Tag: Aircraft

Review: Not By Sight

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Not By Sight

Time to read a spy novel. Not by Sight is a long-in-the-making debut novel by Ken Prescott, telling the story of Air Force super-agent Dennis Sandoval. It’s a debut novel in a genre I’ve only read a few books in and am not the biggest fan of overall… and I liked it.

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As a book where the focus is on preventing World War III rather than starting it, the Iceland scale really isn’t applicable. From what I have seen in the spy-thriller (and thriller overall) genre, it doesn’t break the most new ground-but doesn’t have to.

Rivets

This helps that it’s not an exact technothriller per se, but it’s less rivety and infodumpy than a lot of other books in its genre. They’re there, but it’s not that bad.

Zombie Sorceresses

Let’s see, some of Sandoval’s feats are a little action hero-y, the plot twists are likewise similar, and there’s a little too much “conspiracy entanglement”. Other than that and the basic premise, the zombie sorceresses didn’t have to do all that much work. They don’t have to prevent World War III from going nuclear if World War III never starts, after all.

The “Wha?”

This had the feeling of a well-executed first novel. It has a few first-novel stumbles. Some of the prose gets clunky at times, there’s a bit too much telling and too little showing, and some of the dialogue gets a little exposition-y, especially in the final showdown.

But on the important parts, Prescott nailed it. The first is tone. It begins with and maintains a consistent “semi-grounded” tone. The second is narrative flow. Not By Sight’s multiple viewpoint characters don’t get in the way of a coherent, cohesive tale at all. The third is characters I cared about. I had an interest in the characters.

In fact, one of the issues I felt was that the characterization and chase through East Germany was a little too good. I was invested in them, so while the stakes raising war scare was understandable and plausible, I felt it wasn’t necessary.  It didn’t take anything away from my enjoyment and didn’t feel contrived, but a smaller-scope tale could have been just as effective.

The Only Score That Really Matters

Whatever small issues I have with this book, I enjoyed it, recommend it, and eagerly await Prescott’s next one. It was a good genre shift away from both classic war fiction and Ahern’s cartoon novels.

 

The Dead Generals of World War III

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I’ve finished reading Aleksander Maslov’s Fallen Soviet Generals, a chronicle of the fallen general officers of the Red Army in World War II. Over two hundred Soviet generals were killed, on average one every six days. German general casualties were similarly massive. The Western Allies got off lightly (the United States lost twenty generals), although there were exceptions. In Vietnam the U.S. Army lost five generals.

The subject of how generals died after the invention of the telephone and radio has been a area of weird fascination for me, and I even chose it as the subject of my first (probably too goofy given the seriousness of the topic) ebook.

No doubt there would be a lot of generals dying in a hypothetical World War III, even a purely conventional one, along with their subordinates. The causes can be divided into two main categories:

Deep Fire

“Deep Fire” refers to anything to strike deeper, and encompasses air strikes, long-range artillery, surface-to-surface missiles and special forces raids. This would likely be the leading cause of general deaths. The long-range fire strike complex (to use the Soviet term) abilities of both sides had increased dramatically from World War II, and command installations are clear targets for “big-ticket”, scarce weapons.

Close Fire

“Close Fire” refers to direct fire and, for the sake of convenience, shorter-ranged battlefield mortars and artillery. While the advances in deep fire and targeting would potentially render it secondary, it cannot be counted out as a form of killing generals. Maslov’s book gives countless examples of how, in twisted, confused, rapidly mobile engagements, command posts ended up close to enemy soldiers and armored vehicles, with very dire consequences for those inside them. Especially in a conflict with overwhelmingly more mechanization than the Second World War, something similar is bound to occur.

Of course, these categories can be blurred. Is a long-distance tank raid “deep” or “close?” Is a CAS airstrike on a forward command group “deep” or “close?”

Either way, the generals will not be spared.

 

Review: Flight of the Old Dog

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Flight of the Old Dog

Dale Brown has always put the “techno” in “technothriller”, and his first book, Flight of the Old Dog, sets the formula while being very enjoyable.

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This has the usual technothriller cliches of supervillain Soviets and clunky political wrangling. Where it’s slightly different is Brown’s willingness to take a small leap in terms of supertech and his focus largely on just the titular B-52 and its crew.

Rivets

The rivet-counting and super-detail I knew from Brown’s later work is there and in full bloom. But it doesn’t feel as bad in this installment, because Brown’s experience as a bomber crewman makes the descriptions feel smoother and creating a sense of immediacy.

Zombie Sorceresses

The big zombie sorceress intervention in this book is the technology. The super B-52, space station, and the Soviet superlaser it targets are all the biggest contrivances. There’s also the “have a small ragtag team of _________ to take it on” effect, but that’s handled pretty well.

The “Wha?”

The characters aren’t anything to write home about, but the plot, cliche as it is, is brisk and flows quickly. Flight of the Old Dog remains a good example of how to do a superweapon vs. superweapon story right.

The Only Score That Really Matters

Dale Brown’s first book is, in my opinion, his best. It has the super-aircraft action that’s his trademark, but it also avoids most of the excess that his later novels have. In terms of 80s action technothrillers, his debut remains a rightful classic of the genre.

Review: Line of Control

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I decided to go on a hunt for new thrillers. By chance when looking them up, I found Line of Control by Mainak Dhar, where after coups in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, they ally to reheat the conflict with India. This was an Indian technothriller. I was intrigued.

