Desert Fallout

Pick up, put down. Pick up, put down. I found myself putting this story down in the middle of an action scene and leaving it for a few days before forcing myself upon it again. It wasn't badly written, but I was uninterested in the linear storyline. It didn't go anywhere and the villains were too comical to make it interesting. Added to this was the author's obsession with describing the damage done to a human body by a bullet or a bomb and another obsession of describing guns down to their component atoms. All very dull. Personally I would give this one a miss.

This book plunges the reader in the middle of the action right from the very beginning and never really lets up. True to form, Mack finds unlikely allies and proves himself an excellent small unit commander. I really liked watching the different team members play off of Mack and grow in relation to him and each other. Each character comes into his own by the end of the book, and we're even rewarded with a smidgen of a romantic subplot. Oh yeah, someone gets the girl in the end. The action rocks, and Mack moves smoothly from fight to fight. I particularly enjoyed an assault on a construction yard and Mack alone vs the enemy army. If I had a complaint, it would be that the ending seems to wrap up the bad guy rather too neatly and abruptly when he could have been saved for another book.

While I didn't feel this was one of Doug's best Super's, it still entertained rather well. The action heats up right from the start as Bolan discovers an enemy which has roots back to his monthly "Agent of Peril". The story was interesting, with some ex-Nazi's thrown in and Bolan's ally, Kamau was a welcome addition. High point was Bolan and Co. assaulting ground targets from a helicopter. Good, action-packed reading as usual.