Here we are at number #88 in the series, reading them in order and without doubt this is the biggest load of crap I have read yet.
Plot non existent, storyline ditto with the usual slaughter from this author with plenty of body parts flying left right and centre. Nothing happens, I finished this gem but how many times I put it down in boredom thinking how long until I finish this. The title is extremely hard to read with sub plots not leading anywhere except for the excuse to write even more slaughter sections.
I can't believe how long it took me to read this and how many times I wanted to just give it away but I persisted.
This is a very tedious read and I would suggest unless you have a pressing need to read this eg. reading the series in order as I am at this stage this would be one to miss.
One star added for the epilogue 6 out of 346 pages!
Pure and simple this is a shocker avoid.
Reading this book, I got the feeling that it was an undone novel desperately needing another rewrite or two. The basic premise is all over the place and doesn't really sinc up together at well. The pacing leads you up to a great finish, which never materializes. The action is also lacking. Besides, didn't we do this plot in Star Venture?
A nuke goes off in the Australian Outback. Stony Man Farm is attacked by elite hackers. Intelligence agencies are panicking. Because the hackers are traceable, Able Team is dispatched to find them. Phoenix Force is in the middle of a mission in Dagestan. My thinking is, what about that nuke? It’s ultimately disappointing to report that those two story-threads were the most entertaining part of the novel. The more I learned about the plot, the more I did not want to know.
All roads (story-threads) eventually lead to the mystery of the nuke in Australia, of course. But the route taken is one that’s not to be desired. Space-aged weaponry weighs down Dan Schmidt’s attempt of an epic story. The unbelievable claims and powers of the world’s governments compromised the novel, a fatal breach that ends up sinking it before the finish line.
Nukes have gone off before the series. So has space flight, futuristic technology and outlandish government conspiracies and alliances. This one attempted to readdress those all at once. Previous opponents make an appearance. All of them. Russian & American black ops, corrupt UN officials, The European Space Agency, a reusable shuttle project, Russian mafia, Islamic fundamentalists. The novel strains and creaks, trying to tie them all into a Mad, Mad, Mad World of evil doers.
Most of the prose is a bit mangled, making reading this a bit of a chore. The editing is off here as well. Taglines notifying the reader of locations disappear from time to time, ultimately being dropped all together. My favorite goof is from page 220: “Blancanales gauged the distance to the [aircraft] – about eight hundred yards out, plenty enough within the four-hundred-yard range of his platoon-slayer.” And why did McCarter really needed a knife to kill that terrorist commander?
I enjoyed the first hundred or so pages, but it declined real fast after that. The rest of the novel, well, let’s just say the final grade is an overall average.
Three strikes and you're out! This is the third Dan Schmidt book I've read and I've disliked each one of them. The first was an Executioner that I read all the way through, but the second was a Super Bolan that I punched out of at page 100. I stopped wasting my time with this one on page 66.
The problem is the same as the prior books, overly long rambling sentences/paragraphs, poor/confusing plot flow, meaningless asides in the middle of sentences that are confusing and make you forget what point the sentence was trying to make, etc.
I was hoping this book would be better than the prior Schimdt books as I found the synopsis of the book interesting. The first few chapters weren't bad, but there was the occasional problem like i mentioned above and my frustration began to grow. THen I hit the section where Phoenix Force is introduced and it was page after page of brutal reading. At that point it was time to throw in the towel and move on.