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Dhar has read his classics, and it shows. After a few chapters, the structure is very clear to anyone who’s read Clancy, Bond, or the like. I was reminded more of Larry Bond than anyone else. I think it was because Dhar, unlike more specialized authors, went all the way from infantry to air and naval crews to spies to leaders.

Although I will say this- in one very crucial way, Dhar manages better than Bond. Much better.

Rivets

Of course, with the classic inspiration comes the classic drawback. Sometimes, especially in air-to-air combat, the listing of exact numbers and ranges gets a little too high. It isn’t the absolute worst, and it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the novel as a whole, but it’s there and it grated a little.

One silver lining is how the setting of the book allows for considerable novelty in terms of equipment without being contrived in the least. The protagonists are using largely Soviet/Russian systems, while the antagonists are using mainly American ones, with F-15s as their secret techno-weapons.

Zombie Sorceresses

I didn’t really feel that much “zombie sorceress” contrivance in the book. It existed, but never truly beyond the norm for the technothriller genre as a whole. When one of the biggest issues apart from the belligerency of the antagonists (which is part and parcel of the whole genre) is “they found enough irregulars to launch a corps-sized conventional attack”, it’s pretty good.

A lot of it I think has to do with the setting. When you have two real-world enemies that are much closer in power as-is, I don’t think you need nearly the amount of contrivances or “equalizers” that occur in a post-1991 technothriller with the US as the protagonist country.

And then there’s dealing with the nuclear weapons. But that’s done in a literary way that made me excuse anything.

The “Wha?”

On one hand, this has the usual thriller tropes. It has lots of viewpoint characters, perhaps a few too many. It has lots of subplots, bouncing around a little too much. The characters are stock thriller ones.

And yet, it never felt like Dhar put a character in without a purpose he intended for them. There may have been a few too many subplots, but there’s just enough characters to fill those plots without being excessive. Furthermore, Dhar handled a very, very difficult issue for technothrillers in an effective way.

Dhar takes the “stop the nukes” plot and makes it the final climax of the book. He doesn’t brush past them with a handwave. And he doesn’t do what Larry Bond did in Cauldron and just remove them with a super-counterforce strike early in the book. There’s the conventional battle and then the fear of escalation. While I could nitpick the plausiblity of how it played out, it worked in literary terms.

The Only Score That Really Matters

I liked this book. It has infodumps, conference room infodumps, a buildup to something you know is going to happen, and other faults of the genre. But it also has the strengths of it, handles some elements very well, and has a setting that’s novel to a filthy Yankee like me.

I recommend it.

Review: Chains of Command

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Chains of Command

Dale Brown is one of those authors who managed to remain firmly in a genre even as it declined. Which is to say, as the genre began to decline and other authors like Ralph Peters and Harold Coyle moved to different topics like the American Civil War, Brown and his super-planes just kept going and going and going and going and going and going like a technothriller Energizer Bunny. Somehow enough people bought the books that he kept getting publishing deals for more of them without being a super-big name like Tom Clancy.

He was also out-there from the get go, leaning on the “super-science-fiction” edge of technothrillers from the start of his first book, Flight of the Old Dog, which featured a super bomber against a super-laser. (That book I unreservedly recommend-it’s a fun cheap thriller). This and the melodramatic excess of his later novels has made him who he was.

How does Chains of Command, this Russo-American war novel, stack up?

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Dale Brown has been there from the start, so it’s no surprise that if you know the type and time period of this thriller, nothing will be surprising. It’s a Dale Brown thriller so you’ll get the Air Force saving everything, lots of nukes flying, and more than a few political rants. It’s a cheap thriller, so you get a cheap thriller plot. It’s post-1991, so the enemy is a regressed Russia.

Rivets

Like a lot of technothriller authors, Brown loves his rivet-counting, with lots of exact designations and detailed descriptions. The biggest problem isn’t so much the infodumps themselves as how they exist in this exaggerated fantasy world of super-planes. It’s like giving a detailed, technically exact description of a car’s engine and mechanics-in a cartoonish video game.

Zombie Sorceresses

Well, there’s the regression of Russia, for one. Then there’s the plot-nukes. Dale Brown loves nuking everything without going full Dr. Strangelove. Then there’s an infodumped past war that should crowd out the real Gulf War but doesn’t. The zombie sorceresses haven’t been the busiest here, but they’ve still had to work.

The “Wha?”

This is a cheap thriller plot, and it wildly zigzags. On one hand, Brown is a former navigator-bombardier in the Air Force, so he can show a feeling of immediacy in the battle scenes. On the other, they’re loaded with infodumps. On one hand, Brown’s plotnukes show he isn’t afraid to have the enemy do real damage. On the other, they make the world seem less real and more contrived.  On one hand, the heroine is an effective character by the standards of the genre. On the other, the action is too spread out…

You get the idea.

The Only Score That Really Matters

Chains of Command is not truly bad, but Brown has definitely written better. While he hadn’t yet sunk to the levels he would later on, this is not his best book, nor is it the best in the genre. It manages to deploy both general technothriller and Brown-specific cliches in bulk without having anything like prose or plot to make up for them.

I’d recommend reading Flight of the Old Dog first and seeing if you like his style before trying Chains of Command. It can work as a time-passing cheap thriller, but even in that easy genre there are better books.