5 comments about Dale Brown's Dreamland: Razor's Edge CD.

1. Dale Brown's still the champ, and he proves it in this latest thriller. The weaponry, as usual, is top notch, and the story moves along faster than ever. I think, though, that he should consider giving Col. Bastan a promotion - he really has a lot of responsibility for that rank. Besides, he's conceited enough to be a general.



2. This is a review of the book on tape. The plot was solid and brought with it a sense of authenticity, especially in terms of how problems arose and were solved. To a degree the details about military hardware were fascinating, but they soon overran the book and distracted from the characters. There was only one character who truly mattered, and he was a side-show for most of the novel. The rest of the book was filled with people whose only purpose seemed to be populating the chain of command or demonstrating prowess under fire. A good example of this is Dog. He is some sort of Colonel, and his only role is to talk to the Whiplash team, pace around the room, and then relay the information to some General. Then he gets back on the phone with Whiplash. For all I know this type of exchange may be a normal part of military operations, but its appearance not once but several times in this novel was baffling. Ironically the character's name was well-suited to his part. As my sarcastic girlfriend fake-narrated: "Dog paced around the room and pissed on the carpet."

   The cheesiest line of the book: "If the pilot was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen - and she was - then she was second."

   C'mon.




3. I made it through the first Dreamland novel due to fast paced, well described aerial combat, an offering of terrific high tech weaponry, good solid plot, and for the most part, interesting characterization; however, by the end of book one I was praying for the slow horrible death of Jeff "Zen" Stockard. A guy who is not only a main character, a romantic lead, but, I think, one of the heroes of the series. Who also happens to be a Class A Schmuck.

   We are told Zen was an ace pilot, then a crash causes him to become wheelchair bound. Not a bad concept, could have made for some excellent twists. And indeed, in the beginning of the first book, the anguish/anger/mistrust/fear that Zen illustrated felt real. However, after reading 2/3 of the book I was getting just a tad grumpy that Zen was still piloting the pity pot plane. And his engine was in full whine mode. Well, I finished the book. Forgave the writer. Bought the 2nd Dreamland book.

   Guess what? Pain-in-the-ass Zen is still around - kinda like the whine of that mosquito in the middle of the night that won't let you sleep. He detracts from the book. He has caused me to forego the rest of the Dreamland books. A damn shame.




4. this is just another outsatnding audio book if you are in to The dreamland books I just wish there were more of them.



5. is what this book is all about. I had a very hard time putting it down and could not wait to pick it up again. This is the 17th book of Brown's that I have read. To you first time readers of Dale Brown my suggestion is read his earlier books first because they are like a soap opera and it will be much easier to follow and enjoy. His books are not outstanding but they are always entertaining. In fact this book is between good and very good.
   
   This is your typical hero and heroine Dreamland book. All the usual suspects, Zen, Dog, Danny, etc. Iraq is knocking our planes out of the sky. First they have to determine what is knocking out our planes. It turns our to be a lazar which does not come up on their sophisticated radar. Now they to locate it and then they go in and bomb from the air and attack by the ground. Normal stuff for Dale Brown but it keeps an action junkie like me interested.
   
   All in all I enjoyed it and was entertained again by Dale Brown.

No comments about Dale Brown CD Collection 2: Silver Tower, Strike Force, Shadow Command.

5 comments about Air Battle Force CD.

1. I've read every single one of Mr. Brown's books and this one is by far the weakest. Still good though but not his best. It was nice to see old characters like General Furness and Colonel Mace. But Thorn has to go. Hopefully he gets ousted from office in the next book. The plot in this one is kinda a weak but it seems to set up the next book nicely. (A war with Russia?) The robot planes are totally unbelieveable though. It breaks my heart to see Mr. Brown, a former navigator himself, take the real heros out of the picture. Whats the fun in flying if your gonna do it from the ground? A lot seems to be missing from Air Battle Force. But hopefully its just a set up for the next one.



2. Having read several Dale Brown novels now, I'm tiring of his incredible attention to technical detail and seemingly too little effort in developing a story line. Air Battle Force takes way too much time telling us every detail of every tank, fighter plane and computer system while leaving the reader waiting and waiting for something to develop amongst the characters.

   I'm also wondering how much more he plans to wring out of the Dreamland story with its fancy, tech-stuffed bombers and Tin Men.
   If you want a far more intriguing read still full of lots of airplane and fighter action, read James Huston.

