Tag: American

Review: Strikemasters

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Strikemasters

Mack Maloney’s Strikemasters follows in the footsteps of his earlier “Wingman” books, being set much later and with a much different background, but maintaining the elements that made that novel so much fun.

Who and What

The book can be summed up as “Special Operations Forces in super-powered C-17s fight terrorists in a super-powered mountain fortress.” It’s the sort of bombast that characterizes Maloney’s work and makes it able to navigate the dark technothriller decade of the 2000s without many problems.

And to his credit, Maloney is not afraid to throw challenges and imperfections at his super-characters and super-planes. He’s not afraid to kill central characters off. Doing this while going full-crazy ahead might be dissonant on paper, but it works here, being a writer who can have his cake and eat it too.

Of course, the characters, good and evil, are little but shallow stereotypes, but this is the kind of book where this isn’t that big a deal. And the last part of the book is a little rushed. But this also isn’t that much of an issue.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

Yes, we do get huge, loving descriptions of the super-tech. Why did you ask?

Zombie Sorceresses

Like every Mack Maloney novel, this book is full of bombastic, ridiculous super-contrivances. But it strangely doesn’t feel as contrived. A lot of technothrillers are stuffed with what Nader Elfhefnawy rightly calls the “illusion of realism” . As they became steadily more ridiculous, this issue amplified. The pure bombastic unrestrained “go for it” attitude of this book and Maloney’s others solves the problem.

Tank Booms

The action, as mentioned above, manages a good balance between “over-the-top” and “challenging”. It could have failed in either direction. It could have had a jarring effect of flaws clashing with the “look at the superplane go!” It also could have had the superplane effortlessly cakewalking to victory. Strikemasters did not fall into either pit, and is all the better for it.

The Only Score That Really Matters

This is another excellent Mack Maloney title, with him being able to leverage his strengths to make a tale of super C-17s doing superpowered feats in a well-told fashion. Highly recommended.

 

Review: Carrier – Enemies

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Carrier: Enemies

The “Carrier” series was a long-running series. When searching for books in it to read and review, I followed my famous rule: When in doubt, go for the most outlandish. The enemy of this book, the fifteenth of the series, is…. Greece. How could I resist?

Who and What

As the Greek-Macedonian conflict (at least a strange version of it) heats up and a news helicopter is brought down by a Greek Tomcat on a false-flag mission, Admiral Matthew “Tombstone” Magruder and the carrier USS Jefferson goes to the region to enforce peace while a reporter who survived stays on the ground amidst the Macedonians. And that’s about as coherent as it gets.

There are really two parts of this book. The first is essentially applying the technothriller “top-to-bottom” viewpoint style to the “low budget assembly line book” quality level. So there’s the conference rooms, the scrambling reporter, the subplots, and the aviators themselves, all done in a slapdash style. For instance, the main antagonist is a general but is called an “admiral” in one passage. Then there’s the small problem of the book’s ending being abrupt and simply unfinished. That’s the boring, bad part.

The second is the goofy part. Greeks with bad names flying F-14s. An evil general launching a ridiculously obvious (to the reader) false flag plot. A main character with the nickname “Tombstone.”

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

There really aren’t that many “The F-111F triggered the Pave Tack and dropped a GBU-12B straight on the Spoon Rest” moments in this book. There are, however, a lot of conference room scenes.

Zombie Sorceresses

The zombie sorceresses were changing everything from Greek aircraft procurement to naming customs to the nature of the Greece-Macedonia conflict to well, almost everything.

Tank Booms

The actual action isn’t the best. Most of the dogfights between aircraft feel like fanfiction of the Top Gun movie from someone who has that and maybe one other technothriller as their sole source for aerial combat, and there isn’t much “adrenaline”, for lack of a better word. Constantly cutting back to conference rooms doesn’t help.

The Only Score That Really Matters

Like Ian Slater’s USA vs. Militia series, this book is the kind of thing someone like me would find more appealing than a “normal” person probably would. The plotting and action is too dry, badly done, and generic to hold that much appeal, but the premise and excesses were music to my ears. But even they can’t stop the very bad fundamentals this book has.

