Background
John Birmingham was born on August 7, 1964, in Liverpool, United Kingdom. He migrated to Australia with his parents in 1970. He grew up in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.
2002
John Birmingham speaking
2009
429 11th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States
John Birmingham at the New York Comic Con at the Javits Exhibition Center in February 2009.
2011
John Birmingham at 2011 National Young Writers' Month.
2016
John Birmingham at 2016 The National Summer Learning Association.
John Birmingham
Merivale St & Glenelg Street, South Brisbane QLD 4101, Australia
John Birmingham at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.
48-50 George St, Parramatta NSW 2150, Australia
John Birmingham at Infinitas Bookshop.
48-50 George St, Parramatta NSW 2150, Australia
John Birmingham at Infinitas Bookshop.
John Birmingham
John Birmingham with Kristina Shulz and Greg Bain.
John Birmingham
16 Mary St, Woodend QLD 4305, Australia
St Edmund's College where John Birmingham studied.
The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia
The University of Queensland where John Birmingham studied.
(These are the memoirs of 29-year-old John Birmingham, who...)
These are the memoirs of 29-year-old John Birmingham, who has shared houses and apartments with 89 people and kept notes on all of them. The story consists of a collection of colorful anecdotes about living in share houses in Brisbane and other cities in Australia with variously dubious housemates. The title refers to a deceased heroin addict found in one such house.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0152VPD08/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(Can a bunch of hapless losers hope to defeat such an unho...)
Can a bunch of hapless losers hope to defeat such an unholy alliance? When JB and his flatmates took in the new guy, they had their doubts. The Celine Dion albums, the fluffy hordes of stuffed animals and the plastic-covered floral-pattern love seat should have set their threat detectors singing. But nobody was paying attention. Within days their house had become a swirling maelstrom of death metal junkies and Drug War narcs, stolen goods and hired goons, Tasmanian Babes, karate dykes, evil yuppies, dopey greens and the Sandmen of the Terror Data. Now the flatmates have one week to sober up, find two thousand dollars and catch the runaway new guy before Pauline Hanson, the federal government, cops, crims, their landlord and some very angry lesbians tear their house down and stomp them to jelly. Can a bunch of hapless losers hope to defeat such an unholy alliance?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014VZYVCW/?tag=2022091-20
1998
(Beneath the shining harbor, amid the towers of global gre...)
Beneath the shining harbor, amid the towers of global greed and deep inside the bad-drugs madness of the suburban wastelands, lies Sydney's shadow history. Terrifying tsunamis, corpse-robbing morgue staff, killer cops, neo-Nazis, power junkies, and bumbling SWOS teams electrify this epic tale of a city with a cold vacuum for a moral core. Birmingham drills beneath the cover story of a successful multicultural metropolis and melt the boundaries between past and present to reveal a ghost city beneath the surface of concrete and glass. In Birmingham's alternative history of Sydney, the yawning chasm between the megarich and the lumpen masses is as evident in the insane wealth of the new elites as it was in the head-spinning rapacity of the NSW Rum Corps. This is a city shattered by the nexus between government, big money, and the underworld, where the glittering prizes go to the strong, not the just.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00559RMYI/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(John Birmingham and Dirk Flinthart have learned the hard ...)
John Birmingham and Dirk Flinthart have learned the hard way how to be civilized, successful and cool. Now they make it easy for the uninitiated Australian Male to achieve unimagined heights of sophistication, expertise and personal magnetism. In this book they answer questions many men are just too embarrassed to ask, including: How do you swallow a sword? How do you dress well without looking like a complete goose? And how do you talk intelligently about Salvador Dali, Copernicus and Simone de Beauvoir without sounding like a pompous git? In tackling these and hundreds of other seirous subjects, Birmingham and Flinthart enlist the aid of experts as diverse as Alex Buzo, Paul Barry, Len Evans and Helen Wellings.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1875989285/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(On his publisher-financed tour, the author meets the dope...)
