Korean Killground

Way back in 1984--as a teenager on summer break--a friend of mine let me borrow this book for a 3 hour car ride. I was hesitant to bother; I was (and still am) a sci-fi/fantasy reader, action stuff was just so . . . meh to me. However, once I started, I was hooked. I know this book gets a lot of low ratings (both here and on a few other sites), but as my first PF book, it stands out as my favorite. Even having read it again just last week (which prompted me to write this review) after almost 40 years, I loved it. Yeah, it's a slow sandwich; a little long in the beginning and end, but the middle is great. I dove into the entire PF series after this . . . then the Executioner/Mack Bolan books. I pestered my parents to take me to every used book store in town (and in a few neighboring towns) to find everything I'd missed. When I got caught up on those two, I jumped into Able Team and then, later, Soldiers of Barrabas, Deathlands, etc. Great memories.

I agree with a lot of the other reviews. I really liked this author's last entry but this book was boring and very uneven. I'm not going to waste anymore time with this review. One thing though, if youre thinking of reading this book.... DONT!! 4 stars.

Ugh. Boring. What a slow, plodding book. Just very dull. There are some okay action scenes in North Korea, but it just seems off. I will agree with other reviewers that despite being a pretty dreadful book, there were some highlights. As another reviewer said: "Young Sam is one of the most readable/humourous/likeable/obnoxious/deadly characters you will come across." I definitely agree with this, I definitely enjoyed his character. The scene of his gruesome death and the PF rage towards the incident is wonderfully written and really captures their admiration towards him well. Some small enjoyable gems can be found in this work. Not really sure if it is worth plodding through 188 pages to find them though.

Well this one scores a five from me and I must say I thought some of the previous reviews were a little harsh this is not absolute crap by any means. Sure the bad first I was also stunned when Katz refused to attempt a rescue of Young Sam. Although you would have to admit it served to slide the ongoing story perfectly into the overall plot with what happens with him. The start of the title is a little slow as is the finish but there is some good stuff in between starting with a brilliant character introduced as mentioned above Young Sam is one of the most readable/humourous/likeable/obnoxious/deadly characters you will come across. It's great when he first meets the team everyone hates him especially Keio but through the title all the team come around and end up loving him as a brother warrior which makes what eventually happens so important. And leads perfectly with the rage felt by the team when they are surrounded by the 150 hostile troops the tension built up during the hunt with the knowledge that they may have been setup and maybe have just triggered the Korean War part 2. What about the infiltration of the NK base, what about the infiltration of the Intelligence Centre, what about the chase of the convoy carrying the stolen weapons and the eventual recovery of the crates, what about taking out 150 enemy soldiers and a helicopter and some very good uses for recovered weapons when they know for certain they have been setup by someone. I certainly thought it was readable but not near the better titles of this series to date.

This is the first Ramirez novel I read and its the last. Who were these characters? Katz willing to sacrifice Rafe and later not even attempting to rescue Young Sam. Ok tactically I can understand but Katz always seems to be above all else loyal to his men and allies. PF were a bit too cold blooded in this novel. Shooting escaping troops granted North Korean but still they were running away? Mack would have not have done this nor in any other PF novel. The biggest complaint though was David McCarter referring to Koreans as "gook." This is a guy that has many friends in Asia from his PF time. Many of them contacts. Using such a racial slur seemed so inappropriate for David. Sheesh. Also why would Katz be using German for comments? Wasn't he raised in France then went to Isreal? A stunningly bad novel.Only gets a 2 since it was not 220 pages.

This one was a disappointing entry in the series, kind of bland. Not real bad, but there are many better PF books out there.

Korean Killground. Hmmm. I'm trying to think of something nice to say about this book but I'm stumped. This one took me more than 2 weeks to get through. The word boring leaps to mind. The action, while plentiful and explicit, was neither believable nor interesting. Couple that with a wildly unbelievable plot, some fouled up technical aspects and some plain old plodding prose and you've got one very long cure for insomnia in this one. Maybe I'm being too hard on this one because so much of it takes place on the DMZ. During my tour in the 2nd Infantry Division I spent 2 months on the DMZ so maybe I'm holding this book to too high a standard. Naaah. This book is a boring stinker. 1 star for showing up.

I found this book to be a yawner. A low point in the series if you ask me.