5 comments about Dale Brown's Dreamland.

1. Dale Brown has collaborated with Jim DeFelice(check out his WAR BREAKER, by the way) to produce an excellent new novel set roughly around the end of Dale's DAY OF THE CHEETAH but tying in nicely with SHADOWS OF STEEL. In the story, Colonel Tecumseh DOG Bastian is assigned by the White House to get Dreamland, the secret base at Nevada's Groom Lake, back into shape or else defence budget cuts will force the place to close. The first half of the book deals with experimenting on new weapons systems, in particular the FLIGHTHAWK unmanned aerial vehicles and also development of the EB-52 Megafortress, another old favourite! Dale Brown has also done well in creating some new characters, such as hotshot F-16 pilot Mack Smith, paraplegic ex-pilot Jeff Stockard who is a leading player with the FLIGHTHAWK system and is also burned out, concerned about his marriage to Megafortress pilot Breanna Bastian Stockard, daughter of 'Dog'. All these personal dramas intertwine well when things heat up in the book's secomd half. As well as the new faces, we also get cameo appearances from Patrick MacLanahan, loose cannon General Brad Elliot(who I sadly miss, this character really rocks!), Madcap Magician SPECFOR operative Hal Briggs and also National Security Advisor Deborah O'Day, who is undecided about closing Dreamland. Overall, memorable characters, fast pacing, easy-to-read narrative and some interesting military technology which might be in use today(you just never know what they've got hidden away) and some pulsating action scenes in the air and on the ground with a deployment of a Marine Expeditionary Unit on a search and rescue mission make this new Dale Brown story well worth the read. I eagerly look forward to reading more in the DREAMLAND series!



2. As soon as I saw the recommendation from Clive Cussler I should have known....
   Dale Brown has written some good stuff but this is awful. Overly technical and the first half reads like a soap opera! No action until way into the second half of the book and while the action is well handled, the characters are on the dull side.
   I am sure many of you will now enjoy voting that this is an unhelpful review, but this was a painful read at times.
   Zzzzzzzzzz.



3. Was excited about this new series from Brown based on the goings-on at Dreamland. The opening novel takes place in 1995, not long after the events in his novel Day of the Cheetah. Basically, General Elliot is out of the picture at Dreamland, and Congress and all the other higher ups are close to closing this place down.

   Enter Colonel Dog Bastian. He takes over Dreamland, figuring it will be ditched by the powers that be. This is the slow, and I mean slow part of the book, pretty much the first one half to two thirds of the book. Generally, we introduce new characters, besides Bastian, including his daughter and pilot Breanna Stockard, and her husband, who is wheel-chaired after a training accident in the prologue, Jeff. A few cameos from Dale Brown's other novels appear, such as McClanahan and Briggs. The only one that takes part in most of this novel from the past novels is Nancy Cheshire.

   While they are working on projects at HAWC, tensions are mounting in Somalia, where Iranians are shipping in Silkworm missles. Also, involved is Libya. The Iranians are trying to get a "Greater Islamic League" set up against the west.

   Eventually, our friends at Dreamland are sent over, in their modified EB-52 Megafortresses...along with U/MF's Flighthawks, which are unmanned planes flown by Jeff from inside the EB-52.

   The novel picks up speed in the last one quarter as we have aerial and land battle scenes. Can the guys and gals of Dreamland succeed in their mission, and if so, this could save the Dreamland facility.

   Also enjoyed Brown and Defelice adding some action from the Navy, and Marines in this one. If not for most of the book being slow, this would have ranked higher.

   Betting the series will get better, now that the characters have been developed. Worth getting if you're a techno-thriller fan.




4. This is my first Dale Brown book, so I haven't read enough to make a judgment on the author. However, I found it hard to keep my interest in this book. The character development consisted of little more than their name and call sign. The characters all tend to be petty, and self centered with little variation. The 'no one is better than me' attitude was tiring in the beginning, and the trend stayed through the entire book. It was very much like a soap opera.

   On a good note, the action scenes were enjoyable, but I found myself not really caring what happenes to the characters in the end. I just wanted to get to the end so I could know what happened, and not completely waste the couple of bucks that I spent on the book. My recomendation if you want to read this book is to check it out at the library.




5. This is the first book I've read by Brown and overall it was pretty good. The book has an interesting cast of characters, each with their own personality and although they're backgrounds are often somewhat mysterious, their is a definite uniqueness to each.

   The problem I had with this book is that I sometimes found it difficult to follow what was happening and how various events were related. But, their were fairly detailed descriptions of the various aerial scenarios which are often riveting.

   I'm a pretty big Tom Clancy fan and for those of you who've read his work I'll tell you that Brown's writing, unlike Clancy's, focuses much more on the military side to stories and only a little on the political implications. And this story seemed a little less intricate than Clancy's work.

   I think the book is pretty good and the stories concerning this top-secret government installation have a lot of room for potential. Dale Brown is no Tom Clancy, but he's talented and has written a novel worth reading if you're really interested.