On his publisher-financed tour, the author meets the dope smokers of Australia. The sci-fi geeks, student activists, and obligatory Nimbin ferals. The conservative politicians, lawyers, cops, bankers and school teachers. And the tea-drinking, sausage-loving, lumpy-looking white folk of Tasmania. Dopeland is for anyone who's ever fired up a choice fatty, wondered whether you can drink the bong water, gone on a Mars Bar run, or just considered watching daytime TV a worthwhile way to spend your twenties. With danger, disaster and madness always threatening to derail the fabulous Dopeland Tour, you can safely sit back and enjoy the ride.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1740510305/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(Weapons of Choice is the first book of the Axis of Time S...)
Weapons of Choice is the first book of the Axis of Time Series. The impossible has spawned the unthinkable. A military experiment in the year 2021 has thrust an American-led multinational armada back to 1942, right into the middle of the U.S. naval task force speeding toward Midway Atoll - and what was to be the most spectacular U.S. triumph of the entire war. Thousands died in the chaos, but the ripples had only begun.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1QBK/?tag=2022091-20
2004
(Designated Targets is the second book of the Axis of Time...)
Designated Targets is the second book of the Axis of Time Series. The Battle of Midway was forever transformed by the devastating appearance of a U.S.-led naval task force from the twenty-first century. Since that day, state-of-the-art warships have prowled the Pacific, armed with the latest instruments of mass destruction, as the warring powers of 1942 scramble to be first to wield the weapons of tomorrow against their enemies. Russia and Germany form a deadly alliance, while Admiral Yamamoto moves to seize Hawaii and invade Australia.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKGJI?ref_=dbs_pwh_calw_1&storeType=ebooks
2005
(Final Impact is the third book of the Axis of Time Series...)
Final Impact is the third book of the Axis of Time Series. In the year 2021, a multinational fleet - experimenting with untested weapons technology - pitched through time, crash-landing in 1942. The world is thrown into chaos as Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, Tojo, and Stalin scramble to adapt to new, high-tech killing tools, and twenty-first-century ways of war. For “up timers” like Britain’s Prince Harry and the men and women who serve aboard the supercarrier USS Hillary Clinton, war is a constant struggle with their own downtime allies, who are mired in ignorance and bigotry.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P28X0M?ref_=dbs_pwh_calw_2&storeType=ebooks
2006
(Stalin's Hammer: Rome is an Axis of Time novella. The yea...)
Stalin's Hammer: Rome is an Axis of Time novella. The year is 1955, ten years after a battle fleet from 2021 exploded through a wormhole in space - straight into the Battle of Midway. A staggered, war-torn world catches its balance. Uptimers, with their extraordinary technology and strange styles, mingle with the real timers. Universities study the effects on the future. And men like Prince Harry of England find themselves playing pivotal roles in a history that has already happened. Or has it?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AP2VRNW?ref_=dbs_pwh_calw_3&storeType=ebooks
2012
(Emergence is the first book of The David Hooper Trilogy. ...)
Emergence is the first book of The David Hooper Trilogy. Dave Hooper has a hangover from hell, a horrible ex-wife, and the fangs of the IRS deep in his side. The last thing he needs is an explosion at work. A real explosion. On his off-shore oil rig. But this is no accident, and despite the news reports, Dave knows that terrorists aren’t to blame. He knows because he killed one of the things responsible. When he wakes up in a hospital bed guarded by Navy SEALs, he realizes this is more than just a bad acid trip. Yeah, Dave’s had a few. This trip is way weirder.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N6PBEWY?ref_=dbs_pwh_calw_0&storeType=ebooks
2015
(Resistance is the second book of The David Hooper Trilogy...)
