OT - Book (Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[The Dark]

One author I've been enjoying recently is Myke Cole, who has written five novels (with the proofs of the sixth having just been finished) - Control Point, Fortress Frontier, Breach Zone, Gemini Cell, and Javelin Rain are published, with Siege Line soon to come out. They're set in a near-contemporary world where magic has been discovered. Many of the talented serve in the military, while those with talents the US government considers forbidden are covertly assigned to a PMC for special missions on another world. The first novel won the Compton Crook award as the best first English-language SF/F/H novel of the year. The books are a pair of trilogies, with the second trilogy being a prequel to the first trilogy. Cole himself did three tours in Iraq (two as a contractor and one as a DoD civilian) and is a Lieutenant in the USCGR while also working for the NYPD and is one of the cyber analysts on the TV show Hunted.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by The Dark

One author I've been enjoying recently is Myke Cole, who has written five novels (with the proofs of the sixth having just been finished) - Control Point, Fortress Frontier, Breach Zone, Gemini Cell, and Javelin Rain are published, with Siege Line soon to come out.

I bought Control Point and got about half way through the novel before I just couldn't continue reading it. That's rare for me. Usually even if a novel really doesn't do it for me I'll read it through to the end.

[Raellus]

I just finished, Our War: A Novel, by Craig DiLouie, about a modern-day American civil war (published 2019).

It probably wouldn't help much with classic v1-2.2 timelines, coming from the pre-internet era when the U.S.A. wasn't nearly as polarized politically, but it could be pretty inspirational for a CONUS-based campaign set in a more up-to-date or near future timeline.

In the book, the president (named Marsh) is impeached and refuses to step down. He's supported by numerous right-leaning militias, and opposed by various "Lib" militias. Both sides consider the other "rebels". The military is attempting to stay neutral. The novel is set in a besieged Indianapolis, a blue city in a red state. The main characters are a pair of siblings, separated and fighting on opposite sides of the conflict, a Canadian UNICEF worker, and an ad-hoc team of journalists (a left-leaning local, a Brit with the Guardian, and a freelance French photographer).

In many ways, it reminds me of the Bosnia conflict transposed to the United States. It's quite believable in some regards, but the author's grip of military tactics is pretty weak, and some of the militia compositions strike me as a bit fanciful, to say the least (The Last Angels are presented as take-no-prisoners American [Christian] Taliban, the Free Women are an all-female militia, the Indie 300 are all-black, the Rainbow Warriors, all gay). The writing's not bad, if occasionally pedestrian.

The author is more sympathetic to the Liberal coalition, but the right-leaning "bad guys" are not too cartoonishly evil (with one notable exception).

Anyhow, it got me thinking about the plausibility of a second American Civil War, and inspired me to start reading a book about a more modern civil war, Anthony Beevor's, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (non-fiction).

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[Raellus]

I'm sure that most of you have read Tom Clancy's "novel of WWIII", Red Storm Rising by now. If not, it's worth your time.

I first read it at age 15. I last read it about 10 years ago. On a whim, I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago for another read-through.

The follow "review" contains SPOILERS:

Likes:

The set-pieces are really good, especially the Soviet capture of Iceland. I know that the book was inspired by Clancy and Larry Bond playing wargames (using the Harpoon system). I wonder how much of the set-piece battles was modelled on the Harpoon campaign and how much was the product of pure invention.

I appreciated the build-up to the war a lot more as an adult (I skipped those parts as a teenager). It seemed pretty plausible and was generally well-written.

The Soviet antagonists aren't too cartoonish. Some of them are downright sympathetic.

I thought that the submarine fight scenes were very well done. The surface ASW bits were pretty good too.

Dislikes:

The one set-piece that didn't quite work for me was the "Frisbees in Dreamland" episode. I liked the idea of targeting the Soviet Mainstay AWACS using stealth aircraft. IIRC, the F-19 used Sparrows for the kill, but I wonder if HARM or ALAARM would work against aerial targets. The latter would require no radar guidance, so they wouldn't trigger radar/threat warning receivers. Anyway, the part that I didn't like was that on the same mission, the titular F-19 was also tasked with lasing a bridge for a LGB strike. I found that super unrealistic. No one in their right mind would task the same aircraft with two vital missions. If the F-19 got shot down or damaged attempting the first mission, it couldn't perform the second. Silly, IMHO.

