It's 1945, and the war with Germany is over. Hitler is dead and the Nazis have surrendered.

But Oppenheimer's atomic experiment goes catastrophically badly, and America faces its worst nightmare: a ground war in Japan. Needless to say, things there don't go smoothly.

Storming Paradise is Chuck Dixon's look at an alternate end to World War II. The story is a little messy and even a touch confusing as Dixon follows the loosely woven stories of various characters -- from a Japanese-American translator to an Irish priest and a Japanese boy whose family has already paid the price of defending their nation -- but the picture he and a cadre of talented artists paints is stark, dramatic and decisive.

You can sense by book's end that there is more to come. Certainly, there is no neat or easy conclusion to the war in the near future, and Dixon makes it clear that no character, no matter how well you know them, is safe in wartime.

Watch for cameos by the likes of John Wayne and George Bush.