5 comments about Fatal Terrain.

1. Despite the liberal posters and armchair military experts, I loved this book! Sure, many of the weapons and situations are fictional (as far as I know).
   The excessive military jargon was almost humorous and actually fun to read. Brown makes sure you know what all the acronyms mean. The situations and flight duals with jets and missiles were great. The plot had some great twists.
   It had me looking up all the different aircraft used. A fun and hard to put down book, I would highly recommend it!



2. Since Sky Masters - when the B2 was on top of South East Asia's Sea, I found another big blast wind from the east. Brown took more serious what happen if China invades Taiwan (I am hoping it's never happen). I read Brown's thriller even more scary this time. All the ballistic missiles ready to aim Taiwan, major scales battle! Hardly to imagine. Definitely Very accurate story and Yes! another best writter from Brown.
   Don't ever miss this!



3. Dale Brown's "Fatal Terrain" explores a possible scenario of Taiwan declaring its independence from the People's Republic of China, and PRC's response to that. For its part, the USA chooses to use a private company that has modified B-52 bombers that are the EB-52 Megafortresses: high-tech platforms of misery and woe for the foe.
   
   Brown throws in a lot of technical language, but this is usually fairly well explained, as are the expressions and other military jargon. At some points, the explanations appear in the dialogue, which can make the dialogue seem a little unnatural. For example, Elliot is talking to his friend Patrick and mentions "littoral regions", with an explanation of what they are. Now, I had no idea what "littoral regions" are, but the character Patrick surely would not have needed any explanation.
   
   Apart from that, I found the writing to be of a high standard, and at times I couldn't read fast enough to keep up with the action. It was intense at times to try and read faster to see what happens next. Combat scenes abounded and they were festooned with missiles, it seemed. The aircraft and so on were well decribed, balancing detail with movement of the action.
   
   I did not find any problems with the political intrigues that Brown described, but then I have little knowledge of the U.S.A.'s political system or that of China or Taiwan.
   
   Some details of plausibility are still open to question in my mind. One galring one would be the plausibility of nations setting off nukes near the Philippines and being able to largely conceal it. Along with "combat over the USA" on the part of the main characters, these details make me wonder if Brown knows something we don't.
   
   This book really is Tom Clancy with aeroplanes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great read on most counts, and one that I would happily recommend.



4. This is fairly typical Dale Brown fare. Start with some global tension, add a sprinkling of improbably stealthy B52 bombers, throw in some political intrigue, a dash of air combat, and you have a fairly standard techno-thriller.
   
   The basic premise is that Taiwan declares independence. Mainland China tries to invade. Zany antics, of course, ensue.
   
   The ubiquitous megafortresses (nuclear weapon capable strategic bombers that somehow a private company has modified to become stealthy) are sent to Taiwan because the US routinely makes a habit of sending privately owned experimental modifications of obsolete aircraft to hotspots around the world. Bad things happen. Our heroes are blamed. Our heroes defy the government. Our heroes save the day. Our heroes are not sent to Leavenworth, since the President thinks "Boys will be boys".
   
   Politically improbable - Taiwan independence is a complex issue. Taiwan is more likely to erupt into civil war than declare independence.
   
   Technologically unlikely - While refitting B52's with air to air missiles is certainly possible, making them stealthy is pretty unlikely.
   
   Fiscally impossible - The idea that a private corporation could somehow rebuild, finance and run a fleet of B52 bombers is ludicrous. Most small nations would find it a strain on their defense budget.



5. Liking to read Tom Clancy on occasion, I thought Dale Brown may be another military author I could like to read. I like to detail of the military equipment and tactics which are used. Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy is a hallmark to this type of writing.
   
   I thought wrong baout Dale Brown. What a bore! Some details on equipment are good, I don't want to read five pages about landing an aircraft which just ends up exploding and adds little to the story. The worst bit of the book was the 50 pages of political dialoguein the White House. Yawn!
   
   This kind of book needs to stay away from the big-wag chat-chat and get more into the hot-shot boom-boom. Besides, the converted bomber isn't all that interesting. Hmph.

5 comments about Chains of Command.

1. I had been a casual fan of Brown's work until I paid money for this monstrosity. The plot is dull- a lame rehash of the countless "rise of the old USSR" that have flooded the genre since the events of 1991. The characters are weak, and the plot twists are weaker. Worst of all is Brown's disgusting Clinton-bashing, so naked in its hostility that it makes Brown look foolish and petty. Maybe Brown should have spent less time whining about Clinton than writing a better story. Better yet- he could give me my money back.



2. I kind of like many of Dale's books, although I would rate them consistently lower than Clancy or Bond. This one is however below average. The first half is decent, especially the Desert Storm mission, although the top brass' reaction to the latter is unrealistic. The second half is a let-down, with totally unbelievable actions. And the Clinton bashing alone takes at least two points of the rating. By the way, maybe Mr Brown could buy a decent map of the world? The Hong-Kong gaff in Fatal Terrain has been highlighted before, but here he manages to mix up Slovakia (formed from the former Czechoslovakia) with Slovenia (formed from the former Yugoslavia), even in the map included in the book.