I can't fault him for this, but Clancy also got the stealth fighter way wrong. He calls it an attack fighter, but gives it air-to-air capability and afterburners. He also describes it with fixed external weapons pylons instead of an internal weapons bay. The former is not nearly as stealthy. Also, it's a two-seater (that's forgivable).

IMHO, Clancy really overestimated the ability of NATO aircraft to operate behind enemy lines. He gives NATO air superiority over the front on day one of the war, completely ignoring the sheer numerical superiority of the Red Airforce. More egregiously, IMHO, Clancy seemed to think that Soviet SAMs and AAA wouldn't be a significant problem for NATO strike aircraft. No Soviet fuel depot, bridge, artillery battery, tank farm, or HQ is safe from airstrikes during the war. NATO is never in danger of running out of combat aircraft.

Conversely, in Clancy's telling, NATO SAMs are super effective. Soviet tactical airpower and strike capabilities and effectiveness are sharply curtailed as a result. IRL, the Soviets had many more SAMs than NATO and, qualitatively, many of them were on par, if not better than their Western counterparts.

A Belgian brigade counterattacks and stops two Soviet Category A TDs during the attempted breakthrough at Alfeld. No offense to any Belgians out there, but just look at the respective TOEs, c.1986. I mean, it's possible, but highly unlikely.

"Three men in a jeep" (with a TOW) is, IMHO, totally OP in the book. Apparently NATO's soft-skinned mobile AT teams are immune to Soviet artillery. More on that below.

Early on in the book, Clancy mentions the Soviets' comparative superiority in artillery, but then pretty much dismisses it once the war starts. NATO artillery always gets the better of the Red Army guns and rockets. Any time Soviet artillery is mentioned after the build up, it's getting destroyed by airstrikes or counterbattery fire (and in one friendly fire incident, drops a vital bridge that the Soviets are trying to capture). I guess the only way Clancy and Bond could rationalize a NATO land victory was by nerfing Soviet artillery (and omitting the rest of the WTO- see below).

I may have missed it, but no WTO units are mentioned as participating in the war. It's the USSR v. NATO. The East Germans are mentioned objecting to planned Soviet use of chemical weapons on German soil but that's it. Warsaw Pact units are conspicuously absent on the ground and in the air. I guess the Kremlin gave them all the war off?

Again, Western intel on new (at the time) Soviet aircraft was incomplete, but the SU-27 would have been a better choice than the MiG-29 for the defense of the captured Icelandic airbases, due to the former's superior range and radar. He also apparently didn't know about both aircraft's infrared search and track systems, which would have given them an edge in engagements where "radar-silence" was being observed (these feature prominently in the book).

The romance subplot set in Iceland is cringe-worthy in several respects. The Air Force weatherman protagonist's killing of the Soviet rapists with a knife just struck me as uber-macho fantasizing. According to the very well-respected, On Killing, using a knife to kill is much more difficult psychologically (given the almost intimate proximity of killer to victim), yet the protagonists execute three Soviet prisoners with knives instead of their rifles or pistols. And shots had already been fired, so it wasn't even a stealth requirement. Rambo much?

How does the hovering Hind crew not notice the protagonist's camo clothing when he's spotted fishing. A clumsy boob-grab is enough to fool them? Silly.

And do I even need to mention the sex with a pregnant rape victim? Cringe! Men-writing-women at its worst.

Also, there's only one female combatant in the entire book. And one Asian-American. And it's the same character!

Nitpick: the names are so 1980s and vanilla: Smith, John, Mike, Ed, Garcia. Seems like very little thought or effort went into that aspect of CharGen.

Some of the dialogue is particularly stilted and unnatural. A lot of it is pretty good, though.

---

Yeah, so my dislikes list is a lot longer than my likes, but overall, it's a good read. It makes me want to play Harpoon again and, of course, gets in the T2k mood.

I'm interested in reading your thoughts on the book. What worked for you? What didn't?

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[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'm sure that most of you have read Tom Clancy's "novel of WWIII", Red Storm Rising by now. If not, it's worth your time.
...
I appreciated the build-up to the war a lot more as an adult (I skipped those parts as a teenager). It seemed pretty plausible and was generally well-written.