Review: Scorpion’s Fury

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Scorpion’s Fury

I decided to take a chance on more obscure military sci-fi and Scorpion’s Fury was one of my picks. I was not disappointed.

Who and What

The book tells the story of a giant scorpion-like mech dragged into action and the recruited ne’er do wells crewing it. They fight aliens in their giant mech alongside other giant mechs.

This had some of the technical boxes of the “spacesuit commando” annoyance checked. Semi-dystopian background, basic alien enemies, etc… But it was averted through two things. The first was lulls in the action that gave time to build up the characters in a badly needed way. The second was giant mechs stomping about instead of just tissue paper power armor.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

This does have its share of explanations. Thankfully most of them seem very relevant and not just detail done for the sake of detail.

Zombie Sorceresses

Besides just the sci-fi universe contrivances, the biggest I thought of was “why give misfits in relics such a prominent role.” I understood the literary reason and it wasn’t a big deal, but still.

Tank Booms

This was definitely the highlight of the book. It takes a giant scorpion-mech stomping around and makes it (and its crew) simultaneously fun, aggressive, vulnerable, and strong.

The Only Score That Really Matters

Do the words “giant scorpion mech” appeal to you? Then you’ll like this book.

 

Review: Dying Art

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Dying Art

I decided to read and review Dying Art, the very latest (as of this post) Mack Bolan novel. The Gold Eagle line used to be for action what the rest of Harlequin was for romance. Now after the December 2015 closure, it’s reduced to a Mack Bolan every few months.

So how does the absolute latest Executioner stack up?

Who and What

There’s a plot featuring Mexican cartel leaders, art thieves, mercenaries, and contractors making a super-railgun. Despite less action, it feels better paced than Season of Slaughter (written by a different author) was and considerably less “overstuffed”. But it also feels less exciting.

The characters are archetypes that were old when the original Pendleton Executioners were young. But there’s no attempt at fun exaggeration. They’re just not the most interesting people. And this version of Mack Bolan himself is one of them.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

It’s less infodumpy than Season of Slaughter, which actually reinforces the “IKEA Thriller” feeling. It’s because everything is played very safe overall.

Zombie Sorceresses

Even the zombie sorceresses are in a lethargic mood in this book, putting everything into place but not going an inch beyond it. The way it’s set up has all the drawbacks of something over-the-top (How many low-level down and dirty crime thrillers have super-railguns in them?) without the advantages (the actual action and villains are bland and pedestrian).

Tank Booms

The action also has the same “generic” problem that plagues the rest of the book. It’s still action-movieish, but it’s not as wild and over-the-top or crazy (or even just as good) as others in its genre. Mack Bolan still fights a lot of people and ultimately uses the super-railgun for good rather than ill.

The Only Score That Really Matters

This works as the kind of throwaway reading it was meant to be. Dying Art is readable and smooth-flowing, and what it does have is good enough. But it feels even more “check the boxes on the assembly line”-y than many past Bolans and has neither has the talent nor the outlandishness to stand out from the very, very large pack.

Unstructured Review: Marines Crimson Worlds

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Marines: Crimson Worlds

So, as part of my holiday book odyssey, I devoured a huge quantity of trashy military science fiction novels. And Jay Allan’s Marines: Crimson Worlds kind of fit the bill for what I got too much of. If Starfist was “mainstream military sci-fi cliche bingo” this was “self-published military sci-fi cliche bingo”. If not worse. Marines Crimson Worlds is the sort of book I derogatorily call “spacesuit commando”, and after reading just a few of these I got a very clear guideline for how a lot of these (I must be fair and say not all) went.

