stonymanfan

Whew! I finished this one last night and my heart is still pounding because the action in this book NEVER stops. This has to be the highest body count Bolan entry to date! Author Doug never fails to deliver an assortment of weapons and new descriptions for the kills. Author Doug brings back Bolan's use of role camouflage beautifully and his ability to pit enemies against enemies to get the job done! If you are a fan of the original Pendelton penned books this is a must read. Onto book 2 of Blood Money!

This entry reminds me of an 80's action flick, sit back and enjoy the mindless action joy ride! Nonstop action from start to finish as Bolan thinks he's going to have a one on one with nature and rejuvenate before the next flare up in the war everlasting. Bolan finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time as would be planet slayers want no witnesses and think they have a camper weaponless and shoeless until bodies start falling like timber in the forest. Enter female park ranger, strong, excellent character and Bolan ally. Both take their share of licks while playing cat and mouse with the enemy in rough terrain. I liked the use of the natural surroundings but would have liked a bit more- somebody should have met their demise in a bubbling mudpot!

If you like a SM with a bit more PF than AT then this is a must read. PF is split apart not only via mission parameters but my favorite PF character (Manning) is captured, not once but twice. Enjoyable sequences in a rare show of an individual member's physical, mental and shooting skills coming together. Manning out of the mission we are introduced to a fun character, Chaka, to round out the usual Team of 5. Linaker gets Team bantering perfectly balanced with the action which is full on in cars, helicopters and boats. Who cares that its another SM with a nuke fans read these for the characters in action saving the world!

How do you survive the worst prison in the country – walk in like you own it. Mack does just that by heinously impairing or befriending key inmates rewarding him with instant respect and allies. Chuck gives us everything you would want in a prison story the good, the bad and the ugly; fights, torture and weapons and Farm personnel getting some field time puts a new spin on a file baked in a cake getting the man inside a few survival tools. This entry is a fun and fast alternate mission locale to the typical urban, suburban or jungle settings. Read and enjoy!

A fun to read Stony Man as AuthorDoug gets us back to some of the basic know-how of our warriors. Every SM will have its quick intro for each character for anyone just picking up a book so we all know Manning is an explosives expert. In Seismic Surge we get to see a lot of that demolitions background come to life for a change both creating explosives and preventing explosions and further understand just how smart Manning really is. The other enjoyable feature of this book is that both Phoenix and Able members get to go solo and show us some individual true grit. Encizo takes a beating role playing as one of the tourists; T.J. offers to help out the locals fix their old broken down weapons only to have to phone home for Cowboy to tell him how to do it and best of all we get to see Gadgets in his own multi-tasking berserker mode. McCarter, well, we all love his style especially when he uses a dead guy for a blast shield. And for me one of the best features of a SM is the banter between team members and no one does that better than AuthorDoug! Oh and thanks for slipping the Big Guy in!

Author Doug has done it again with another original plot to terrorize the planet. One of the things I like about his writing is he further adds character maturity and capabilities; this particular entry in the series has a large focus on Manning, my personal favorite character which is not seen very often. We even get to have mention of Mott here. Ironman getting infected brought back a glint of Bolan having to be restrained after Khali’s sweetness grabbed hold of him in Lethal Tribute. Another bonus of the character interactions written here is Manning and Hawkins playing enemies in a scare tactic to get the enemy to spill his guts. Thanks Doug for another fast-paced, action-packed Stony Man.

Can you trust the violet eye? You’ll have to read your way through Kali’s sweetness, limb lopping and strangulation to find out. Assassin’s Code is a great ride of Mack against assassins joining forces for a single outcome. Great characters join forces with Bolan, Ous, a pipe smoking soldier-for-life has the gift of gab yet has a no holds barred attitude and but loves and protects his family and Ken-san, a real ninja with sense of humor. Bolan also gets to do some great role camouflage and infiltration into the enemy lair, something we haven’t seen to this level in a long time. Enjoy.

Here we have Able and Phoenix seemingly setting out on separate missions only to find out via the Farm that each Team is looking for a Smith who happen to be brothers. The brothers Smith work for the same outfit in different parts of the world and find out they are involved in something they don't want to be so the Teams are sent in to rescue the brothers. The firefight for Phoenix begins immediately and does not stop until the end of the book; same for Able except there is a bit of investigating in between. I haven't decided if I like the style this story was written in that you read a few pages of Able's action in the Dominican Republic, stop, back to Kyrgyzstan with a few pages of Phoenix's fight, stop, and so on but it is guns a blazin' non-stop action for the most part. The highlights for me were McCarter staying behind in a hot zone while Manning and Hawkins get the wounded James and Encizo out and to medical aid. McCarter has a long battle against two different forces, take-as-many-out-as-you-can scenarios and then move to another location and do it again while he is under constant and sustained fire, not a bad car chase in the escape. The second highlight was Lyons standing at the door of the evil mastermind on the last page, you'll have to read it for yourself.