Resistance is the second book of The David Hooper Trilogy. Holed up in Las Vegas after the tumultuous Battle of New Orleans, Dave is enjoying the VIP perks afforded a champion monster-slayer. He may be a superhero of swag and the toast of the town, but if some fire-breathing dragons have their way, odds are everyone will soon be toast. As the hordes from the UnderRealms regroup for their next attack, Dave parties with celebrities, lunches with A-listers, and gets his ass lawyered up - because his hellacious ex is looking for a piece of that sweet, sweet action. It’s all good, until new monsters roll in, looking to parley with “the Dave.”
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N6PBEVU?ref_=dbs_pwh_calw_1&storeType=ebooks
2015
(Ascendance is the third book of The David Hooper Trilogy....)
Ascendance is the third book of The David Hooper Trilogy. As a hardworking monster-slayer, Dave Hooper tries not to bring his work home with him. But nowadays it’s hard to keep them separate. Email, cellphones, empath daemons, they never let a guy rest. The Horde has been raising hell and leveling cities from New York to Los Angeles, keeping Dave and his fellow monster-killer, Russian spy Karin Varatchevsky, very busy. But when the legions of hell invade the small seaside town his boys call home, Dave has to make a call. Save the world? Or save his family?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NDTQQFI?ref_=dbs_pwh_calw_2&storeType=ebooks
2015
(This gonzo guide is a lesson in the practicalities of wri...)
This gonzo guide is a lesson in the practicalities of writing: how to be productive, professional and maybe one day even pay the rent. Topics covered include ‘How to slay writer’s block’, ‘What the hell is workflow?’, ‘How to write 10,000 words in a day’ and ‘The best apps for writers’. How to Be a Writer is a kick-arse writing guide with a tough-love approach, written for the internet generation. John Birmingham is lauded as a prolific writer working across multiple genres. Here he shares his secrets. And some hard-core, real-world practical advice. And a few excellent descriptions of explosions.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Writer-deadlines-hovercraft-ebook/dp/B01G196048/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(Stalin's Hammer: Cairo is an Axis of Time novel. The futu...)
Stalin's Hammer: Cairo is an Axis of Time novel. The future vs the past. F22 Raptors vs Zeros. Prince Harry vs Hitler and Stalin. Ten years ago a powerful Allied battle fleet was sucked into a wormhole and thrown back into World War Two. History was blown apart. The Soviet Union now controls half of Europe and supreme dictator Joseph Stalin reaches for a weapon to enslave or destroy the rest of the world. Only Harry can stop him.
https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Hammer-Cairo-novel-Axis-ebook/dp/B01F4NDDYW/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(Stalin's Hammer: Paris is an Axis of Time novel. The futu...)
Stalin's Hammer: Paris is an Axis of Time novel. The future vs the past. Time is at war with itself in this popular alternate history. The Soviet Union controls half of Europe and supreme dictator Joseph Stalin wants the rest. Only Prince Harry can stop him and the super weapon he has developed.
https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Hammer-Paris-Novel-Axis-ebook/dp/B01M1YPH67/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(A Protocol for Monsters is the fourth book of The David H...)
A Protocol for Monsters is the fourth book of The David Hooper Trilogy. The much-anticipated companion volume to Emergence, the story of Dave Hooper's superhero embiggening. When an oil rig drills too deep under the Gulf of Mexico it breaks the capstone separating our world from the UnderRealms - home to monsters, demons, and dark magics. The nightmares of our long-ago come flooding back into the world where they are met by automatic weapons fire, heating seeking missiles and one drunken, dissolute son of a bitch called Dave.
https://www.amazon.com/Protocol-Monsters-Dave-ebook/dp/B01FWRGFJ0/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(Soul Full of Guns is the fifth book of The David Hooper T...)