3. Another great thriller from DB. In this one you have a bit of a change from the normal Patrick McClannahan story and you meet Mace as well as the "Iron Maiden". The world has changed and many of the fighter pilots are now part of the reserves, and a huge percentage of them are women. See what they have to do to become fighter pilots.

   You will also learn a lot about photon bombs and their destruction of life etc. In this story you will cover a lot of ground from the Ukraine, Turkey to Plattsburgh NY as well as Iraq. It is a fast paced story with the normal plethora of detail on military actions as well as equipment from DB. I really enjoyed this story but I think Fatal Terrain is my favorite so far...




4. Dale Brown has much technical information about the F-111, and he batters his reader with the most insignificant, irrelevant detail. And while his irrelevant details about the aircraft might be at least accurate, most of the other basic machinery of his plots is not. He'd like to champion the liberal treatment on the part of the all-wise US military in general and Dale Brown in particular of the female warrior in contrast with the backward Turks. Fact is, however, that Turkish military forces have long had women in combat positions. His geography is often just plain wrong. But it is Brown's incessant, hysterical, and thoroughly irrelevant bashing of the Clintons that completely destroys any claim CHAINS OF COMMAND might have of being a novel. In his hate-filled brain, military officers, both junior and senior, curse their commander-in-chief and the First Lady with great frequency. Good military personnel in fact do no such thing. Whatever they may think, a good military woman or man understands the way the United States chain of command works. And in this same hate-filled imagination of his, Brown creates wholly unbelievable situations that make the Clintons, and folks from Arkansas generally, look and act like clowns. No matter whether one voted for Bill or Hillary Clinton or ever would, the pure venom spewed by Brown ruins what could have been a passible novel. I can't read Brown anymore. I can't bring myself to wade through the pettiness of his political and technical irrelevancies and incorrectness to get at the one or two solid elements of his story.



5. The overall book is good. However the end is not as good as the rest of it. It is not as convincing as the beginning and feels like it was written in a rush to print. Too much Technical data that will appeal to those who like airplanes only.

5 comments about Night of the Hawk.

1. Another epic technothriller of redundant proportions. "Hawk" follows the adventures of Pat Maclanahan and the crew of the "Old Dog" in post-Soviet Europe. Brown's novels circulate through several geo-political hot-spots (China, Iran and former east-bloc states). Here, the accent is on the Baltic states, upon which former soviet Russia (not "former" enough for Brown's liking) seeks to reassert her power. Lithuanians trying to remake their country must stand alone against the might of the Russian military. Meanwhile, Russian hardliners inside of Lithuania hope to bring the former east-bloc state into the Russian fold - apparently by creating an extensive laboratory called Fisikous that designs and builds high-tech weapons, including a stealthy strike-fighter designed by the captured American Dave Lugar and patterned along the same technology as the EB-52. As Russian aggression becomes more overt, American forces bolster a coalition of Turkish and Lithuanian warplanes to turn back the tide.

   This was a peculiarly messy Brown novel, adding to the problems you normally run up against in his books. For one thing - what's it even about? The specter of a powerful post-Soviet Russia using its military to rebuild its Soviet-era supremacy isn't a new idea for Brown (or one he'll abandon - witness "Warrior Class"). There is no central threat that must be eliminated by a certain deadline, so there's no tension or any sense that the story is building to a climax the way "Storming Heaven" did. We're supposed to root for the brave Lithuanians who quickly become the "Davids" in a high-tech David-and-Goliath story, but when their leader reveals that he's training an army of warriors patterned after Lithuania's medieval knights, you wonder how loopy "David" can be while remaining the favored underdog. The subplot about wicked ex-Soviets designing and building high-tech weaponry ready for battle is ludicrous. As a former air warrior himself, Brown must appreciate that you need more than fancy computers to actually turn out a prototype airplane - let alone one that can integrate a complex weapons and sensors suite and take the punishment of combat. Furthermore, with the Soviet position as unpopular in Lithuania as Brown can make it, it's impossible to reasonably imagine what good these Soviet wannabes can expect from their gleaming weaponry. (You figure that the pricetag of any one of Fiskous's aircraft, these Russian hardliners could arm thousands of Russian convicts with assault rifles and RPG's and airdrop them into Lithuania). Instead, as if on an episode of "Airwolf", the bad guys decide to cast caution to the wind, and duke it out against the heroes in the air. It's almost as if the researchers of Fisikous are in another book entirely - while Europe struggles to throw off the yoke of the new Russia, these guys sit around their labs arguing about aerodynamics and radar cross-section. Ofcourse, Brown doesn't let the plotting get too far along (when it does, he quickly summarizes everything) before fast-forwarding to the action - which in "Hawk" alternate between air warfare scenes and blatant Clinton bashing (whether you loved the Clinton years or loved to hate the Clintons themselves, and unless you're a rabid basher of Billary, you're likely to find Brown's barbs gratuitous at best and outright malicious at worst).

