SuperPhoenix Force #1: Fire Storm

OH MY GOD!!! What a powerhouse of action adventure. this is probably in my opinion the best phoenix force book ever written. This book had it all and it didn't let up on the gas for a minute. The force is really well written here. Each one had equal billing and I really like the parts where Gary is held prisoner by Col Skull. and his escape and evasion is great writing. I like Calvin in this book and the way he deal with the Racist assholes Vasnov and Mamer. I bought this book when it was first published. and I've read it multiple times. and it still holds up today. Fieldhouse created a Masterpiece of action adventure. the only book that comes close to matching it is Stony Man Doctrine. If you're a fan of Phoenix Force this is required reading, It's that good. A very strong 10 stars.

A top-notch thriller and masterpiece! I just stumbled on this at a used bookstore and was thrilled -- as I knew it was a high-ranking book on mackbolan.com. There is nothing negative to say about this book. I read the early PF books in the late 80s and stopped until recently. This was my first "super" and it was genuinely that. I am a huge Calvin James fan and love him being a part of PF. The book starts out on fire and continues to the end. The kidnapping of the president and the premier set the pace for a page turner. The PF travel the globe hunting down enemies and essentially save the world. This was suspenseful and action-packed! The character descriptions are great -- both PF and the villains -- and well though out, the dialogue is on, and the pace is consistent throughout. There are no wasted pages in this one. Wow! I can't wait to read it again.

Old school cold war Phoenix at it's best. The team and banter are classic. Every notable enemy in every firefight has a different weapon requiring a paragraph of detail to describe(which was quite fun after reading to look some of them up and a great way to fill space in my opinion). Half of the team lit up a smoke at one point or another, ah the old days.... The hand to hand combat is written in awesome detail and I found myself cringing more than once. In it's day it may have been realistic but after reading some of the similar kidnap scenarios in the more recent entries I did feel somewhat jaded. I'm thinking that the castle kidnap would never have worked the way it did nowadays or that so many of the leaders closest guardians could be infiltrated so easily (maybe why we rarely see the Prez getting kidnapped in the books currently). And the terrorist demands for the arming of Iraq to invade Iran does stir the imagination considering all that has occurred in the 20+ years since this was written. The Karl Hahn death was very over the top as well. If yer gonna take 3 pages to describe him getting shot then at least have a moving funeral epilogue or something, he'd been around for ages! However all in all it is a quite a satisfying read that flows very nicely.

The hostaged liner boarding/infiltration/action scenes are excellent and set the pace for the title. Skull is the brilliant master villain who I was a bit suss about until the Iraqi contingent entered his office and the killing of one of the arab's bodyguard convinced me he was going to be good. So he is and this title even with it's extra size flows beautifully. Many many parts will have you flicking over to the next page to see what happens and it just keeps coming at you. I must admit I cannot understand why Karl Hahn was killed off in this title and in fact I AM EXTREMELY ANNOYED on this decision as without doubt he was one of the best recurring characters in the series and would have been a fine replacement for either of the Teams out of Stony Man should the need be to kill off one of the other characters of these Teams was necessary. Further if he had to be killed off he should have been sent off to whatever is in the next world in a better manner than what basically was a two minute scene of the complete title where he was written in to the title solely to be killed off. It's crap this should NEVER BEEN allowed. Minor annoyance here with the continual dropping of weapons by everybody it got to the stage where I got to a section and thought it's out of his hands and so it was. Not enough to dock a star though this is an excellent read. Perhaps considering the excellence of this title we can come to perhaps understand the deterioration in the latter part of the series by this author he was too busy doing this.

By this time in Fieldhouse’s writing he knew the characters inside and out. He takes the additional space provided in a larger book and really shows us who these people are. He also gives us a plot as epic as the first supersized adventure should be. The action is unrelenting and Fieldhouse’s mastery shines in still being able to show the characters while never loosing his breakneck pacing. He also gives us such an interesting and comic book bad guy in Colonel Skull. The books faults are present but not anything that ruins the book. Fieldhouse focuses on the character of Katz a bit more then I would have liked as Katz was never a character I particularly cared for. Nothing against Katz. Also the plot doesn’t get going until nearly half way through the book. The attack on the castle should have occurred in the first quarter not as late as it did. This makes the second half of the book seem more rushed then a well structured story should. Also, as smart as Colonel Skull was and as cool a bad guy as he was I really would have liked to see him escape at the end. All in all this book is fantastic and one of the best Bolanverse books I have read. It is nearly 20 years old now and surprisingly it has aged well. It is easy to imagine such a crisis now by removing the USSR and inserting another adversarial nation such as China or North Korea.

