Ok, it’s time for the next round of snippet reviews.

Trident Force

Trident Force is one of those mushy, mediocre 2000s cheap thrillers, not bad so much as just dull. Not much action happens, and not much else interesting happens (it’s definitely not a Melville-style “slice of military life” book-it’s meant to be a thriller). A one sentence summary is “A lethargic version of SEAL Team Seven”.

I don’t know why I keep reading thrillers from this time period, but I do. Maybe it’s the hope of finding another Tin Soldiers, or maybe it’s a weird fascination with seeing a genre at its lowest.

Merchants Of War

Merchants of War is a decent mindless popcorn mecha action novel. It’s let down by a few weird perspective shifts, but still works if you just want to see mechs explode. You have to suspend disbelief about their effectiveness, but that’s true of almost all fiction.

Belfast Blitz

A middling entry in the Cody’s Army series, for the most part Belfast Blitz offers what one might expect from a second-tier 1980s action-adventure series. The “International Flashpoint” wheel landed on “Northern Ireland” for this adventure. The only standout is an incredibly telegraphed “tragic love story” between the British member of the Army and a local woman.