Now it’s important not to overstate. This kind of book is the literary equivalent of a Nissan Versa or Mitsubishi Mirage. So comparing this to the classic writers like Heinlein or Haldeman is totally unfair. Even comparing it to (early) Tom Clancy is unfair. No, this is best compared to the Mack Bolan-spinoff style ‘contemporary’ action. And it still falls short. Part of it is combining an infodump-heavy format with a first-person view, but that’s not all of it. If I had to boil it down to two points, I’d say these have:

  • Excessive training sequences. This I can pin on Heinlein and people who didn’t get that the training was, for better or worse, the actual point of Starship Troopers. Cheap trashy military sci-fi tends to involve excessive training sequences in ways that cheap trashy contemporary thrillers don’t. This is a self-imposed higher bar to clear.
  • Bad antagonists. How can you get worse than the cackling supervillains of cheap thrillers? Answer: Popup targets with no reason for existing save to provide something for the heroes to fire at. I’d compare it to video games, except most video games have better and more-developed opponents. Marines: Crimson Worlds is particularly bad because the opponents are other humans and not even “generic aliens out to kill everything”.

Marines: Crimson Worlds has all this and even more of the tropes I’ve noticed. Some vague dystopian background, the main character being a super special champion who gets promoted ridiculously high ridiculously fast, and action that falls into the “military sci-fi pit” of neither being grounded nor over-the-top (this is a particular problem with ‘spacesuit commando’ novels where the only real gimmick is power armor that doesn’t seem to do anything) and thus appearing merely dull. The supporting characters in Marines: Crimson Worlds are, for the most part, nothing but blank names.

While I’ve spent the last five paragraphs slamming the novel, I’ll say that it at least worked as a mindless time-passer. But only that, and I’d in most cases prefer a contemporary action novel for the same purpose.

Review: The Target Is H

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The Target Is H

Of the Mack Bolan knockoffs, one of the most unfortunately named is “The Penetrator”, written by Chet Cunningham and Mark Roberts. Snicker-worthy name aside, this managed to reach dozens of entries, starting with 1973s The Target Is H.

Who and What

Ok, so Vietnam veteran Mac-ahem, Mark Hardin (as if the title of the series wasn’t Freudian enough) battles heroin-smuggling mobsters. That’s basically the entire plot of the book right there. Hardin himself is a typical action hero with a few colorful sidekicks, and the mobsters sound like unintentional parodies of gangster movies. Still, the minimal plot never feels clunky.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

Compared to say, the original War Against the Mafia, The Target Is H has a lot more detailed descriptions of its weapons and a lot more (comparably) exotic weapons. It’s an example of what the genre would later become (to excess).

Zombie Sorceresses

The contrivances are the usual “exotic weapons, exotic cars, and dozens of goons slaughtered by the hero” action ones. Hardin is slightly more vulnerable than some of the later superhuman action novel protagonists, but only slightly.

Tank Booms

The action is what one would expect from the genre, and executed well by those standards. It is, however, closer to later cheap action thrillers than the debut Mack Bolan book in terms of tone and the hero’s capability.

The Only Score That Really Matters

This is better than its goofy name might suggest, and is recommended for any fan of 1960s-1980s action novels.

 

Review: Defcon One

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Defcon One

Joe Weber’s Defcon One is a late Cold War technothriller with one unintentionally prescient scene and a lot of iffy clunkiness.

Who and What

This is a very stock technothriller. It’s also a very boring techno-“thriller”. Which is a shame because its nuclear “almost-war” could have been better in defter hands. Instead it has supervillain Soviets and makes what should have been a second Cuban Missile Crisis look very boring. It’s technically competent, but also dull and feels from start to finish like it’s just going through the motions of what a technothriller is supposed to be. “Superweapons. Check. Action. Check. Conference Rooms. Check. Lots of Viewpoint Characters [who aren’t developed even by genre standards]. Check.”

The creepy and unintentionally prescient scene is having the Space Shuttle Columbia get damaged in space and then be destroyed during reentry. The book was published in 1989, 14 years before that happened in real life.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

Not only are there lots of infodumps in Defcon One, but they feel sort of-forced. Like it’s “I have to describe what this aircraft engine is”. Weber is a former Marine aviator, but at least in this book he fell too often into the trap of “I know the exact designation of a Scud TEL, and I’ll share it” that some writers with genuine expertise fall into.

Zombie Sorceresses

Let’s see, the initial push, the too-neat final resolution of this (even Arc Light did better), and the general “supervillain Soviet” trend. A goofier premise might have helped it along.

