Evil Reborn

Dan Schmidt gets his first crack at a trilogy here, Evil Reborn being book one of the Hydra trilogy. A decent beginning, starting up with a major conspiracy cast of characters from all sorts of dangerous types. We have KGB,Columbian drug lords, middle east terrorists, and other assorted bad guys all in a network for Bolan to tackle. The opening sequence takes place in the New York and New Jersey areas, which I thought were well done scenes. Miami gets the next phase, the shorter of the scenes, I like how Bolan managed to manipulate the boss there to set up  an explosive fate for that group. Grimaldi takes a bigger role as Bolan's sidekick as the story moves along. Columbia is the final battleground, although the action wasn't as good as the interactions between the bad guys. I was expecting a better conclusion, I thought it was rushed, but at least most of the book was a compelling read. My favorite part of the book might be the character of Kuschka, who had potential as a villain, sadly the author botched this by ending his fate here in book one. The scene with him at the Siberian camp was excellent. I also liked the way Bolan was referred to as "The problem". I wanted to rate the book higher, but too much potential squandered, so a seven is fair.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Hey wake up you finished the book. Huh? Oh sorry about that. Well the opening is going well and I was starting to get into the book and then came the bombings which was good but when the death toll cracks 1,000 plus I said to myself huh? And the book went downhill from there. It is boring and features nothing which has not been done countless times in this series. It features a cast of how many I lost count and unfortunately I forgot to have a notebook and pen next to me so I could not jot down who is who for later reference. But this is the first book in a trilogy and the Russian character Kuschka has PLENTY!! of potential and a face off with Mack could be excellent reading ?????? Unfortunately I am not expecting any of the other characters introduced in the first title to jump out and bite me :-( BUT I am hoping....... And the overall plot of the trilogy has not been revealed yet so maybe we are set up for something ????? We will see, into book two tomorrow and hopefully going to read a cracker ? BUT if Jared is right, god help me I have two more of them to read and I have already read the BEST one ??????????

This Bolan book rocked with wall-to-wall action from beginning to end. The Hydra concept makes for a neat story concept & the writer wisely doesn't give too much away on it in this 1st book. The villains were top-notch, Calhoun & Kushka are proving to be both formidable & interesting thus far. It's nice to see Grimaldi get such a big part & so much action for once. I'm looking forward to parts 2 & 3 of this trilogy.

Body count, body count, body count. This book really pissed me off. Great idea, great potential, and Schmidt just spat on it. Rather than give us a villain we want to agonize over for two more books, with an organization to back him up--rather than give us a plot that makes any kind of coherent sense, we get a great beginning, a great Manhattan bombing (Nice to see Bolan get really furious and feel helpless once in a while--call me cruel, but it makes him seem more human.), but other than that, just one huge body count. I have read the second book in this trilogy, and it doesn't seem to fair much better. I have absolutely no desire to read the third, but I probably will anyway at some point. My friend, however, loved this book, so to each his own.

GREAT book that action never ended. I liked the attack at the mansion.

Well, I started the trilogy because I wanted to see if Schmidt had grown up as a writer. At the start, it seemed like a whole lot of fun, with the professional soldiers providing Bolan with something resembling an honest opposition... Until they started falling like chaffe. Then the unleashing of the suicide bombers in New York was a great addition... Bolan rushing around, futilely trying to end the carnage, until he was finally stopped from further action by being arrested. Then, on the very next page and next chapter, Bolan's in the air and on the assault in Florida. Wait a minute... we have an entire trilogy here, and it's a novel, but Bolan's sprung inside of the one second needed to turn the page, and is right on the doorstep of a bad guy in Miami? The Hydra file seemed interesting. The Spetsnaz troopers were dull as hell. Bolan pulls grenade pins with his teeth (shouldn't he be drinking ensure after breaking his crowns on those damn things after 30 years of that?). Oh yeah, and Bolan uses an F-15 Eagle airstrike to wipe out an entire Colombian drug cartel who said "YUP! LET'S ALL GO TO THIS ABANDONNED LOCATION! IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT WE'RE THE ENTIRE CARTEL... NOBODY COULD KILL US ALL!" COULD SOMEONE PLEASE WRITE OUT A REALITY CHECK FOR MR. SCHMIDT? This poor goddamn idiot is in desperfuckinate need of a large reality advance. Some people like Schmidt's action, but Bolan is far too invulnerable in his books, and hardly is phased by anything. Schmidt is all body count, and he's all jingoist, racist hate. Nobody of any other nationality is anything more than a cardboard cut-out from a cheap old movie filmed on a Burbank soundstage. There's much better writers out there. Ones who don't have Bolan consider a BRITISH rock band to being traitors to AMERICA while he listens to Sympathy for the Devil playing in some bar.

I'VE GOT TO ADMIT THAT I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK AND AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THE REST OF THE TRILOGY. THESE ARE SOME TOP NOTCH BAD GUYS AND IT WILL BE INTERESTING FOR THEM TO FINALLY COME FACE-TO-FACE WITH BOLAN ONCE AND FOR ALL.THE BOMBS PROVE THAT THEY AREN'T MESSING AROUND AND THEIR CRAZINESS WILL MAKE THEM GOOD BOLAN ADVERSARIES. EVEN THE PART WITH THE DRUG DEALER IS COOL BECAUSE IT GIVES BOLAN A CHANCE TO WIPE SOME MORE SCUM OF THE FACE OF THE PLANET. THESE BOLAN BOOKS HAVE BEEN TOO GOOD LATELY! I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO PART 2.

I thought it was really good book, I enjoyed the explosion scenes very much. The only thing that I don't like is that all the evil guys follow the the same routine at the end.For it to be the trilogy that I'm accustom to thier should be a cliff hanger. But overall i love this book, I await the rest of the series.

The concept of a Hydra File was very interesting at the begging, but as the story wore it just became a jumbled mess. The writer didn't have a clear mind of thought of what he wanted to happen next. No foreshadowing to give me any kind of hint. And why was there just a big chunk of the story devoted to the drug dealer? That was where the book lost it's interest.

It was an okay book. I liked the Manhattan scene too, chiefly because I live in New York. The suspence was okay, but I've read better. I was expecting more from a Dan Schmidt book. Being that I've read the rest of the trilogy, I'd have to say that this was the best book.

This one was okay. First off, I'm not terribly big on the trilogies. I thought at the beginning that Bolan really had met his match when the professional soldiers were storming the estate at the beginning and I thought this was gonna be really good. But as the story wore on, the bad guys became more of the same and lost their edge it seemed. I probably won't read the rest of this trilogy. . . . I did think the bombings in Manhattan were cool. Kinda reminded me of the movie "The Siege".