   G Sinclair




3. Dale Brown can't decide what he wants to do: Either be a military writer, or be a fiction writer. Frankly, in both arenas, he fails. Quite miserably. There is virtually no plot development in this book, and the endless drudgery of military and technological description becomes mind-numbing, even to the most adherent military fiction fans. His writing is far from fluid, rather he utilises a blocky, counter-intuitive way to write, which makes this book doubly hard to get through.

   He attempts to formulate some sort of character development between Daren and Rebecca Furness, both characters in this novel. Rather than adding dimension, however, it merely makes the characters even more cardboard-y: All Brown seems good at is describing missiles and aeroplane fuselage. Which is fine, if you're writing a military guide. And not so fine if you're writing fiction.

   The premise of the story is simple enough: Taliban fighters are invading Turkmenistan. In the great name of Clancy, Brown can't help but to throw in some malevolent Russian forces to take a low jab at our Gulagian friends. Additionally, he throws a General (P. McLanahan) into the mix, a General who has faced his share of trials and tribulations, as well as military drama. Finally, there is a political twist: There are two candidates running for presidential office of the United States.

   Truth be told, though, after five hundred+ pages of this book, and upon its finishing, I couldn't help but ask: What, exactly, happened? One never finds out the outcome of the political race, you don't quite find out what happens to any of the characters besides in their military circumstances...The characters accesorize the guns, rather than vice-versa.

   It seems that Brown tries to do too many things at once, and as a result, doesn't even marginally succeed at any of them. I bought this book as a 'beach read' and figured I'd blow through it in about three days. Wrongo. It took me upwards of two weeks to finally finish it. The novel drags its feet in all the wrong places, and doesn't have any real plot development. I'm *not* looking for a literary masterpiece in the name of "The Red Badge of Courage," I was simply looking for an entertaining read.

   Not really worth your time, unless you like to read an aircraft manual thinley veiled with what seem to be the threads of a plot line.




4. I've read every Dale Brown book published. This is not the same old Dale Brown we are used to. Hope it gets better from here, or I am done.



5. and for his sake I hope he cuts the technical jargon down to a minimum. Other than the too much tech I enjoyed how he spent a lot of time on the Taliban. I found that enjoyable and refreshing for a change. The parts about the Russians were the same old story line on how they start every bad situation then denied it and blame the poor old USA.
   
   Sometimes the writer goes overboard in making heroes out of his characters. This time I feel he does not go there because he spent so much time on the Taliban. I enjoyed how he progressed and degressed the 2 Taliban leaders.
   
   The writer portrays Thorn as someone who has complete opposite ways of running the White House from all the others who precedeeded him. With our actual Presential race being contested next week I really take an interest at someone who is very different from his predecessors. The two canditates that are actually running this presendential year are the typical candidates. One will keep it the system the same (incumbent party) and the other will change it. Thorn may be fictional but at least he is portrated as his own man. Such as that he did not even attend his own swearing in ceremony because he was too busy. Can you see that being done in the real world? No, way!
   
   Mr. Brown keep up the action and limit the technical trite.

No comments about Dale Brown CD Collection: Flight of the Old Dog, Silver Tower.

5 comments about Plan of Attack CD.

1. OMG, what an awful book. is there a LESS than 1 star rating?? ;-) how appropriate that the author has a similar name to DAN BROWN of da'vinci fame who writes even MORE pitifully than dale. I am promising myself i won't make the same mistake as i did w/ brown's books, which was keep reading to see if they got better. brown's didn't, they were all so predictable and just god awful. i'm going to go on the presumption that DALE's will likely follow the same track and will save myself some hours of my life...
   
   Now, about this book - i TOTALLY agree w/ anything negative said above - it just can't be said any better.
   
   - way, way, WAY too much technical jargon
   - i'm not a military guy so don't know all the protocol, but i can confidently bet $1MM that if ANYONE (even general george washington) did HALF the insubordinate things that mclanahan did, he wouldn't just be "demoted," he'd be courtmartialed in a heartbeat. reading about him constantly bending the rules and still getting things done thru alternate channels, without breaking a sweat, mind you, is just so incomprehensible as to be RIDICULOUS.
   - story lines and situations that just come out of nowhere, with no explanation in order to "set up" the current scene
   - totally agree w/ the above poster on the ridiculously futuristic weapons
   
   i know you have to have an imagination to read these types of books, but there's imagination, and then there's RIDICULOUS.



2. I'm used to being disappointed by authors that I'm not familiar with, but this one is a real shock. It's incredibly bad. I'm not a literary snob - I've read and enjoyed most of Tom Clancy's books. But really, someone who pretends to be a writer of novels should at least try to write something that has the basics - like plot, characters, and intelligible writing. It appears that Dale Brown has written quite a few of these books, and some people have actually read them. What a waste of time and trees.