Soul Full of Guns is the fifth book of The David Hooper Trilogy. When monsters and dark magicks came back into the world it looked like Dave Hooper, aka 'Super Dave', might be our only hope. Thankfully not. Super Dave is a dumpster fire of regret and disappointment for anyone who relies on him. Colonel Ekaterina Varatchevsky of the Russian GRU doesn't want to rely on him. A deep cover agent operating in the US as Karen Warat, a successful New York art dealer, Karin is gifted with superpowers courtesy of killing a Threshrend Daemonum which attacks her gallery and eats rather a large number of Manhattan's 1%. Now she doesn't have to rely on Dave anymore. She has to target him. This is her story.
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Full-Guns-Dave-Monsters-ebook/dp/B01FVRPRGS/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(A Girl in Time is the first book of A Girl In Time Series...)
A Girl in Time is the first book of A Girl In Time Series. Cady McCall is ready to be rich and famous. She’s sacrificed everything, putting her work ahead of family and friends. Now with mad success and huge wealth so close she can taste it, her life is blown apart by Deputy Marshal John 'Titanic' Smith, the man who rescues her from two muggers, only to carry her off into history. Lost on the seas of time, Smith is desperate to get home to his family in 1876, and now Cady is lost along with him, facing danger and finding love in Victorian London, Ancient Rome and in the near-future America of President for Life Donald Trump.
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Time-John-Birmingham-ebook/dp/B01MSXR5WZ/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(The Demons of Butte Crack County is the sixth book of The...)
The Demons of Butte Crack County is the sixth book of The David Hooper Trilogy. When magic and monsters came back into the world, the world turned to the one man who could save them, Dave Hooper. But this book isn't about that jerk. It's about the stuff happened when he wasn't paying attention.
https://www.amazon.com/Demons-Butte-Crack-County-Anthology-ebook/dp/B01MR2YI22/?tag=2022091-20
2017
(These are the best John Birmingham's stories and they’re ...)
These are the best John Birmingham's stories and they’re so good and so funny. The pieces contained within these pages run the gamut from the early felafel days to the shiny age we live in where Donald Trump is the President of the USA. And it does not shy away from the greatest controversy of our age: potato cake vs potato scallop. These hilarious pieces cover a wide range of topics from food to fitness and politics to pork, in all its glories. And, of course, fashion.
https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Thingies-Felafel-John-Birmingham-ebook/dp/B073TT5RZ2/?tag=2022091-20
2018
(The Golden Minute is the second book of A Girl In Time Se...)
The Golden Minute is the second book of A Girl In Time Series. Cady McCall, a foul-mouthed geek grrl of the twenty-first century teams up with Deputy US Marshal John Titanic Smith to search the centuries for the little girl he lost in 1874. Standing in their way - a Puritan Jihad, actual Nazis, and the mysterious, murderous keepers of time itself.
https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Minute-Girl-Time-Novel-ebook/dp/B07FZJTZX7/?tag=2022091-20
2018
(A son’s homage to his father. John Birmingham’s father di...)
A son’s homage to his father. John Birmingham’s father died. And his life fell apart. The next six months were spent grinding through the dark forests of depression until he finally emerged out of the darkness onto sunlit upland. A unique yet universal story, On Father reaches out to everyone who has experienced and survived deep grief.
https://www.amazon.com/Father-John-Birmingham-ebook/dp/B07NX33ZQF/?tag=2022091-20
2019
(The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “...)
The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “species purists” intent on destroying any human with genetic or cybernetic enhancements. Fashioning themselves as the one true “Human Republic,” the Sturm cut a bloody swath across the stars, killing billions before finally being defeated and driven into the far reaches of Dark Space. Centuries of peace bred complacency. Everyone believed the Sturm had died out in the Dark. They were wrong.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399593314/?tag=2022091-20
2019
(The Disappearance series consists of three books: Without...)
The Disappearance series consists of three books: Without Warning (2008), After America (2010), and Angels of Vengeance (2011). 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 a 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.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074CG899W?ref_=dbs_r_series&storeType=ebooks
John Birmingham was born on August 7, 1964, in Liverpool, United Kingdom. He migrated to Australia with his parents in 1970. He grew up in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.