I remember getting the hardback for Christmas, 1986, so that would have been my freshman year of college. I was an ROTC cadet and taking my 3rd year of Russian. So, I *really* liked the pre-war intel and politics-- intel was one of my dream jobs. I have probably read it 3+ times, the last in July '17.

Likes:

The set-pieces are really good, especially the Soviet capture of Iceland. ...

The Soviet antagonists aren't too cartoonish. ...

I thought that the submarine fight scenes were very well done. The surface ASW bits were pretty good too.

I had Harpoon rules at the time, and solitaired a few ASW fights. All of the above were good elements to me.

Dislikes:

- Anyway, the part that I didn't like was that ... would task the same aircraft with two vital missions.

In retrospect, I agree with you on that one. Clancy liked to flash back and forth between characters, so I'm now surprised this couldn't have been 2 missions, written as separate scenes?

IMHO, Clancy really overestimated the ability of NATO aircraft to operate behind enemy lines. ...
Conversely, in Clancy's telling, NATO SAMs are super effective. ...

No argument that he may have missed the boat here. I think it was his book where the A-10s were pretty ubiquitous?

A Belgian brigade counterattacks and stops two Soviet Category A TDs during the attempted breakthrough at Alfeld. No offense to any Belgians out there, but just look at the respective TOEs, c.1986. I mean, it's possible, but highly unlikely.

Um, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. How long were they stopped?

Clancy mentions the Soviets' comparative superiority in artillery, but then pretty much dismisses it once the war starts. NATO artillery always gets the better of the Red Army guns and rockets. ... I guess the only way Clancy and Bond could rationalize a NATO land victory was by nerfing Soviet artillery.

Not something I'd paid attention to on my last read, but that does seem a little fishy.

I may have missed it, but no WTO units are mentioned as participating in the war. It's the USSR v. NATO. ...

I suspect this may have been a result of sticking to a handful of characters, and IIRC the main Soviet point-of-view character was an Army commander? If so, that could have meant he just didn't deal with WP commanders? Or, if he was a Front commander, that falls apart, since there would be 2-3 EG divisions in his command.

The romance subplot set in Iceland is cringe-worthy in several respects. The Air Force weatherman protagonist's killing of the Soviet rapists with a knife just struck me as uber-macho fantasizing. ...

How does the hovering Hind crew ...? Silly.

And do I even need to mention the sex with a pregnant rape victim? Cringe! Men-writing-women at its worst.

I would only defend the first bit: ISTR the weatherman lost his prewar fiancee/girlfriend to a rapist, so he could have been particularly enraged-- all the revenge fantasies of however many months given a chance to enact? I remember thinking the last part was cringey or a rescuer-fantasy, even at age 18. The middle bit... eh, possible?

Also, there's only one female combatant in the entire book. And one Asian-American. And it's the same character!

Is this the F-15 test pilot who shoots down satellites? It's still 1986 when it's written, what other women combatants might he have used?

Nitpick: the names are so 1980s and vanilla: Smith, John, Mike, Ed, Garcia. Seems like very little thought or effort went into that aspect of CharGen.

It's a fair cop. That's why the war movie cliche includes a Jewish guy, someone with an unspellable Polish name, the Italian guy from New York City, etc., in addition to the Texan and the smart guy. (Just don't be the next one to show off your girlfriend's picture!)

Some of the dialogue is particularly stilted and unnatural. A lot of it is pretty good, though.

Agree on both counts.

I'm interested in reading your thoughts on the book. What worked for you? What didn't?

+ I rather liked Clancy's style of cutting back and forth between several characters and points of view. It does reduce the depth of each character and their arc, but it also allows the reader to learn a lot more about the war as a whole.
(It works very well, IMO, in his thrillers, as you're seeing so many threads and wondering, "Oh, boy, how is THIS going to show up later?"

IIRC, the "main" characters were the USAF weather LT in Iceland, a USN frigate commander, and a Soviet general (Front or Army CG?). We can see the war at sea and in Iceland at the lowest level, then the main event in Germany at the highest level. I remember there are other threads, but not who or where.
+ By sticking to that high level in Germany, he avoids characters with "plot immunity"-- that F19 pilot won't get shot down on mission #3, a tank commander won't have to survive 5 tanks blowing up under them, and so forth.