Planes, helicopters, submersibles and boats as Mack must keep moving in this non-stop action thrill-a-thon to stay ahead of The Beast. There is no down time for the Big Guy in this action packed adventure filled with everything from bat guano to a VW Thing. Especially entertaining is Bolan thinking on his feet for weapons like the homemade fuel-air bombs to defend the adobe home turned fortress on the Island. Many interesting allies help Bolan along the way including a drug running pilot I thought was interesting and I really enjoyed the dogs. I can’t help but think that the cover name Matt Cooper must be known in many circles by now, I would like to see a new cover name :) This is a must read entry.

Target Acquisition is many mini missions to accomplish the overall mission. Mostly we complain an author has too many chapters of the villain masterminding his plot(s). Here’s an entry that almost has no enemy voice. The enemy is a hydra with a leader you don’t ever get to know so you never get that anticipation of “can’t wait to see how Lyons or McCarter kill the bastard.” Because of the hydra the Teams split up into one-man units to stop the atrocities after initial Team efforts. It is a non-stop action story however with so little from the villain you read chapter after chapter of non-stop killing to the point you forget what the mission goal really is. Basically what we have here is an enemy doing bad things so let’s go cut down all the people involved. We never did find out what was in the brief case.

War Tides is mediocre at best. It seemed that the action sequences were hurried along without a lot of description so you lose that sense of urgency while reading. Yes there are brains and gores hitting the wall but the descriptions are so plain and hurried that you kind of miss the point that we just gruesomely killed some bad guys and won the battle. The action sequences were also overshadowed by “what if” scenarios. In other words the author has you in a battle scene and there is a pause to mention two or three other ways the battle could have gone. The really disappointing (incorrect IMO) interjections were James diving and performing a maneuver in an SUV that McCarter was so envious that he told James he’d have to teach it to him sometime. Hmm, what happened to McCarter’s superb driving skills and rarely letting anyone else drive? Then we have The Farm personnel admitting to Brognola that “sloppiness” was at hand in delivering vital information so late in the game. Lastly, Phoenix Force had to do battle dressed up in radiation suits. We have James complaining that it was awkward and couldn’t remember a more difficult way to do battle. Oceans of Fire comes to mind for me (underwater battle sequence).

This was a disappointing Stony Man entry. The main villain was not developed enough. It was as if the Airwolves were the enemy. The basis was that a super computer is able to get the planes through unnoticed but the computer genius is not developed either. New groups of bad guys were introduced the farther you read along too for no real reason other than for the guys to kill them off. Hard to swallow was Encizo with a major life-threatening injury. There was one comment from The Farm that he could always work alongside Cowboy if he couldn't go back to the field and then you never read another word about him. We know we aren't losing a main character but where's his teammates at the end checking up on him and giving him a ribbing at least?

As expected Mr. Rogers delivers a healthy dose of action here. It's always fun to see Mack work with others from The Farm, in this case Manning. In this favor to Hal Mack becomes part of a "foreign legion" group of mercs to help an eccentric billionaire fulfill his passion in archeology while an unknown force is trying to kill him. The merc group although hand picked by the billionaire reminded me of The Executioner's own Death Squad each a specialist in his own right. This book has a great pace and kept me turning the pages from a moving car shoot-out, taking out helicopters and riding on horses which all contributed for change of pace adventure for the big guy. A highly recommended quick read.

This was a disappointing entry for me. Aside from a good story and action galore the thing I like best about the Stony Mans is the comradery amongst all the characters and within the Teams which was practically nonexistent. There were so many inconsistencies in this story it was not enjoyable:Hal purchasing retro-fitted Concordes to do bomb runs. Hal flying along to Iran just to give out mission details. Price not even in the picture until almost two-thirds of the way in to the story.Grimaldi and Mott sent back to the farm for shut-eye and dropping Hal off leaving the teams with no ready transport. Kurtzman complaining he has to run a license plate number and a trace a truck’s whereabouts via satellite at the same time and no mention of anyone else on his Team.It was all McCarter and Lyons, you really don’t think anyone else is present, barely anyone else ever spoke.Firefights, wow we know SM is good but hardly a mention of a bullet zinging close by in return and we seem to be able to take everyone by surprise with practically no return fire.Here I thought I was treating myself to one of the new SMs; I’m going back to the older ones I haven’t read yet for a while.

Shadow War is a fast paced read. Nice to see an author step away from the norm, teams down so many men they have to combine efforts, and Gary as lead continuing on the mission. It was also refreshing to see the combined team train together prior to the next mission. Action sequences were well written and with enough intensity to keep you reading.