Force Lines

UMMM...wtf is this? Madness. Was he drinking ? nose candy when he wrote this? its insane, its all over the place. hardly makes sense sometimes. crazy long run on sentences like a rambling madman. hardly even any semblance of a actual narrative. seems like a bunch of random events. its like a puzzle, trying to read it. its wild. a roller coaster of WTFs. avoid avoid .

I don't normally buy SuperBolans when looking for something to read, and books like this are why. It's all my fault, really. Whenever I see a SuperBolan I'm always sure to check out who ghostwrote it before actually buying it. I did not do that with Force Lines until after I got home, and felt an immediate sense of dread when I saw the first two letters of Dan Schmidt's name. So I open the book and see big margins and text. He can't write a plot worth shit, and hadn't even tried since... I don't know how long. So I hoped that, even if this book turned out to be garbage, it would at least be a quick read. It was not. Somehow I managed to make it to 120 pages, but they were the longest 120 pages of any SuperBolan I've read so far. As far as I can tell, the book is about some terrorist cult called the Sons of Revelation getting their hands on a mix-and-match of various toxin strains and then doing oh who gives a shit. In my experience most SuperBolans struggle to even get to 250 pages, let alone 350 or even 315, and there's nothing here that warrants 120. I wouldn't say Dan was phoning it in, because that would be giving him praise. And there's nothing worth praising in Force Lines, an unreadable brick of wasted paper that could've gone to something better, like an issue of Penthouse. There's no direction, no substance to be found here, just long, winding sentences that read more like the lamentations of a brain damaged orangutan who took one lump of thrown shit to the head too many. Which is a real shame, because Schmidt could bang out some damn fine yarns when he wanted to. The Executioners Blood and Thunder, Devil's Horn, Death Force, and Stealth Striker are testaments to this. On the SuperBolan side we have Code of Bushido, Renegade Force and Deep Treachery. Read those instead.

Four out of four in a row the same storyline the same characters with changed names the same crap. Apparently these guys this time are even better than previously as the author informs the reader this time that they are indeed SUPER Black Ops. When I read a Super Bolan title I like to read what the Big Guy is doing, this title like the last three from this author belongs in another series where the body count may actually mean something. AVOID this is garbage.

Sorry to those of you who hated it, my three stars will raise its rating out of the cellar. I too was kinda confused and a little lost, and also a little annoyed. And I kinda forget exactly what the hell it was about, but I do remember a couple of good action scenes, and the idea of the bus was ... interesting . I thought the ending was over the top and ridiculous, but I can't rate it lower than three. It was bad, but I've endured much worse. Eh Kay says, thats my opinion anyway.

This is very surprising. I would expect something better from Dan Schmidt. I am on chapter 5, and I am ready to throw this book away. What kind of simple-minded son of a bitch are you Dan? What the hell is a Ford GMC? There is no such thing. I'm sure whoever edited this book is just as at fault as Dan, but it is ridiculous. I have been reading this series for many years, and they are beginning to feel more like a damn James Bond movie.

I too have to agree with the previous two reviewers. This book, although a noble effort just has too many flaws. The first major flaw is in character development. There are too many inconsequential characters that never really grab you nor are they described well enough to remember from one scene to the next. I have been reading these series’ of books for as long as I can remember now, and I rarely write a bad review, but in this case I can’t seem to find anything promising or positive to point out. I have the ornate ability to see these novels in a way that is almost indescribable, as I read a Super Bolan, Stony Man, or Executioner, the action and characters when written well or even above average literally jump off the page and in to my mind. I see the action play out like a movie in my head as I read the words on the page. That is the power that the Mack Bolan character has. That is the majesty that Don Pendleton brought to the world so many years ago, the ilk that so many wonderful writers have been able to capture over the years in the various series, be it Abler Team, Phoenix Force, Stony Man or The Executioner himself. When I got this book in my bi-monthly shipment I was excited to turn the first few pages, but that excitement quickly died off as the pages began to blur together, and I was forced to look back to previous chapters to even remember where a character started. I can say that I have never fallen asleep, when reading a Bolan novel in the past, even when I have stayed up all night reading, forcing my wife to come in to the den looking for me at 3 am, until now. I am proud to report one thing… I seem to be the first person to review this book that actually saw it through to the end, and that was a chore. I did however get some much needed naps along the way. -Dan Schmidt, please do not feel that your efforts were in vain, I hope that you take this criticism and can produce some more great characters in the future, but in this effort, I just couldn’t make that character to reader connection. Please know that I will read your next noel and hope it captures the magic for me! Thanks, and as always keep frosty!

I agree with Dan S. I couldn't finish this book. I read 100 pages, and that was a chore. I've liked some of Dan Schmidt's work--I thought "Point of Impact" was a great book. So was "Stealth Striker." But more often than not, I find he makes Bolan too superhuman, or, as was the case in this book, the plot just doesn't grab me. There were too manyh names, too many characters to keep track of. I just got lost, and didn't care enough to try to sort it through. After a hundred pages, I just stopped caring. I had other books to read.

When I read the plot description I was excited to read the full book. After the first 30 pages it just wasn't grabbing me. I plowed on, eventually making it 100 pages before I threw in the towel. My problem with the book is the same as with the previous Dan Schmidt book I read (Assault Force), the writing style. The author insists on writing in long, disjointed, run-on sentences that make for frustrating reading. The way the plot is constructed is not reader friendly and although there were some passages that engaged me, they were short and few and far between. Based on the two strikes against him, I will not be looking forward to the next Dan Schmidt entry in the Bolan/Stony Man saga.