Terminal Velocity

I wonder if this was the inspiration for several other books I enjoy. Raymond benson- double shot. With the double to commit a murder to discredit our hero. This even felt like one of his books. Jack Carr- in the blood. With two Russian high ups discussing killing an American agent through out the book. And savage son - where the Russian spy’s son is killed by the hero while he was trying to kill the hero sparking a multiple book rivalry. Faberge egg reminded me of octopussy and another bond reference. I really enjoyed this read and the three parts of it. Bolan gets a mission, Bolan gets ‘r&r’ being a bodyguard, and Bolan seeks revenge setting him on a whole new path.

I'm not sure how to review this title. On the one hand, it plants the seed of Bolan deciding to sever his alliance with the US government and sets up the feud with his archnemesis, Greb Strakhov. Bolan is hurting and more vulnerable than we normally see him, which is a plus, and overall I feel there's a fantastic balance between story and action. It reestablishes Bolan returning to his lone wolf vigilante ways and stacks the odds completely against him. However, Alan Bomack is a terrible writer and I would've preferred this story go to somebody more capable, ideally Newton or - and I may get crucified for this - Peter Leslie. Bomack's prose is shoddy and he has a very poor sense for pacing, and that becomes very apparent during the second and third parts of the book. Despite the unwieldy length of 380 pages, of which you could sacrifice a solid sixty and not lose anything, the story's pacing becomes too fast. It has less to do with Bolan running out of time on his mission and more to do with Bomack realizing he's getting closer and closer to his word count, and with the choppiness of the second and third portions of the book (especially the third), I'm guessing he exceeded it and some editor took a hatchet to the manuscript. By my calculations this book is somewhere around 95,000 words, yet other, later SuperBolans were significantly longer, over the 100,000 word range. There's also the issue of time. I'm not sure how long this adventure took. Bolan travels quite a lot throughout Terminal Velocity but it still feels like this book is supposed to take place over just a few days. Again, this is due to Bomack's issue with pacing and he jumps around a lot. Bolan needs to go to Russia? Boom, he's in Russia. Paris? Say no more, there he is, lickety-split. Chuck Rogers has the same problem. There's a cast of thousands, a great deal of them on the KGB side and aside from Strakhov, none of them are interesting. The plan to frame Bolan, which drives a majority of the book's narrative, is conjured up by some guy named Vichinsky, who is so bland as a character he comes off less as a central villain and more like any other KGB stooge. Bolan makes plenty of allies on his travels and it comes off as absurd that everyone is so quick to befriend him, and this only happens because the plot calls for it. Not a single person he meets is suspicious of him, they all want to help him out because... well, they just do, I guess. Along the way he finds himself in an increasingly outlandish series of situations and by the time he befriends the French duchess Marijana, I had checked out and kept looking at the page numbers, wondering when this cavalcade of random bullshit would finally end. Thankfully his final pair of encounters against the villains are more grounded and straightforward even though I expected them to be on the moon, even feeling a little cheated that they weren't. Maybe I'm just impossible to please. I did like the imagery of Bolan leaving April Rose's ring on the corpse of his impostor at the end, a nice touch of symbolism for a series that's the literary equivalent of junk food. I wouldn't call this book a disappointment, but I do feel it's the weakest part of the trilogy and tries to be too big for its own good. I consider a 5 to be an average rating and this book is above that, but not far. It got the series back to its roots, and it's unfortunate Bolan didn't remain a lone wolf vagabond for long afterward.

I rate this book pretty highly, I think it is a well written adventure. I like the way the author writes Mack in this one. He seems more human and has flaws and doubts. I absolutely loved the scenes in Afganistan. It reminded me of the movie Firefox. I think this book fits nicely in the trilogy for the intro to the KGB wars. I really like David McCarter in this book. This was first Exposure to his Character and I think he was a great addition to this book. Really good read for me and I highly recommend getting this if you Havn't already. 9 Stars for this one.

Alan Bomack seems to be a very hit-or-miss kind of author for a lot of people. For me, he generally produces some very enjoyable and interesting reads, as he was still working from the mode of exploring the world through Mack Bolan's personal character as opposed to him just being the gun-toting carticature of himself I think he's sort of become. Terminal Velocity isn't non-stop action -- which I thought was a good idea. Mack had just suffered arguably the second greatest loss of his life, and his coming to terms with it made for some interesting reading. As was noted elsewhere, this really reads like three books in one, but the common theme tying them all together is Mack's coming to grips with his loss, initially throwing himself into action in Afghanistan, but unable to escape his loss, he finds himself on the run and alone -- at which point he really seems to find himself and the book moves toward it's conclusion. I suppose I like this book more than some of the others in the series because it showed what a human creature Mack Bolan is -- a character who, when used in this manner, really does speak to the best of what we can be.

I totally disagree there are no boring sections here only the seeding of characters and events vitally important for many titles to come in the future. From this stage I guess the big guy moves from the Mafia Wars and Terrorist Wars to the KGB Wars again as a lone wolf. If you decide to keep reading this series you will again and again meet Greb Strakhov one of the most evil of the villains to grace these pages who seems to live a charmed life as the big guy almost gets him so many times, made up for big time when the moment does actually arrive but. Also many of the characters introduced in this title make comebacks in future titles as well. After reading the Stonyman series it is a pleasure to go back in time in the big guys development and read when he was really not just a superbly trained warrior but a real person. Goodness me he smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol and has indecent thoughts regarding not only the Generals daughter but reminisces with a past character reporter who he did more than think about it with previously. For all of that the title is a fine read in itself split into three parts all of which are entertaining reading. Very good (necessary read) in the series, recommended.

