hope, from a combat journalist trapped in the Middle East to a drug runner off the Mexican coast, Without Warning tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality.  Genre wise, Without Warning could probably best be described as a bit of a hybrid. It takes the best elements from a standard Clancy-esque thriller as well as a nice, inexplicable science-fiction macguffin and throws them together to create a page turning mash-up of the two. Events begin to unfold in an alternate 2003. Large portions of the US Military are poised to invade Iraq when in a…