John Birmingham learned he wanted to become a writer at primary school. He used to sit up quite late at night writing stories. For a long time, he just copied out stories that he liked trying to figure out how they worked.
He received higher education at St Edmund's College, Ipswich, and at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. When Birmingham was a student, he was convicted of displaying a sheet of paper with the words 'Free Speech' written on it in very small type.
Birmingham began his writing career at the university. He was published in Semper Floreat, the student newspaper at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, writing a series of stories featuring a fictional character named Commander Harrison Biscuit. His first book, He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (1994), was a cult comedy success that went on to be filmed by indie amateur Richard Lowenstein and was adapted for the stage. The play became the longest-running non-musical production in Australian history. The sequel is The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (1997), the theatrical version of which was written and produced by 36 unemployed actors.
John also wrote Leviathan: The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney (1999). Ten years later, the Sydney Theatre Company created a play based upon the non-fiction book Leviathan that focuses on the dark side of the evolution of the city of Sydney. He is now writing techno-thrillers, starting with Weapons of Choice in 2004, Designated Targets in 2005 and Final Impact in 2006. In 2015, Birmingham parted ways with the traditional trade book publishing business by becoming a publisher himself. Using the new publishing model, Birmingham has published three Stalin's Hammer novellas plus a new novel called A Girl In Time.
His only stint of full-time employment was as a researcher at the Defence Department. He also freelanced as a journalist for ten years taking feature commissions from a wide variety of magazines such as Playboy, Australian Penthouse, Rolling Stone and even the Long Bay Prison News.
Now he is also a regular contributor to The Monthly, an Australian national magazine of politics, society, and the arts. He continues to file regular articles as a full-time columnist, blogger, and essay writer. His latest book of 2019 is The Cruel Stars, which begins The Cruel Stars Series.
(Beneath the shining harbor, amid the towers of global gre...)
1999(The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “...)
2019(Can a bunch of hapless losers hope to defeat such an unho...)
1998(These are the memoirs of 29-year-old John Birmingham, who...)
1994(This gonzo guide is a lesson in the practicalities of wri...)
2016(John Birmingham and Dirk Flinthart have learned the hard ...)
2000(On his publisher-financed tour, the author meets the dope...)
2003(The Demons of Butte Crack County is the sixth book of The...)
2017(These are the best John Birmingham's stories and they’re ...)
2018(A Protocol for Monsters is the fourth book of The David H...)
2016(Designated Targets is the second book of the Axis of Time...)
2005(Soul Full of Guns is the fifth book of The David Hooper T...)
2016(Weapons of Choice is the first book of the Axis of Time S...)
2004(The Golden Minute is the second book of A Girl In Time Se...)
2018(Final Impact is the third book of the Axis of Time Series...)
2006(Resistance is the second book of The David Hooper Trilogy...)
2015(A Girl in Time is the first book of A Girl In Time Series...)
2016(Ascendance is the third book of The David Hooper Trilogy....)
2015(Emergence is the first book of The David Hooper Trilogy. ...)
2015(Stalin's Hammer: Rome is an Axis of Time novella. The yea...)
2012(Stalin's Hammer: Cairo is an Axis of Time novel. The futu...)
2016(Stalin's Hammer: Paris is an Axis of Time novel. The futu...)
2016(A son’s homage to his father. John Birmingham’s father di...)
2019(The Disappearance series consists of three books: Without...)
John Birmingham never intended to write books. All he wanted to do was to write features in mags. That was his first love.
For a long time, he wanted to be the chief of staff at a broadsheet newspaper and train up a generation of new writers to do good work.
Quotations:
"Words matter and the right words matter most of all. In the end, they're all that remains of us."
"I often wonder what would've happened if either I hadn't written the book or it hadn't been a success."
"When I was a kid and started reading big, fat books, the thing that struck me about Stephen King's novels, so different to the dull, dull things they made us read at school as they were full of real-world references."