3. I use to be a big Dale Brown fan, as I thoroughly enjoyed "Shadows of Steel", "Warrior Class" and "Wings of Fire". Those novels had a good balance between technical military descriptions and story telling. In "Air Battle Force", however, Brown started to stray a little too far from the story telling side of it, and in "Plan of Attack" he pretty much goes over completely to the technical side. The novel opens with an account of an American air attack against mobile Russian missle launch pads in Turkmenistan. It should be exciting, but instead we get a painstaking description of the American attack plane's weapons systems; when it fires a missile, we get a detailed analysis of the missile's capabilities, as well as an indepth look at the defense systems of the Russian launch pads. Only a few pages in, it's hard to tell if you're reading a novel or a glorified instruction manual.
   The story itself is a little far-fetched as well. While I'm sure Vladimir Putin would love it if he had an overhauled nuclear bomber strike force capable of attacking the United States without our even knowing, the actual reality is that this would never happen, especially with the Russian defense budget in the state that it is. Character development is also sketchy; Gary Houser, who is described as an Air Force Intelligence genius, doesn't do much beyond curse at anything that moves. Patrick McLanahan's usual go-against-the-grain mentality is so routine by now that it hardly seems shocking anymore (though what is shocking is that he hasn't been kicked out of the Air Force by now). And finally, Brown is so eager to show the technical aspect of modern warfare that he almost completely ignores the human side of it. In the afore-mentioned opening battle scene, for instance, it's easy to forget that hundreds of Russian soldiers are killed.
   Overall, I found this book to be a dissapointment. The idea of Russia launching a surprise nuclear attack against the United States smacks of 1970's Cold War paranoia and lacks any kind of believability. In addition, the non-stop technical jargon drags the story down and prevents any actual momentum. I used to count Dale Brown as one of my favorite authors, but suffice to say I don't think I'll be picking up any new books from him anytime soon.



4. OK, we understand this genre. The hawks are always right, and the doves are always wrong. But even with that compensation this book stinks. I think Rottenberg's review summarized the book OK, based on the half I actually finished, but does not accurately portray the tone that made it so sucky.
   
   The book strikes a historic low for this genre in making the protagonists look like bad guys in the story, comparable to even Patrick Robinson's Kilo class. It starts out with Patrick McLanahan' (protagonist's) hunch (based on the single data point of wierd positioning) allowing him to determine a Russian SAM brigade was in violation of a cease-fire based mostly on detecting a battery radar w/i the LEGAL zone using one of his unmanned bombers (he's also cheating, and far more blatantly). To confirm his target, he launches a provocation by opening bomb doors, and gets a response. Patrick McLanahan decides to murder the entire brigade with his unmanned bombers. About 5 seconds after his decision was implemented (the UCAVs on his unmanned planes were deployed, but they hadn't shot off THEIR smart weapons yet) the Russians actually launched and killed the unmanned bomber. One of his underlings, who once was actually a decent character when introduced in Chains of Command, actually got indignated and demanded that real people die for his drone.
   
   In mitigation, Dale Brown's world is a little different from ours, and by this point McLanahan and co had fought Russians many more times. Still, for protagonists to do this, and for UNMANNED planes just makes them look completely callous. Even the Russian nuclear attack later in the book is much mitigated (at least to my non-American mind) thanks to McLanahan's antics (and apparently antics he had committed in previous books...).
   
   Now let's go to the OTHER undercurrent. All those "staff weenie" USAF officers, including poor General Houser, who actually seemed like a pretty nice aircraft commander back in Flight of the Old Dog, was morphed into not only a staff weenie, but also a bully.
   
   At least in Brown's mind. In the REAL world, those "staff weenies" are making much more sense in their arguments and are far more likely to be correct. But Brown has "forced" the decision with an artificiality that far exceeds the average in this genre. There is something called being prepared for the worst eventuality. Then there's being prepared for implausibility itself.
   
   Gryzlov's motivation was paper thin, as was McLanahan's... we all understand about McLanahan, but how about making Gryzlov a strategist rather than a paper thin revenge-seeker.
   
   So, the writing is worse than paper-thin. How about the technobabble, which admittedly turns me on if done well. Unfortunately, the man didn't make it through his first page before his first error. I never knew the 9S32 Grill Pan was a "surveillance radar", or that the Russians generously gave 9S19 High Screen to battery/kompleks level! The battery CP is apparently a separated unit. Sigh...
   