- Back to the air defenses, I'm currently playing two board wargames by email, with differing conclusions on air defenses. In Red Storm, I've played about 5 scenarios, and SAMs on both sides are more planning nuisance than threat, due to both sides' having jammers and dedicated SEAD planes (NATO being a bit better at the latter). My opponent is certainly frustrated with the game's portrayal of SAMs relative to AAA and fighters. In 1985: under an iron sky, I'm playing NATO's center section, and it feels like NATO's air forces are terrified, since anything I do with them will be swarmed by MiGs or slammed by zillions of SAMs, or both. Maybe later in the first week, but on Day 4, I am way outgunned.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

No argument that he may have missed the boat here. I think it was his book where the A-10s were pretty ubiquitous?

Yeah, the Soviets in the book call the A-10 the "Devil's Cross" and Clancy describes the aircraft killing multiple AFVs with a single strafing run on a couple of different occasions.

Clancy also has a flight of German F-104 take out a bridge with bombs.

I reply to your wargaming experience regarding aircraft v. ADNs further on.

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Um, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. How long were they stopped?

I'd have to look it up to give you an exact figure, but I think it was for a couple of days, at least- long enough, in any case, to require a reevaluation of objectives and unit mission taskings.

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

I suspect this may have been a result of sticking to a handful of characters, and IIRC the main Soviet point-of-view character was an Army commander? If so, that could have meant he just didn't deal with WP commanders? Or, if he was a Front commander, that falls apart, since there would be 2-3 EG divisions in his command.

That's a good point. I liked the different POVs. It was easy to follow the multiple threads. One additional nitpick is that the American ASW frigate captain goes from a major POV character to a supporting character with the introduction of the Vietnam vet ASW helicopter pilot, a little over halfway through the book.

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

I would only defend the first bit: ISTR the weatherman lost his prewar fiancee/girlfriend to a rapist, so he could have been particularly enraged-- all the revenge fantasies of however many months given a chance to enact? I remember thinking the last part was cringey or a rescuer-fantasy, even at age 18. The middle bit... eh, possible?

You're right. I'd forgotten that bit about the weatherman's backstory. Makes sense that he'd take out his rage on the Soviet para rapist. But he only executes the main offender. One of the Marines kills the other two EPWs by stabbing them through the neck. It seemed over-the-top to me.

Another example of cringey dialogue from the final few pages of the book. A marine general says to the pregnant rape victim, "They told me you were beautiful. I have a daughter about your age." Creepy.

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Is this the F-15 test pilot who shoots down satellites? It's still 1986 when it's written, what other women combatants might he have used?

That's the one. You're right in that c.86, combat branches were still closed to women, so maybe that one of my criticisms wasn't fair.

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

It's a fair cop. That's why the war movie cliche includes a Jewish guy, someone with an unspellable Polish name, the Italian guy from New York City, etc., in addition to the Texan and the smart guy. (Just don't be the next one to show off your girlfriend's picture!)

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

+ I rather liked Clancy's style of cutting back and forth between several characters and points of view. It does reduce the depth of each character and their arc, but it also allows the reader to learn a lot more about the war as a whole.
(It works very well, IMO, in his thrillers, as you're seeing so many threads and wondering, "Oh, boy, how is THIS going to show up later?"

The jumping around and different POVs worked for me too. For the kind of story he was trying to tell, that technique was pretty much a must.

He didn't really provide much of a timeline, though. So the reader kind of has to pick up on context clues and then deduce how long has passed since the last episode involved a particular character. It's still not terribly clear by the end of the book how long the war lasted. 4 weeks, six weeks, two months? Longer?

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

IIRC, the "main" characters were the USAF weather LT in Iceland, a USN frigate commander, and a Soviet general (Front or Army CG?). We can see the war at sea and in Iceland at the lowest level, then the main event in Germany at the highest level. I remember there are other threads, but not who or where.
+ By sticking to that high level in Germany, he avoids characters with "plot immunity"-- that F19 pilot won't get shot down on mission #3, a tank commander won't have to survive 5 tanks blowing up under them, and so forth.

Good points and, in the main, I agree. There was also a USN attack sub driver with a pretty big part.