   The story's biggest weakness is meant to be its surprise - Dave Lugar returns! Feared dead when left behind at the end of the original "Flight of the Old Dog", we now know that he was "rescued" by the Russians, who brainwashed him into turning over America's deepest military aviation secrets. Somehow passed to Fisikous, he's become the unwitting creative genius behind its stealthy fighter. Unfortunately, Lugar's story is only one of many details from other Brown books to make an appearance here. Brown obviously likes the idea that he's created a continuum of characters whose lives are wider than the covers of any one of his books. Unfortunately, the characters are so one-note (Brown prefers to summarize them in miniature dossiers rather than develop them as organic characters) that any attention paid to their adventures in other books seems out of place and distracting. This creates an odd paradox: you've had to have read any of the other books to appreciate the significance of the references Brown makes to them, but "Hawk" so follows the formula of those older books without bringing anything new to the reader, that Browns fans will have the least fun reading this one. We still have overly exhaustive explanations of how new weapons are based on what's tried and true of existing technology, Brown's pilots still exchange extended long dialog while flying their high-performance aircraft into battle, Brown's villains (liberals, Russians and US Naval officers) continue to annoy, and Brown himself treats his stories as an opportunity to demonstrate everything he knows about the military - even when the plot or the need to develop it in get in the way. Whether Brown's details are even correct is a subject I'll save for "true brothers". Grasp of details, however, is not the same thing as making those details flesh out the story or even the scenes in which all of that technology comes to bear. Though by the end of "Hawk" you'll know what a radar-warning receiver sounds like, or what an EW display looks like, the thrill of flying in combat is missing - Brown neglected to give his characters enough feeling to convey the rigors of being shot at while flying at 600 mph. This is one of Brown's weaker books - fans should opt instead for "Skymasters" or "Battle Born".




2. Dave Luger was listed as KIA five years ago. Now in this gripping novel it has been discovered that he has survived and is being held by the KGB. In Night of the Hawk a rescue mission unfolds trying bring Luger back into U.S custody. Dale Brown puts readers right into the action by giving them a third person omniscient view so that they can see the plot unfold from different points of view. He uses his knowledge of military technology to explain everything so that the readers will be pulled even further into his novel. He also tells how spies are converted into to being double agents so that people will understand why some people break. In one of the best shows of military writing Brown makes you want to keep reading his excellent book He combines action, drama, and technology into a whirlwind of word that are matched by few. What Tom Clancy did for the nave, Dale Brown has done for special force. He explains the HAWC air force base in Nevada and how they test new technology to improve America's fighting force. Brown uses characters for the first time instead of using previous character as the center of focus. He sums it up by bring it to a close with the U.S, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States to the brink of a nuclear was as missiles fly and soldiers march in what could become World War three. The U.S marines are pitted against Byelorussians force along with a mixture of fixer and rotor wing aircraft, armored personal carriers and tanks. The U.S is trying to achieve without being detected and blamed for cause trouble in NW Asia. Excellent book for all military fiction lover



3. 'Night of the Hawk' was my second book I read on late 90s. Although it is a sequel strory from 'Flight of the Old Dog'. Brown has given me a view of cold-weather country in Balkans where I have never been there at all. I could feel the cold of the weather but the story even coldest and chilling! But also Brown's wrote a story about a new warfare in it...I really eager wanted to see the mysterious stealth plane. Brilliant Story and it's recommended for those who have a military aviation enthusiast.



4. I got a great book at a great price and fast shipping.



5. Had great service. Recieved book fast and was in great shape. Would order from them again.

5 comments about The Tin Man.

1. This is my first Dale Brown book. I must say I like his imagination in intergrating the high-tech gadgets (including the BERP material) into this story. I like the action and the ups and downs that the main characters go through. My main critisism would be that there is too much emphasis on tough and macho talk between the brothers and the cop community in general. I feel that as a result of this "talk" the story itself has become a bit unrealistic.



2. Dale Brown's The Tin Man is an action packed fast paced thriller. It is an amazing read. Like the thrillers of Tom Clancy, Stephen Coots and Larry Bond, the novels of Dale Brown brim with action, sophisticated weaponry and political intrigue.



3. The terrorist Gregory Townsend starts a reign of terror in the area of Sacramento, California. One of his first victims is former air force General Patrick McLanahan's brother Paul who is severely wounded on his first day of police duty. In order to avenge his brother Patrick has to start a war on his own using the newest technology available to him - a suit that enables him to become a one man army...
   
   This is the first time that no kind of new hi-tech plane or attack mission in a foreign country is the main focus of Brown's book. The "star" of this book is a suit that is bullet proof like solid metal armor one moment and like ordinary fabric the next. With boots that let you jump several meters in the air.
   Besides gathering the usual crew (Patrick and Wendy McLanahan, Hal Briggs, Jon Masters etc.) you also meet an old acquaintance from his first book: the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft/helicopter hybrid from Brown's first book "Hammerheads".
   