The first Super Phoenix Force, “Fire Storm” has to be the most over-the-top, insane Phoenix Force novel ever written. Everything is thrown into this. The kidnapping of the US and Soviet Presidents is not for a mere Phoenix Force entry, this is epic, heady stuff. The word count on this must be enormous. The kidnapping in the first hundred pages reads like an ending to an outstanding Phoenix Force novel. For such a world-shaking event, Able Team and Bolan had other things to do. They recruit former temporary member Karl Hahn, but he gets killed off, unexpectedly in the most horrific, thrilling send-off since Keio Ohara. I could never understand why Phoenix Force could up its membership to six instead of five, and let Hahn become a member. He was a member of the team for four novels. The same argument could have been made for Trent, except he never replaced anyone. In fact, thinking of it, didn’t they recruit Calvin James to be the sixth member of Phoenix Force? Since all the gloves were off, this became an event novel that anyone in Phoenix Force could be killed off. A must-read just for the permanent changes and nothing-can-top-this plot. This is the definitive Phoenix Force novel.

Another of my all-time favorites. A big, fat, adrenaline-soaked action-fest full of suspense and the great characterizations I always expected from William Fieldhouse. Phoenix Force saves the world again, but once more loses one of their own. Karl Hahn was a great character and I still miss him, but his death was handled extremely well. This is a true classic by one of the greatest writers in the genre. Man, I miss William Fieldhouse.

As the first in a large size Phoenix Force book I was honestly worried about the writing quality. Such a foolish worryyyy. This title was as good as the regular series. The action was superb, the writing great. The surprise death of of Phoenix part time fave Karl Hahn was a slight drawback since it was a shock but it was very well written. All and all, a super book for new readers to jump on.

This super Phoenix Force book had it all! Although I was heartbroken over the death of Karl Hahn as he was hands down my favorite character in the series. I wish someone else on PF had been sacrificed and Hahn had been kept on.

This is the biggest PF of them all, I loved this book. Fieldhouse is a great writer, I was pleased that this wasn't just a padded regular PF story, it was good from start to finish, lots of action, and more suspense than I see in most of the smaller books. The best PF I've read so far.

I HAVE RECENTLY FELL IN LOVE WITH THE STONY MAN SERIES AND WAS LOOKING FOR SOME OLD TITLES. THIS WAS CONSIDERED THE TOP OF THE LIST. A GOOD BOOK WITH GREAT ACTION BUT LACKING COMPARED TO THE RECENT STONY MAN BOOKS.

Once again Phoenix Force proves why it is the premeir action team of Stony Man Farm. Previously, the Force saved entire nations from such menaces as crop-destroying viruses and a killer version of the flu developed in a Soviet biowar lab. Now, against a truly planetary threat level force, Phoenix Force proved itself capable of not only saving the leaders of the most important nations on the planet, but preventing an international conflagration. Mack Bolan and Able Team seem best left to smaller than world-threatening menaces.

This book broke my hart for the second time. Karl actually gave up his own life to save his friends. Wir will vermissen dich.

All I can say after reading this was: Wow! Stupendous! One of the best Phoenix books of all time. It had everything: action, suspense, and a really great Villain in Colonel Skull. A true classic.

I have to agree with Gunslinger on this one. One of my favorite. I loved the suspense and action. I read this book in one sitting because I could not put it down.

Phoenix Force faces it's greatest threat and enemies, and suffers it's second greatest loss ever. The death of Karl Hahn affected me more than Keio's, simply because I hadn't read more than a couple of stories where Keio appeared in at the time I read Firestorm. Karl was more a personal friend, and quite frankly, I was disappointed that Karl and John Trent would never combine forces with Phoenix Force on one super-mission.However, the double threat, a nuclear warhead, and the kidnapped President and Soviet Premeir quite simply made this a high stakes book like no other. Between Weep, Moscow, Weep, and Firestorm, Phoenix Force has literally saved the entire of humanity twice over. Oh yeah, and that little China Syndrome problem in the Tigers of Justice...Too bad Phoenix doesn't blaze this brightly anymore.