Able Team fights the Blue Moon
Phoenix Force stops the Shin Bet
Realistically, this novel has the most plausible Killer-Satellites-Of-The-Week. Sky Hammer simply drops a huge rod from orbit and by the time the kinetic kill rod reaches earth, it can go Mach 2.
The problem, though, is in the details. The details are hit or miss. And when the miss here, they stick out. Here are the misses that I caught: The kinetic kill rods have a targeting system. The steering rockets of the rods are useless when the Earth’s atmosphere burns it up, so targeting isn’t an issue, but the accuracy is. No steering rockets, wind-conditions, earth’s rotation, etc…Stony Man is revealed to have the ability to “blow up the Internet.” Yes, they identified the 16 key areas to kill it for “months.” Other details, from the top of the head: McCarter was never an officer, but he is a pilot. Hawkins isn’t a pilot. Plasma screens are mistaken for LCD screens. Field-stripping a laptop does not require the butt end of a pistol. Water will kill a hard drive. How did Able Team know their protagonist thought of himself as royalty? Every member of Stony Man had a piece of dialogue with them racking the slide of their sidearm. Even Lyons who is known to carry a revolver? Did he rack the slide? Page 303: “Placing the wicker basket on the gravel, Lyons pulled out his .357 Colt Python and racked the slide.”
There are a couple of imaginative action sequences, especially when the antagonists try to kill the action teams with intricate death traps. Worth the price of admission and reading the novel from cover to cover, especially the creative way they tried to kill Able Team. One of the best sequences and reactions in the series. Heck, the first two attempts on their lives are memorable. (More than makes up for the horrible end to the novel. Massive points reduced for the worst ending ever)
I liked that sections where they were cut off from the Farm. I also didn’t realize that Wethers is Mr. Spock. This makes sense, the entire “cybercrew” which is the biggest flaw of the series, I sometimes envision them in the bridge of one of Star Trek series. Intense dialogue, commands, technospeak, buttons that really don’t do anything and lots of pretty graphics. It’s really easy to do, especially when they use the Hubble telescope (spelled correctly here) as their periscope into space.