   Again, the characters in this story are really great. You love the hero, you hate the villain! And among the villains there are characters that differ a lot from each other. The plain brutal ones and the psychology skilled ones.
   In general Dale Brown's books are always pretty technical. Sometimes too technical. So why do I like him so much? Because when the action starts Brown puts the reader right in the middle of it. You sit in the plane, you fly like the best pilot on earth, you fire the rockets, you are the one! And the action always starts big time. Guaranteed. "Tin Man" is no exception in regards of action and Brown's general writing skills.
   
   BUT his writing skills and the well known characters cannot save this book.
   1) Why do military villains (always) have to be Germans? Why always the same old cliché of neo-Nazis from Germany?! I am getting really tired from it. (The book was first published in 1998 but is that excuse enough?)
   2) The villains are German soldiers and act like neo-Nazis but only when certain customers are around. Why? The answer is never given.
   3) The storyline has flaws as well. All the efforts that Townsend is undergoing (robbery, drugs, technology theft etc.) for one single goal in the end? That ultimate target could have been achieved a lot easier and quicker. Looks as if Brown could not decide which way to go or which angle to focus on. (Funny as it is the main characters ask themselves the same question in end of the book. Maybe Brown should have listened to them!)
   4) Most important: I found the idea about the suit and its skills (especially with the rocket boots) pretty ridiculous! (Who is Superman?) Therefore the book is more like a blown-up comic than what you use to get from this author.
   Maybe Brown should stick to what he knows best - air to air or air to surface combat.
   
   Bottom line:
   The book is entertaining, can be read easily and you do not need to twist your brain to follow the story. But overall this is not one of Dale Brown's better books. The main idea about the suit is so ridiculous that it almost hurts sometimes and really spoils the fun. I can recommend all (!) of his other books in order to beware you from reading this one.
   Funny as it seems one of his very first books is still the most entertaining one today to me: "Hammerheads".



4. I am a big fan of Dale Brown's action-packed, aviation-focused novels. As such, I decided to venture out of the aviation world for once, carefully following Brown's lead through his "Tin Man" novel.
   
   The action is OK, the theme is interesting. But there are no aircraft in it! Plus, the science side of the explanations Brown gives of the technology behind the supermen-like powers is both weak and hardly credible at all... In fact, the whole book reads more like a "common" police action book with a soft science-fiction edge than the mix of military aviation, armrest-grabbing novels I am used to reading from Brown.



5. Poor men's iron men come back from mission with a body bagged brother.
   
   A covert mission in power armour suits? Sounds pretty unlikely, or cool comic stuff, doesn't it? Pretty much. So the new toy for these miltiary technology wunderkinds proves too irresistable to keep off for long. So, they do what they do best, at least the head guy. Blow crap up, and get family members dead. Technothriller/mundane sf/weapons porn sort of stuff, but certainly ok if you are after that sort of book.

5 comments about Shadows Of Steel.

1. This is a Very good Book, this is my Third Dale Brown book and i love this one .. the plot is very good, the Flying action is out of this world, I think this B-2 bomber is a favorite from the autor, this book is a must read if you like Dale Brown.



2. Alright,

   this was the very first book of Dale Browns' I have read. Now, I have 5, with another 5 on order.

   This book is excellent. This one talks about the B-2 Bomber, and modifying it. Although I recomend you read Sky Masters first, you can read this before Sky Masters, like I did. This one has Patrick suiting up on a B-2 and going to fight the Iranians.




3. Shadows of Steel was my fourth book from Brown's Aeoro techno thriller. This time, the story took me to the mid east...after the B2 had its experiences in South East Asia (Sky Masters). The story is very good and I really enjoyed reading it. But damn! I felt myself sitting as a CO Pilot with Patrick in B-2 again..! Although it's not that heavy thriller written in previous 'Sky Masters', But Brown is still genious with story writting! He is still the best Pilot! So everyone who is in flight enthusiast, don't miss it!



4. In "Shadows of Steel", It's the "United States Air Force of Patrick McLanahan" v. Iran. Having previously duked it out with Soviets, Red China and a KGB mole, maverick flier McLanahan is tagged to fly stealth missions into Iran. The covert war is spurred by Iran's defacto nationalization of large pieces of the Persian Gulf and their acquisition of an ex-Russian aircraft carrier (betcha can't guess the name). Obviously the Iranians will have none of McLanahan's airborne warfare, but they get help from some allies in America - liberals, bureaucrats and a pissed-off Navy Admiral who's around to remind us that inter-service rivalry is alive and well in the future of Brown's books.
   