Tank Booms

There’s some fighting at sea, having spies run around in the USSR, and having the occasional superweapon-beam destroy a space shuttle. The action describes the biggest problem that DefCon One has-it’s too exaggerated to be a good grounded highbrow story, but too tame to be a good cheap thriller.

The Only Score That Really Matters

Defcon One is well-put together, especially for the first novel that it was. I just found it dull and kind of an “IKEA Technothriller”. It has the contrivances and structure of a technothriller, but surprisingly few actual thrills.

 

Review: Created The Destroyer

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Created: The Destroyer

The Remo Williams Destroyer series has been one of the biggest “rivals” to Mack Bolan, starting with 1971’s Created: The Destroyer, and continuing for a massive number of books. I figured that, like with Mack Bolan, I’d start at the beginning.

Who and What

Police officer Remo Williams is saved from death row by secret agents, trained under a martial arts master, and then seduces a woman to stop her criminal father. It’s that kind of book.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

The prose in this book is very, very purple. It’s purpler than a king’s wardrobe. Thankfully, while it’s overwrought and ridiculous, it doesn’t get in the way of a smooth read.

Zombie Sorceresses

You know, I just felt I had to put the word “EVERYTHING” in this section. It’s that kind of book. And that kind of series.

Tank Booms

The action suffers from a bit of the same overwroughtness as the prose, but it’s still very good. The series is a martial arts one, which is a fun change of pace from some of the gunpowder-filled cheap thrillers I’ve read before.

The Only Score That Really Matters

This book is unfortunately a product of its time and has some uncomfortable racial stereotypes and slurs. Beyond that, it’s a raucous, goofy cheap thriller, and I could see why it spawned the mega-series it did.

Review: Invasion USSR

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Invasion USSR

A later book in Stephen Mertz’s “MIA Hunter” series, Invasion USSR features Mark Stone and his ‘crew’ doing something that’s long been the bane of megalomaniac tyrants-invading Russia. I liked it.

Who and What

An American journalist in Moscow has been kidnapped by the Soviets. Are Mark Stone and friends bad enough dudes to rescue the journalist? That’s pretty much the entire plot of the book.

The characters are basic cheap thriller stock. The only protagonist who stands out is not Stone himself, but vulgar Texan Hog Wiley.

DEEP HISTORY OF TEM

This is also lightweight, and not very infodumpy by the standards of the genre. Even if the choice of cars (if nothing else) seemed rather questionable for something that’s mostly taking place in Moscow. And Hinds having “40 mm” cannon.

Zombie Sorceresses

The zombie sorceresses have to let three foreigners run loose and rampant through the Soviet Union without attracting the entire MVD. They accomplish this unforgiving task.

Tank Booms

Let’s see, there’s the heroes having women flash the guards to distract them while they shoot, there’s escaping a helicopter-borne battalion, there’s nonchalantly shooting down helicopters, and so on. It’s very 80s action movie.

But it’s done well for an 80s action story. The sense of tension and feeling is there, and there’s just enough danger to make the heroes look not totally unstoppable.

The Only Score That Really Matters

As far as low-cost cheap thrillers go, you can do a lot worse than MIA Hunter: Invasion USSR.

Unstructured Review: X-Wing Series

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As a kid, I inherited (and read) a lot of my family’s old Star Wars novels. The most relevant to Fuldapocalypse and most fun are the X-Wing novels by Michael A. Stackpole and the late Aaron Allston. For books that are both movie tie-ins and video game tie-ins at the same time, they’re actually really good.

Especially Allston’s. The Wraith Squadron series are a combination Dirty Dozen and fighter story (and yes, fighter pilots somehow turn into effective commando-spies. But this is Star Wars), and manage a degree of emotional height (Allston’s not afraid to kill off developed sympathetic characters) and comedy (such as someone having to fly into battle with a giant stuffed Ewok in his lap-long story) without feeling jarring at all.

Stackpole’s books are more formulaic, less daring, and he has the tendency to take game mechanics a little too literally, but they’re still solid and still better-scaled than a lot of the other Star Wars books of the time period (which have all the antagonist problems of 1990s technothrillers and then some).

Technothriller authors could do worse than read these. They’re good examples of how you can manage a decent-sized cast and medium-scope story, and they’re fun.