   Ironically, his incorrect perception of a SA-12 unit's typical layout crushed a good chance to give more meat to McLanahan's leaps of logic. For example, if McLanahan knew that the stuff he detected was at the battalion level, he might have been able to justify the presence of batteries placed further forward on that basis. Oh well...
   
   What makes his less than spot-on technobabble worse is that the man shows his severe Russophobia. Every Russian weapon is a copy of an American weapon. Where that is plainly impossible, it is a copy of a French weapon - a French weapon that never actually made it into service...
   
   I can go on, but in short. Poor plot, poor characters poor technobabble. The only bright spot is the bomber scenes (and those are Russian because the Americans went to unmanned bombers which takes all the tension out...) Don't make the same error as me....



5. One of the first books I fell in love with a few years back was "Day of the Cheetah". I was riveted and couldn't put it down.
   
   I was so disappointed in "Plan of Action". I wont bother re-iterating all the flaws in this book as many have already done so here, however I will say that I had to force myself to finish it.
   
   I found the "plot" unbelievable, got bored of the techno-babble after the first page, and desperatly wanted to court-marshall "Muck" myself. When the hero is a pompous ass, how can you enjoy a book.
   
   I am a fan of Dale Brown's early work, but this novel was as cardboard as the cover it was bound in.

5 comments about Dale Brown's Dreamland: Strike Zone CD.

1. Absolutely the best book of the series so far. Full of action from start to finish. Not loaded with as much unbelievable technology as some.



2. Dale Brown, popular author who has penned fourteen New York times bestsellers, is a former Air Force bombardier. He's an ace pilot as well as a first-rate author. Teaming with Jim DeFelice the pair offer a suspenseful high-tech military thriller.

   A dynamite performance by JK Simmons makes sparks fly from the opening lines of this action packed tale.

   Far out in the Nevada dessert some of the best minds are focused on warfare in the future. Dreamland force has had their hands more than full in stopping an Asian war that could have been a nuclear holocaust destroying the world as we now know it.

   However, an even greater challenge is soon to arrive - radar detection shows there is a major threat nearby. It's a robot warplane capable of unheard of destruction. The "ghost clone" as it is called has no known origin but more than one of them could turn our world into a fiery inferno.

   How can this warplane be found and stopped?

   A complexly devised plot makes for nonstop listening.

   - Gail Cooke




3. Although I have never been a fan of the double author book idea, Dale and Jim seem to have a good thing going here. Strike Zone continues the main characters as they continue to provide the President with options without an all out war. The story opens up slower than the other novels in this series, but as always, the action scenes are fantastic. As a first reader, this one would hold it's own, and if you have the others in the series, it's a MUST HAVE.



4. Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice did it again with Dreamland: Strike Zone. This is an excellent read for those of you out there that are Dale Brown fans. The continuation of the storyline along with it being an independent novel makes it a great all around book for any reader. Because of the novels independence, someone that hasn't read any of the books in the Dreamland series will be able to understand and follow the storyline that has been laid out. This series and others by Dale Brown was what made me interested in the war/technology/current event novels. Since then I have become hooked to them.
   What I liked the most about this novel is the reality factor that exists and the possibly that there really could be a "Dreamland." The closest known thing to Dreamland is Area 51. I like books like this that make you think about the world around you and what things are happening. Brown likes to use real world events or events and technology. I think that because is a former captain in the United States Air Force this allows him to write books like this. He already has knowledge of aircraft and the general way that the president can give orders to the four braches of the military so for him to write novels about it and to make it interesting for the reader would be easier for him than to write a romance novel.
   The characters I think go through an interesting evolution. With what happened to Zen's wife, I don't think that I could have predicted that even at the end of the last novel in the Dreamland series. I also like how the love story that is there between Colonel Bastian and Jennifer Gleason doesn't get in the way of the over all "mission"/ storyline.



5. When I saw the paperback I checked my library which holds all of Dale Brown's work and I did not find it, so I bought it. As I read the book I soon relized I had read it before. I still read the book (again) and once more enjoyed it. If you like Dale Brown, Strike Zone is up to his normal standard. The theme is the tension between Taiwan and mainland China and the desire by some to start a war between China and the USA, which would leave China in a weakend or defeated state. China is not able to take Taiwan by force, especially with USA backing. Taiwan is not strong enough to take China in open warfare, but if the right people had the funding, and some nukes, and the right delivery system, and China were beat down by a war with the USA, that could kill a lot of people and upset the balance of power and bring down China. Of course, Dreamland gets the task of finding out what is going on, and then stopping it. It is no easy task for Dreamland and it is not without cost, but of course Dreamland saves the world again.
   