   This was a middling novel. Like most of Brown's books, its hampered by its need to get the look, sound and feel of air combat. Unfortunately, we get so much data, there's no room for the story, or even the idea that the book has a plot. "Steel" never feels like it's working towards something - instead it's basically a sting of scenes with flight jargon, political back-talk and scheming villains. Even the feeling of being in the pilot's seat is spoiled - our characters engage in the same easygoing dialog that you expect to hear from people schmoozing on the ground but never from people strapped into a high-performance fighter jet flying over enemy territory. The realism is debatable, but its drag on the plot is painfully obvious. Some howlers however aren't so much technical but fall into that realm of he human conscious for which there is no on-line directory. For all pretensions of being a maverick, McLanahan is a textbook hero, while a thinly veiled versions of real-life liberals make this less a technothriller than a high-tech Alan Drury novel. I should have realized something was wrong when Brown created as a love interest, a beautiful Saudi female soldier - this from a country where women aren't aloowed to drive or show their faces.



5. If you want to read a something that has controversy and action wrapped up into an exciting, fast pace moving plot, then you should read Shadows of Steel by Dale Brown.
   This realistic fiction book starts you off in the Persian Gulf aboard a U.S. secret carrier that is attacked and sunk by the Iranian Khomeini carrier group. Some survivors were taken hostage from the ship. The President of the United States, in response, turned to former Air Force Captain Patrick McLanahan. McLanahan - if you've ever read some other Brown books - has saved the day more than once before. An aggressive offensive plan is devised to attack Iran and to prevent another Gulf war from erupting. Targets in the plan are strictly military and industrial only and McLanahan wants to do most of this with non-lethal force. Their weapon is the new B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber that is state of the art. Can McLanahan pull off another successful mission? Check out this book for guaranteed action and suspense.
   I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the middle-east and problems over there. Also to those who enjoy suspenseful thrillers with smart action. An example of some of the action from this book that was actually kind of funny was when McLanahan was confronted by the Secret Service and was going to be asked whether he wanted to do the mission or not and McLanahan, not knowing who it was, knocked the guy out with his computer and put him in a tight lock. If you want a read that won't let you down if you're somewhat interested in this stuff, possible even if you're not, then pick this book up now.

5 comments about Shadow Command.

1. As expected from Dale Brown. I really hope our military officers are not like he proatraits



2. The characters are like old friends. I await each of his books with great anticipation and have read some of them more than once.



3. I'm glad I didn't read the other reviews before I read this. I have to agree there is some cheesy sex parts in it that could have been left out. I'm not a prude or anything it just doesn't go so well with the flow of the book.
   
   Other than that I did like it pretty well though. I like to use these kind of books as a bit of an escape from reality. On that front it does deliver big time. One person said that he hopes the officers in the military aren't like McLanahan. Personal opinion if we had stuff like is in the book and an officer like him in real life the conflict in Iran would have been solved a long time ago.
   
   It is a bit over the top but still a good read if you are a fan of his writing. Maybe wait for it in paperback, but I don't regret the hard bound copy either.



4. The book was the most difficult read I have encountered since Tom Clancy overwelmed me with Weapons Technology and Agency Initials. The autored seemed bogged down in detailing this stuff, leaving the story, moral, and flow lost to the reader.



5. There is one great flight scene, where we (the good guys) engage two MiG fighters. It is a terrific scene, early in the book; after that, just put the book down. What follows are absurd - and unnecessary - numbers of double entendres and sexual innuendo; trysts galore; a fairly weak plot; & little character development. Who wrote this? Is simply can't be the man who wrote "Day Of The Cheetah," because the character development, plot, writing, and flight scenes are superb. I've read all of Dale Brown's books, and I was very disappointed with this one.

No comments about Dale Brown: Night of the Hawk and Chains of Command.

5 comments about Battle Born.

1. If you prefer your tales of blood and slaughter served up with plenty of jaw-jutting angst, this book is for you. Dale Brown is to be saluted for getting this into print. I wouldn't publish it. The heros are monodimensionally combative with everyone, even each other. There's plenty of bombastic machismo dialogue. Still, the audio version is great for washing dishes. You can miss whole chapters while vacuuming and still follow the plot. And we get to focus on radio-transimitting microchips while thousands fry as the tactical nuclear weapons fly. Doesn't get any better than this for dissassociated mayhem. But hey, I listened to all of it, didn't I?



2. I hate to say it, but I found this book painfully SLOW. Yes, the plot moved along smartly, but not in a way that I cared about. The primary conflict doesn't arise until quite late in the book and our "heros", and I use the term loosley because I care not a whit about the charaters Mr. Brown created, see no real action until VERY late in the book. For my taste, he spent FAR too much time setting up the scenario and not enough time making me care about the characters. Tin Man, while admittedly hokey, at least saw the main character actively involved in fighting the bad guys from an early chapter. I struggled to finish Battle Born.



3. I read this book with the idea of using some of the information in it to improve my ability to write aerial combat scenarios for an online roleplaying game (NationStates) that I spend a lot of time playing. I chose this book at the bargain bin and decided to give reading the book a try.
   
   Its good points are dialogue that often reflects the way you'd expect dialogue to go when it's a Cabinet meeting or it's between a lieutenant colonel who has to balance her double bill as a leader of one of her pilots and his secret love interest. Another strength of the book is on display once you get to the second half of the novel and you start getting into the drama itself.
   