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

- Back to the air defenses, I'm currently playing two board wargames by email, with differing conclusions on air defenses. In Red Storm, I've played about 5 scenarios, and SAMs on both sides are more planning nuisance than threat, due to both sides' having jammers and dedicated SEAD planes (NATO being a bit better at the latter). My opponent is certainly frustrated with the game's portrayal of SAMs relative to AAA and fighters. In 1985: under an iron sky, I'm playing NATO's center section, and it feels like NATO's air forces are terrified, since anything I do with them will be swarmed by MiGs or slammed by zillions of SAMs, or both. Maybe later in the first week, but on Day 4, I am way outgunned.

Yeah, I don't think we've seen a true modern, high intensity, conventional war between 1st world military powers in real life, so it's really difficult to play out how it would all go down. We can look at the closest thing, but I think we often draw the wrong conclusions. For example, I think a lot of people assume NATO air forces would roll over the Soviets' air defenses because of how easily the Iraqi's air-defenses were destroyed during Desert Storm.

That said, Clancy pretty much omits mention of conventional, non-radar-guided AAA in the book. All the NATO aircraft fly nap of the earth to avoid SAMs. Any Soviet radar not turned off is zapped by ARMs. IRL, over Iraq, Coalition strike pilots learned the hard way that "dumb" AAA was a much greater threat to their aircraft than radar-guided SAMs and consequently, once the Iraqi SAM networks were sufficiently degraded, very few missions were flown below 5000 feet. Clancy didn't know about that when he wrote the book, but the Israelis had learned the same thing in their various wars against their Arab neighbors, so it seems strange that this hard-earned lesson was ignored in the book.

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[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'd have to look it up to give you an exact figure, but I think it was for a couple of days, at least- long enough, in any case, to require a reevaluation of objectives and unit mission taskings.

Yeah, that seems a bit much, then. I'd have believed "stopped them for part of a day", or even overnight, if it happened close enough to sunset.

One additional nitpick is that the American ASW frigate captain goes from a major POV character to a supporting character with the introduction of the Vietnam vet ASW helicopter pilot, a little over halfway through the book.

Oh, yeah, I remember him now. He was useful to give his experience to the captain, but taking over the spotlight might be much.

You're right. I'd forgotten that bit about the weatherman's backstory. Makes sense that he'd take out his rage on the Soviet para rapist. But he only executes the main offender. One of the Marines kills the other two EPWs by stabbing them through the neck. It seemed over-the-top to me.

Another example of cringey dialogue from the final few pages of the book. A marine general says to the pregnant rape victim, "They told me you were beautiful. I have a daughter about your age." Creepy.

Either of those sentences sound like something one might say to a victim, but together... nah. I guess the other Marine was following the LT's lead? Over the top, yes.

He didn't really provide much of a timeline, though. So the reader kind of has to pick up on context clues and then deduce how long has passed since the last episode involved a particular character. It's still not terribly clear by the end of the book how long the war lasted. 4 weeks, six weeks, two months? Longer?

That could be a plus, since that way Clancy & Bond aren't tied too tightly to a given timeline. As the English teachers might say, the reader is allowed to infer their own timeline.

Yeah, I don't think we've seen a true modern, high intensity, conventional war between 1st world military powers in real life, so it's really difficult to play out how it would all go down. We can look at the closest thing, but I think we often draw the wrong conclusions. For example, I think a lot of people assume NATO air forces would roll over the Soviets' air defenses because of how easily the Iraqi's air-defenses were destroyed during Desert Storm.

That said, Clancy pretty much omits mention of conventional, non-radar-guided AAA in the book. All the NATO aircraft fly nap of the earth to avoid SAMs. Any Soviet radar not turned off is zapped by ARMs. IRL, over Iraq, Coalition strike pilots learned the hard way that "dumb" AAA was a much greater threat to their aircraft than radar-guided SAMs and consequently, once the Iraqi SAM networks were sufficiently degraded, very few missions were flown below 5000 feet. Clancy didn't know about that when he wrote the book, but the Israelis had learned the same thing in their various wars against their Arab neighbors, so it seems strange that this hard-earned lesson was ignored in the book.

This could all be one of those times I can hear him say, "Well, I'm the author, and I had to decide on what worked and what didn't, and what would advance the story. Go write your own, if you don't like it."

To me, yeah, low-level AAA is a greater threat than he had included, especially in such a force-dense region as central Germany. I will chalk a lot up to Clancy & Bond having studied more of the naval and naval-air elements than ground and ground/air parts of the War That Never Happened.

Still a good read, even if we knock off half a star for that.