   My only disappointment is that I can't find my original copy of Strike Zone, which is most likely a hard cover book.

5 comments about Shadow Command.

1. This is my second Dan Brown novel that I have read in the recent years. I would love to say that this was a great book full of action and adventure and the technical gadgetry of the last book that I read. However, this book is just horrible. My biggest problem is with the ending of the book. I won't give away the ending, but Dan Brown asks the readers to imagine the last 5-6 chapters of the book without going into specific detail on how the ending came to be. Literally, you read the 3rd to last chapter and the next chapter you read skips ahead about 5 chapters. You have no idea what is happening or why. Either the editor cut this out or Dan Brown didn't want to finish this one. Either way save your money, there are better books.



2. My husband loved it. We are currently packing up some of our books to make more room and this one is one that is staying out. That is very very high praise.



3. In Shadow Command, Dale Brown successfully mixes two genres: bad military fiction and bad science fiction.



4. I am not sure what Dale Brown is trying to accomplish here. This novel is pure trash. Brown turns his previously honorable characters into murderous traitors because they think the NCA is wimpy. Brown glorifies what any sane person would recognize as a nightmare scenario.
   
   To paraphrase Elliott Ness in The Untouchables, his heroes have forsworn themselves; have broken every law they have sworn to uphold; have become what they beheld; and are content that they have done right.



5. I don't think I have ever read any other books by this author, and I'll make sure not to do so in the future. I have slogged through the first 120 pages of this "novel", mostly because I kept hoping that it couldn't possibly stay *this* bad. And then it has gotten worse.
   
   The characters are horrible, the dialog is stilted, the info dump is horribly managed. Out of the 120 pages mentioned above, perhaps 15 contain actual story. The rest is a list of names of people and tech with detailed capability explanations that would probably work better in a manual, and made my mind go blank every time I had to deal with one.
   
   The whole situation with Boomer and Frenchy made me roll my eyes and stare at the pages with disbelief.
   
   Do yourself a favor, and stay far far away.

5 comments about Rogue Forces CD.

1. As always it is one of Dale Brown's great books. He is the best when it comes to high teck Military novels.



2. This book was good, but not great, but if you like the military thrillers from Tom Clancy type writers with a little sci-fi mixed in it is worth the read.



3. One of the better books from Dale Brown. Worth the read. We need to see movies based on Dales plots and battle staff.



4. I have read them all.From Flight of the Old Dog to Dreamland Revolution,Dale's books have always hit the entertainment mark.



5. This book was an okay read but the story lacks depth and excitement. It is at best just pulp fiction.

5 comments about Silver Tower.

1. After a great rookie effort with Flight of the Old Dog, Brown falls into the trap which crushed many a technothriller author; boring politics, and too much droning techno babble. Skip it.



2. Under the heading of what else is new, let me get this staight, the main complaint is... too much technical jagon or too much technical detail? Dale Brown is talking about high energy laser or particle beam type weapons for gosh sake! If you want something that inherently complex reduced to single syllable descriptions perhaps you're reading the wrong book? May I suggest a classic Superman or Batman comic book?



3. A great book that although published quite a few years ago is an engaging tale of possible near-future spy technology and warfare.



4. enjoyable enough tosh....is it just me, or does the USS California morph from a 58,000 tonne battleship to an 11,000 tonne guided missle cruiser half way through??? mehh....



5. Mr. Brown is apparently completely ignorant of basic chemistry, physics, and the space program. He introduces a complex laser weapon system that has essentially been created by a single person, although it contains superconducting relays (which would have to be keep near absolute zero of temperature)and a magnetohydrodynamic power source. He thinks that sodium carbonate and nitric acid will produce nitrogen gas, not carbon dioxide, and that this gas could lift a rocket. He thinks that a satellite could pass over the same spot on the earth in every orbit, in spite of the rotation of the earth. All of his descriptions of the U. S. and Soviet space programs are highly unrealistic, as are his description of the limited war, which surely would have started World War III. All in all, this is the most annoying book that I have read in recent years. I am ashamed to have spent enough time on the book to have read it all. However, I am glad that it checked it out of the public library and did not spend any money on it.

1 comments about Dale Brown's Dreamland: Satan's Tail CD.

1. No matter what Dale writes you can be confident that the story is never stale or just an extension of a previous story. he has written the dreamland series wherein each book can stand on its own or the reader get more value than the cost of the book if they read the series.