   However, the book falls short of exceptional by spending too much time on technical explanations that sound like they could be a real life Air Force military briefing. Does it add to the realism? Yes. But it also makes the first half of the book a dense read and a challenge to the civilian who has limited background in military thrillers. If I weren't so determined to finish this book, I probably would have given up within the first 100 of its 555 pages.
   
   All in all, the book is decent to pretty good, but it's a far cry from being the engaging read it turned into during the second half of the book. As it ends up, it's a tweener that could have earned three stars if I were in the right mood to give them.



4. This is a definate page turner. I like how it shows the plots with different countries' leaders point of view. Not a lot of flying like the previous books though. Still, as usual, Brown keeps a lot of Technical stuff in which might make it hard for new readers.



5. Dale Brown returns to the world stage in Battle Born, picking up loose ends from his 1997 technothriller, Fatal Terrain. That novel began as China launched a small-scale nuclear assault on Taiwan after it declared full independence and sovereignty. At the same time, a nuclear explosion in Yokosuka Harbor outside Tokyo destroyed several American warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Independence. Although the Chinese were suspected, the actual culprit was never positively identified. When the United States tried to halt the PRC's attacks against Taiwan, the Chinese retaliated by launching a nuclear attack against U.S. military bases on Guam. A stunned U.S. struck back, effectively destroying both China's air force and its last remaining ICBMs, but afterward chose not to escalate the conflict.
   
   Two years later, the U.S. is keeping a wary eye on the Chinese and trying to mend fences with nervous allies. Japan, for example, fearful of Chinese aggression, has closed down all U.S. military bases. Little does anyone know that another wild card is about to be played, this time by South Korea. A joint U.S.-Japanese-South Korean military exercise goes horribly awry when South Korean pilots race across the DMZ to support a massive people's revolt against the communists. To everyone's surprise, the bold initiative succeeds. Armed with weapons the Chinese provided to the North, the newly minted United Korea becomes the world's newest nuclear power. Ironically, its most likely target is China, who many fear will launch a preemptive strike on the fledgling nation.
   
   Seeking to contain the situation, a shaken U.S. president turns to Generals Terrill Samson and Patrick McLanahan. Backed by technological marvels developed at Groom Lake (a top-secret military facility) and supported by a feisty group of fliers appropriated from the Nevada Air National Guard ("Battle Born" is Nevada's state motto), McLanahan once again enters the fray, this time trying desperately to avert the beginning of World War III. The odds are against him, but this doesn't phase McLanahan a bit -- he's made a career out of bucking the odds.
   
   Obviously pitched toward technothriller fans (Tom Clancy fans will feel right at home here), Battle Born will satisfy general readers as well. For those who crave a charismatic hero, it stars Brown's long-running series character, Patrick McLanahan. For political junkies, it brims with domestic and international intrigue. There's hardware aplenty for techno geeks, air battles for avionics buffs, and plenty of thrills for action fans.
   
   The book also has a serious side. Although Brown could have better depicted the human cost of the carnage (basically, all we get are numbers), he does a great job of casting light on the current global situation. McLanahan's volatile world differs from our own, but not by much. The Korean situation he depicts is especially plausible -- the conditions described in Battle Born are eerily close to those that exist in those troubled countries today. Hopefully, should events develop in our reality as they do in Battle Born, soldiers like Patrick McLanahan will step forward to save the day.

5 comments about Storming Heaven.

1. Review of "Storming Heaven" by Dale Brown.

   It seems almost impossible to buy a well-written action novel. They all seem to be written by people who haven't learned how to write a book with characters, real characters who stand up off the page. "Storming Heaven" is, regrettably, no exception.

   "Storming Heaven" is yet another of those books written by men who like to have their photos taken standing on military vehicles wearing baseball caps. This book is written in 'head hopping' mode, which is usually reseved for romance novels. The writer hops about from character to character. After a few pages the unfortunate reader feels quite dizzy.

   One might hope that the publisher could advise this writer on learning how to write in a focussed viewpoint. This would be a slim hope as the book seems to have been published from its first draft and without benefit of an editor. An example of the nonsense:

   (The viewpoint for the moment is supposed to be with Vincenti, a fighter pilot)
   The stress in the controller's voice was painfully obvious and Vincenti knew why. As soon as he heard a break, Cazaux interjected . . .

   In the above, it should be 'Vincenti interjected' not Cazaux, who is fleeing from the fighter. Evidently the writer can't remember which viewpoint he's in, so there's not much hope for the reader.

   The text is chock full of acronyms, all of which are lovingly explained - not once, but over and over. 'The Air-Force E3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning And Communications System)' . . . 'The WAO, or Weapons Assignment Officer, was the overall supervisor of the section of the command center that controlled the fighters from takeoff to landing and monitored the entire intercept." . . . (yawn) and if I see one more time, 'The HUD (Head Up Display) I shall scream. Boring, boring, boring. If the author really needs to soak in acronmys then let him include a glossary of terms. Better still let him write nonfiction. He should have had plenty of practice since this book is written like a stuffy nonfiction weapons manual.

