30/05/2025
Neither sci-fi nor realistic future militaristic warfare. a Review by Doug Kisaka
is was all cloak and dagger, full of contrived ,scenarios, where farfetched technology is used an elliptical tool to suspend disbelief and make up for the many huge gaps in storytelling. I found none of the characters to be sympathetic. They were all mostly angry, suspicious, self-indulgent and self-centered. And I couldn't bring myself to root for any of them. The Chinese were portrayed as one-dimensional, cliched, semiautonomous-almost robotic, cardboard cut-outs, the way the Japanese and German soldiers were portrayed after World War II in comic strips. But the Americans are not impressive either,. The authors seeks to portray the myth of the American tough guy, defeating the enemy through great adversity and against all odds. But it really shows him as one dimensional, smug, over-confident, saber rattling, and in some situations almost untamable, a self-absorbed jingoist., And the plethora of mayhem bloody scenes, skin and blood vessel cuts , broken or missing fingers, limbs, et cetera, would made anyone cringe. And alas, it does nothing to explore the reality of a World War III and the inevitable nuclear devastation that would result
The situational writing and scene descriptions and dialog are quite thorough and well presented, but comparing this novel to Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October, ” as some reviews do, is a huge disservice to interested readers.
The book falls on so many levels. I cannot recommend it to anyone in good faith. First and foremost, it lacks any empathy. It is cut and dry. And the authors should have spent more time researching futuristic weapons of war and less time on old hackneyed, traditional tactical and strategic warfare, old-style terrorism and hand to hand combat. The notion of China crippling the US through electromagnetic cyberwarfare is preposterous. They also should have decided whether they wanted to tell a sci-fi or a more realistic future militaristic story. And by trying to do both, they failed miserably, and it fits into neither genre.