What a disappointment!!! Day Of Mourning was an amazing and personal one full of promises of a major trilogy but this book basically crashes big time and didn´t leave anything in the end besides questions like; Why was this book written? Why wasn´t it just made a made as a short regular book with more focus on the KGB Bolan double issue? Now that book would have been a killer one instead of having chapter after chapter with boring, flat stuff that didn´t do anything more for the trilogy. The first part of the book was boring and didn´t serve anything besides making the book too long and disjointed and the issue of Strakov´s son could have been intergrated in a different way. The second part starts out great till Bolan was on the run and then the book kept going down the drains literally and ends up in a way too long escape for Bolan after the assassination. The third part was the best one but nothing more than that. The KGB plot was a very interesting and fresh one but why drag it along with the very dull, slow and way too extended chapter with the dragon fire and the escape after the assassination. If it was to enter the main issue of the conflict between Bolan and Strakov and fuel the hate between them but that could have been done in a different way but otherwise this was not an important part of the book and didn´t have anything or very little to do with the main plot. If this book had been an Executioner focused strictly on the aftermath of DAY OF MOURNING and Bolan´s search for the truth behind the raid on Stony Farm instead of having him running around Russia and Afghanistan and therefore doing nothing to keep the pace for Day of Mourning, it would have made a great book. Perhaps this should only have been a two part series then again I haven´t read Dead Man Running so I don´t know yet how the plot will progress. This book is a waste of time besides being a bridge in the most important trilogy in the Bolan saga.............so far (Iceland - 2005)

Boy was this book a disappointment. All hyped up from "Day of Mourning",I ended up taking a lot longer to get through "Terminal Velocity" than I would ever again like to spend reading a book. The whole opening part concerning the Dragonfire I felt was superfluous to the story and would have been better left as a story for another book. Strakhov's sons death could easily have been worked into the story in a different way, for instance have him as the sniper who assassinates Macek instead of Lednov. I'm not saying the book didn't have its moments but altogether there was way to much padding. This is the weakest Bolan book I have read and if like Doug this had been my first Bolan book I wouldn't have been keen to read any more. Still all in all the writing itself is not bad so "Terminal Velocity just scrapes by with six stars. Greg

If this book had been an Executioner focused strictly on the aftermath of DAY OF MOURNING, it would have been a kick-ass 10. Still, even with all the extraneous stuff thrown in to fill out a SuperBolan, it was a good, solid read.

Doug's review pretty much says it all for this one. A good book, but not as good as I had hoped, being the biggest book in this classic trilogy.

Terminal Velocity is one long Bolan tale that reads more like 3 tales looped together. The first part has Bolan and McCarter going to Afghanistan (after a nap-inducing training perior) to steal a new Soviet super-weapon helicopter that shoots fire. Yeah, I thought so too. The mission in Afghanistan is more boring stuff, going to interesting action when McCarter and Bolan hit the Soviet airfield, and back to boring again once Bolan gets in the helicopter. Others may enjoy the action of the helicopter duels but to me they just bring yawns. Second part of the book has Bolan improbably going behind the iron curtain as a bodyguard to General Crawford's daughter, Kelly, who we last saw hanging out with pimp drug dealers as some kind of slut in "Day of Mourning". Turns out she is an Olympic class athlete and is competing in some international games there. (Guess the slut business is flexible enough to allow lots of training.) Bolan is set up when his evil twin, uh, I mean "double", apparently kills a radical leader and the KGB gets it on tape. From here on this part of the book is good as Bolan escapes with the aid of a new ally. Third part of the book opens OK with some spy thriller stuff. Not much action as Bolan sneaks into Russia and sets his plan in motion. Some action occurs as he confronts a KGB ambush at an arranged meeting but it isn't much. More action at the end as Bolan moves to rescue his look-alike. Action wise, this one is light unless you are into aircraft duels. Plot wise this one is spotty with several improbable actions and circumstances. Character wise it was just OK. Bolan is OK but not awesome. McCarter was OK. The best characters were some of the supporting cast. So why do I give this one 8 stars? Simple: Bolan is finally turning his back on the "terrorist wars" era and getting away from being a government lap dog.

I agree - I remember this one being the weakest in the trilogy but still part of a very important storyline.

A classic Bolan tale. Kick ass in fact. It was good to see Bolan go lone-wolf again.

Oh, man! This one rocked. It has a lot of action in it and it changes around a lot, from Bolan in a Russian prison, to being framed for an assassination during some Olympic event, back to Russia! I read it last year, so I can't remember it all, just that it was awesome. Only thing that sucked is that this was my first book to read in his war with Strakhov. I think I should've wait till I got this one after Day of Mourning (haven't read it yet) to his other books about him and Strakhov (haven't read them either. Overall, a great book.

In my opininon it is one of the best. He was a lone wolf once again and had to pull all of his wits together to get out of this one alive. The only problem I have is on the cover of the book: Didn't Bolan have a mustache in this one?

I thought this was the weakest entry in the trilogy. But still, a fairly good book.

Have to agree with Gunslinger. It got sort of disoriented during the middle parts. But built to a climax.

My first ever exposure to the Executioner, found without a front cover in a box, left behind as my parents and I moved into our new house. Suddenly, EVERYTHING was different, and I was a Bolan fan for life. But, if it wasn't for the promise of a helicopter gunship duel, I'd have never even have looked at it. Slow in the middle, I agree.