   Apart from the above, the writing style is extremely dull. When Brown introduces a character he stops the story dead, with large passages of exposition concerning who this is, where they went to school, and so on, instead of gradually releasing such information a little at a time while keeping the story alive. E.G:
   ' Hardcastle was tall and lean, with gray hair, a bit longer than he wore it in his Coast Guard days, swept gracefully back from his forehead. "Character lines" were deeply etched around his narrow blue eyes, giving him a hawklike image to match his politics. He wore lightly tinted glasses now . . "
   - and on and on and on, nearly two pages of this boring tripe. This description begins on page five. You'd think that Hardcastle, from his two solid pages of yawn-making, 'was', and 'were', and 'what he was wearing' must be a crucial character, but Hardcastle then disappears as a character and still hasn't reappeared by page 105, which is the point I was unable to continue reading this pulp and consigned it to the trash. Which is where it belongs. 'Nuff said.




2. I was glued to my chair by this book. I thought it moved well and I liked the military technology and jargon. However, I was turned off my Mr. Brown's thinly veiled dislike of the Clinton administration. Mr. Brown should keep his politics out of his books.



3. When it comes to the real thriller rather than aero techno thriller, Another Brown's perspective took the side inner country where the enemy have been there planning what we were not expecting. The Most Thrilling Action Story. Brilliant!



4. So, I haven't reviewed a book for nearly a year. And what's the first genre I review after a year's break from Amazon? Yes, it's a military book. Storming Heaven is a tale of how one very evil mastermind, the Belgian Henri Cazaux, abused as a child, and with overwhelming hatred for fellow humans, invests every breath in his body into finishing the USA's infrastructure with sheer firepower. In fact, the ex-B52 navigator Brown goes into such explicit detail of the savageness of Cazaux's attacks that I will, for once, let the reader find out what happens. Of course, the retired military chief Ian Hardcastle, being the typically macho hero Brown describes him as, tries to go in all fires-blazing, with helicopters and weapons of small-scale mass destruction, with the aim of finishing Cazaux once and for all. As is natural in such shocking, though entertaining novels, the military soon enough falls out with the security services, thinks that they have killed Cazaux when he actually is planning his worst atrocity yet...
   
   If you really aren't into bloodthirsty military novels, I sincerely recommend you to stay away from Storming Heaven. I've read and reviewed many books in my time on Amazon, and this is easily the most dark and deadly novel yet.
   
   Mr Brown, have three stars, on the basis that you lay off from the violence and gore you have shocked me with!



5. Reading this now five years on from 9/11, I can see why a reviewer might have thought Bin Laden had read this book, and it's also worth checking out Dale's blogs on airbattleforce.com, as a writer myself I know all too well the responsibility an author has to society - in my first book, published a year before the 7/7 London attacks, a terrorist takes a rucksack bomb on to a London tube train and is stopped at - wait for it King's Cross! Scary.
   
   But fictional events coming true - its happened this weekend in Marmaris, turkey, as well - is part of being an author, one of the risks you take. Dale Brown is one of the best at his game and I think with all his knowledge of military and geopolitical affairs he should run for President, he would do a better job than, say, Bill Clinton, whose administration he rips into in STORMING HEAVEN. Hilary, named only as the Steel Magnolia in his narrative, however, he always portrays very well as strong-willed and full of guts. Way to go! I'd vote for her.
   
   In the story, set in 1995, American airport and border security is under threat when a Belgian terrorist Henri Cazaux, out for blood after he was abused by American soldiers as a child, gets assistance from ex-SAS commando Gregory Townsend to launch a bloody attack on America's airlines by crashing planes laden with fuel and explosives into air terminals. First, he strikes Oakland International at San Francisco and causes massive loss of life. Then Cazaux goes for Memphis International in Tennessee, wiping out a cargo terminal. Panic sets in all across the States and reaches the White House.
   
   Action is taken by Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle, who first appeared in HAMMERHEADS - read this, this book is ahead of its time - Patriot missile launchers at airports, talk of chaff (defensive countermeasures to distract surface to air missiles) on airliner wings, unauthorised flights shot down by F-16s or ordered to land, which has happened recently, and then terror hits Washington as Cazaux decides to attack the White House . . . Dale Brown did reuse this scenario well for ACT OF WAR too recently though the strategy was a bit different. The ending as well is not what you think - paved the way for character continuation in THE TIN MAN, which is also well worth a read.
   
   Brown surpasses himself here - this book now was not speculation, it seems like a prediction of events to come. With recent security scare threatening air travel and the tourism industry in general, it all seems like essential reading now. I would love to see this book made into a movie, but I think it might be too shcoking for the nanny state we are forced to live in. But overall, this is a MUST READ. Especially if you are an aspiring author and/or historian! If you are new to this author, then this is a great place to start.