Battle Born

Rating:
Summary: Battle Bored
Review: The key aspect to a good techno-thriller is keeping the story a half step out of pace with reality but not so far out to keep the reader from believeing it could happen. Battle Born was so far out that I might as well have been reading a Star Trek novel. Others authors in this genre such as Tom Clancy and Patrick Robinson can at least come up with plausible senarios for thier characters to engage in and so could Dale Brown if you read some of his older works, but not in this book. In addition the first three hundred pages are more or less lead in material before the real action starts. If you want to read a good techno-thriller read Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin, if you want to waste your time read Battle Born.

Rating:
Summary: Keep em coming
Review: This was my first Dale Brown book but I guarantee it won't be my last.Without giving away the plot ,this book is right out of today's current events.I could not put this book down.If you like lots of action and detail about modern airwar then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Battle Born
Review: Dale Browns first book was Flight of the Old Dog. This book is an old dog. There are numerous dead spots in this. Mr. Brown really needs to find himself a new editor. The pacing is terrible. The conversations go on forever and the action is too drawn out. The concept of a multirole fighter bomber is very unique and interesting. The problem is the characters that fly this plane are very troubled people. You almost hope they get shot down by the North Koreans. Reading this book is alot worse than watching an episode of Jag. There are plenty of better military type books available.

Rating:
Summary: a battle to read
Review: I have read all of Dale Brown's books. I could not finish Battle Born. I was bored and found myself skipping paragraphs and indeed pages to the point where I quit. I was very disappointed in this book and will hesitate to buy another by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Brown Scores Again
Review: Dale brown has score another direct high tech hit with "Battle Born". The genre he helped define should clamor for Brown's latest. Gripped me on page 1 and the ride ended way too soon. If you like Tom Clancy, Dale Brown is the author for you.

Rating:
Summary: An up and down read
Review: No pun intended on the heading, but this book has it's moments and it has it's dead spots. The technojargon is easy to pass over (a la Clancy)and sometimes he seems to be doing it for its own sake. Some of the chapters are riveting and you hope for the next one to follow, sometimes to be dissapointed. The interpersonal relationships, especially of the US flight crews, are well done. I also have read all of the Brown books. This called for more of a suspension of belief than most. However,if what he writes about going on in N.Korea has anything to do with reality, and I suspect it does, our current leadership is not going to come out anywhere near as well as President Martindale did, and neither will the country. Worth reading, but maybe you should wait for paperback.

Rating:
Summary: He started downhill with Hammerhead and is still going down
Review: I hate to be a majority of one, with all those 5 star reviews, but this is another Hammerhead, Tinman weak book. He overwhelms the reader with nonsense technology, impossible flying and unbelieveable characters. The book has no real plot just a lot of incidents that, in some cases combine and in most don't. Things just don't happen this way in real life. I have read every one of Dale Brown's books, The Flight of the Old Dog, got me. This is my last. It's too bad he has never lived up to that start . You just keep waiting for this book to make sense and it does not.

Rating:
Summary: DALE BROWN AT HIS VERY BEST!
Review: After the comic-strip exploits of THE TIN MAN, Dale Brown returns to airborne action with BATTLE BORN. And man, is there plenty of it or what? In this entertaining story, North Korea is developing nuclear, chemical and bio warfare while its population, and small military units, are in the grip of famine. During a joint Japan-South Korea-US war game in the Pacific, South Korean forces break away and invade the North. This causes a renegade North Korean Army officer to launch a low level nuke-chem-bio strike on the South. As the dust settles, and the North Korean military mutinies against its leaders, China shows an interest, feeling threatened by the new United Korea. Meanwhile, in the US, General Patrick McLanahan, our ongoing hero, is training a motley crew of B-1B Lancer pilots hard as their airbase is threatened with closure. This gives Dale some opportunity to bring in some new characters, and also re-introduce old ones such as Rebecca Catherine Furness, the heroine of CHAINS OF COMMAND, who is romancing Rinc Seaver, a washed out bombardier who lost his crew at the start during an exercise. And when tensions mount in Korea and China, McLanahan has to speed up training his wannabe Top Guns on the new EB-1 Megafortress-2, with awesome new technologies such as laser 3-d radar(LADAR)and the LANCELOT plasma anti-satellite weapon. Plus an assortment of cruise missiles among others! Will his new Megafortress crews prevent the Third World War? Once again, Dale Brown goes for action all the way. He has done extremely well to continue using his old faces such as McLanahan, Dave Luger, Hal Briggs and so on from previous novels and bring in a host of new ones on top. The Korean side of the action is also well crafted, and considering events in recent months in North Korea, this scenario could well happen, crazy as it sounds. The futuristic weaponry is feasible - submarine action author Michael diMercurio has also utitlised the plasma weapon, albeit in torpedo form in PIRANHA FIRING POINT, Brown shows its possible airborne capabilities in such a way that he could design it himself! And make it work! As he has done with BATTLE BORN. Well done Dale Brown.

Rating:
Summary: "Battle Born" - Flight of the NEW Dog!
Review: Unlike some, I wasn't too disappointed with Dale Brown's last book, "The Tin Man", I kind of enjoyed it in a Robocop kind of way. Besides, Dale showed guts in trying something different.

But now "Battle Born". This is what I've been waiting for. Fast paced, fast flying, missiles firing action of the sort that Brown does best. While I'm not going to say if this is his best book yet (I'll have to re-read the previous 11 books and decide), it will grip you, haul you in and refuse to let you put it down until you finish the last page. The politics are not too far-fetched, the technology may well exist already and his characterisations are as good as ever. This book could be seen as a true sequel to Flight of The Old Dog, finally retiring the EB-52 with the introduction of the... nah, you'll have to read it to find out. When's the next one coming out? If it's better than "Battle Born", Amazon better change its top rating to TEN stars.

Rating:
Summary: Brown at his Best
Review: He knows how to grab the readers attention with his high tech and unbelievable weapons and yet makes them so realalistic. It makes you think "hey, maybe that is possible."