Terror Spin

I would have rated this book higher if it had a plot. Bolan’s first assault leads to a chase of a member of the Spear of Allah, a terrorist unit operating in the United States. The rest of the book involves tracking the members of this group across the world to their leader in Africa. This novel has a pattern of excellent action scenes with boring parts in between. If you are more into plot, than this book is not for you. However not all is bad, the action gets even better after a couple members of Phoenix Force are enlisted to help Bolan after he goes to Paris to take out the guy that got away from him in the States. Here it seemed like something interesting was going to develop plotwise with the female character, but unfortunately nothing came of that. So back to the assaults, and then we move on to the land of the terrorist leader located in Sudan. This section of the story ramps up the tension and action scenes as Bolan needs all the help he can get with Manning and McCarter at his side. Even this is not enough against overwhelming odds as rebel groups add their forces to Bolan’s assaults, leading to some terrific battles in the deserts of Sudan. While it was a decent enough book as a fan of the Executioner, Terror Spin in my opinion would only qualify as an also-ran in the massive line-up of SuperBolan titles in this series. Fans of Phoenix Force might have a mild interest in it, but there are many better volumes out there than this. Still, this book is much much better than Omega Game or Message to Medellin.

What on earth is a "terror spin" ? This book is identical to Mike Newton's previous SuperBolan's and Stony Man novels, Vendetta, Vortex, Blood Debt to name but a few. It has Bolan and a few select friends run from location to location shooting and shooting and shooting. There is no plot whatsoever, just the usual copy and paste template work. It stretched incredibility that every time Bolan met with a contact be it in Sudan or France, the contact would know the names and addresses of every single bad guy hideout. The contacts could recite it by rote! Unbelievable. I also found it unbelievable that Brognola would split up Phoenix Force whilst they were embarking on a dangerous mission....why not use Able Team for once? No, lets split Phoenix, not that it made any difference, cardboard cutouts would have sufficed. And the musings! Have I mentioned the musings yet? Pages and pages and pages of the same crap over and over again. The good guys mused the same things, the bad guys mused the same thing, and all it is is page filler, expanding an Executioner into a SuperBolan. There was a good bit that Mr Newton went and spoilt at the end. Bolan and pals, after attacking a Spear of Allah outpost are pursued across the desertby the Sudanese army and decide to make a stand at a rocky outcropping. Running low on ammunition they are wondering how they will survive. This is quite a tense scene, but it is ruined by the timely rescue of Sudanese rebels coming to their aid. I would much rather that Bolan and pals fought their way out then the rebels show themselves. Still it was a good sequence of events. So, standard fair from Mr Newton, if you have read one then you have read them all.

Okay I am going to split this review into three sections. The start up till page 41: Excellent, terrorists have committed atrocities on US soil and Stony Man intelligence has pinpointed the location where they are holing up. The Big Guy stalks to the location and starts the eradication program very nicely but unfortunately it is not a clean sweep and the leader and his offsider manage to take off in a vehicle which results in quite a good car chase scene. The two manage to evade capture and take off out of the country frustrating the Big Guy and off to Stony Man to trace where they went. The middle section up to page 156: ( 115 PAGES FOLKS) ! Off to France with Gary and David called from their current mission to assist as this terrorist group has many roots and whilst the overall leadership is based is Sudan this is the place to start walking up the ladder. Meet with Interpol contact who is a drop dead gorgeous woman and receive a listing of targets owned by the terrorist group. Attack targets and shoot anyone on the premises and drop thermite grenades to burn structures to ground. Include a wonderful sniper scene where this time I sadly report the telephone did not survive the scene :-( Money scene? Sure no problem whilst unlike the Mafia where we would waltz in and trick them out of the dollars terrorists don't have such known locations of their banks but that doesn't matter as the information has been forwarded in the list and we can slip in there and clip their stash. Wondrous reading yet again where the leader of the group in France cannot work out the identity of his attackers. In one of the most ridiculous connections possible he figures the female Interpol contact has this information and sends his goons to make the snatch. Then the Big Guy with his two backups take out the terrorist group leader as they should have right from the start of this section but we have blown 115 pages away yet again with cut and paste and search and replace. And I am sorry folks that is just not acceptable in this series I reckon. The third and last section: Off to Sudan in a somewhat unusual way I thought but anyway arrive and meet with contact and be supplied a list of locations. Split up the list and off they go, walk in shoot everyone there and drop a grenade or two. Do it again and again and again. More crap on how the leader can't figure out who is attacking. I'm thinking why am I even reading this ??? AND THEN ! AT LAST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A decision to attack an outlying training post goes bad when a passing army patrol hear the racket going on and speed in to investigate. And let me tell you folks when this guy decides to write something good it is very good as is the rest of the title. From the initial chase away from the camp and how they are forced to hole up with very little chance of survival against overwhelming odds, to the action scenes where they defend themselves against those odds, what happens with the rebels and the following scenes of attacks on joint interests between them. Superb reading folks let me tell you but as good as it was I felt I only actually read half a book hence the rating.

Terror Spin was absolute garbage. No plot, no conflict, no compelling reason to read. All it had was Bolan and his sidekicks going from one battle to another, fighting terrorists. There were no specific bad guys, nothing the terrorists were trying to do. You could literally slip ten, twenty pages at a time, and it wouldn't make a difference. Needless to say, that's four bucks I'll never see again. --Brian

i liked this one ok, it showed how a terrorist group works pretty well, but like gunslinger and stonysol1 said it was very typical.

This is another terrible book from the series. Although not as bad as Red Heat, but still pretty terrible. The plot is too typical and again there weren't many action scenes or scenes that are surprising.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. It offered nothing new, but it was very fast-paced and enjoyable.