Rating: 
Summary: Totally Enjoyable and Entertaining Military Fiction.
Review: I'm a gearhead. I race cars, I work on computers, I like knowing how stuff works. Brown gives you lots of juicy details about how he envisions hypothetical technologies working. He isnt afraid to go out on a limb and invent stuff that doesnt exist -- but he does the reader the courtesy of at least explaining how he believes it would work.Dale Brown does an excellent job of dreaming up fictitious war machines. Imagine the "Red October" submarine -- only twice as dangerous. Manned by gregarious and charismatic characters that keep you interested and "rooting for the good guys." Brown is not particularly good at writing a realistic novel. It is my assertion however, that he does not set out intent to do so. He writes books about the superheros of warfare in the sense that Comic Book authors write about various super powers. He has a vivid imagination and a seemingly accurate grasp of where things in the world lie, and paints a semibelievable political situation. He has an uncanny knack for combat scenes. It's very cool to read twenty pages of one engagement. This is something Clancy doesnt do. Clancy is interested in the "bigger picture." Brown actually "zooms in" and lets you take part in the nitty gritty, people-are-dying-and-bombs-are-flying melee. There is I guess only one real complaint I have about this book, and I have had it about his previous books (and kept coming back): His extensive use of (correct) russian. I'm not interested in reading russian in italics and attempting to figure out what it means later (as it turns out I have a native russian co-worker). However the book was enormously entertaining and kept me up a couple nights to finish it. Certainly recommended to fans of Brown in general, and possibly recommended to people looking for a change from the dry cookie cutter stuff Clancy has been writing for years.
Rating:
Summary: Good military fiction
Review: I've followed Dale Brown from his first book through this latest and he never fails to deliver. I also recommend Andy McNabb's SAS books and Bob Mayer Special Forces novels.
Rating: 
Summary: If you've read one, you've read them all
Review: I've read several of Mr. Brown's books, they're all the same with their far out(even impossible, a stealth B-52 is an example of that) gadgets and plots. I guess they're OK if you just want to check your brain at the door and have some mindless fun. Peersonally I'd rather read Tom Clancy or Richard Marcinko and I'm tiring of them too.
Rating:
Summary: The Nightstalkers and Oil
Review: If you have ever wondered how Patrick McClannahan and his bunch come together and have "retired" from the service this is the story where you find out. This is a fast paced story that deals with greed, past history, and new heroes as well as a different approach to foreign policy with a new president. This book kept me going back to it when I tried to stop the tape wondering what would happen next. The premise is that a Russian Kazakov wants to take his oil through old USSR countries but is getting resistance. The story revolved around how he goes about getting what he wants, and the conflict that this makes for the "nightstalkers". Fantastic book!
Rating: 
Summary: Heavy on the techno- light on thrills
Review: In "Warrior Class", an evil Russian tycoon, Pavel Kazakov, manipulates the fragile politics of the Balkans to serve his sinister financial plans. Already rich on the strength of his drug smuggling enterprises and his 3rd world petroleum sales, Kazakov triggers a war in the Balkans as a ruse to building an oil pipeline through Albania. With the Balkans disintegrating, the Russian army pours across the border, ostensibly for peacekeeping, but mostly to pacify those who'd stand in Kazakov's way. Once complete, the oil pipeline will guarantee the Russians millions of dollars in petro-income daily. Kazakov, who's despised enough by his own countrymen, relies on back-room deals in general and in particular (because this is a Dale Brown novel) on a fantastic and mysterious stealth warplane that swoops without warning and unleashes destruction. (Rival Balkan factions blame each other for the attacks). The mystery plane is the Metyor-179, a sort of descendant of the Fisikous-170 of the earlier Brown novel "Night of the Hawk". In the US, a new president (who makes his habits clear by skipping such traditional functions as the public inauguration and traditional state of the union address) abruptly cuts military ties with the rest of the world - pulling out everything but a shell of the American presence from Europe and leaving a power-vacuum the Russians are only too happy to fill. At Elliot Field, site of the high-technology aero-weapons training center (HAWC), Pat Mclanahan (Dale Brown's perennial hero) is working hard not only training his own combat unit but also foreign units who will now be expected to defend themselves without overt American support. Ukrainian units in Backfire bombers train alongside Turkish F-16's and HAWC's very own EB-1c Vampire bombers. The situation is tenuous enough, but when a deep-cover CIA agent in Russia uncovers proof of Kazakov's links to the Mystery Plane and the escalating violence in the Balkans, HAWC is sent in on the rescue. The catastrophic results set off an international incident and lead to a near court martial of Mclanahan. It's a big, complicated story, one that manages to elude Dale Brown's story-telling talents with every page. Besides his usual faults (giving greater depth to machines and combat elements than the people) is a glaring new one: most of Brown's books are linked in a rough series based on the exploits of Mclanahan and others at HAWC, and Brown has no problem freely revisiting past events of those older books in the newer ones. Tossing around references to books like the original "Flight of the Old Dog: and "Night of the Hawk", reading a Dale Brown novel is like reading another issue of some superhero comic book where every other plot reference has an asterisk reminding you to review last month's issue of Avenger's or X-Men. Even so, Brown leaves some threads untreated, as if he were sure he'd have time to deal with them in his next book (the torment of ex-POW Dave Luger and his interaction with a Ukrainian officer who had victimized him in a prior book is such an example). That said, Brown manages to repeat his typical mistakes - putting techno-jargon and other meaningless minutiae above the action, and disrupting the flow with more meaningless details. Brown can't so much as have a tilt-rotor MV-22 land (deep inside Russia to extract the spy) without going into an extended treatise on where its unit is based and who builds it, and providing a dossier about the crew. A Ukrainian Backfire bomber can't turn on its radar without triggering a volume of information on how the American pullout from Europe will leave Russia free reign over much of Europe. Brown will repeatedly refers to a character by his full name and title as if he wasn't sure he'd made them memorable enough when first introduced. (Colonel-General Smoliy of the Ukrainian Air Force is repeatedly referred to by that full title and his position). Many details are flat-out unnecessary - does a Dale Brown fan need to be told that F-16's are being launched with AIM-9 missiles and shells for their internal guns? Brown gets some good jibes in with his new President - a former war hero turned new-age hippy (he extols meditation). Brown's new pres manages a great twist in an outrageous bid to win freedom for American fliers captured during the botched spy-extraction, and he leaves enough room for readers to argue both sides on the subjec of the continued worldwide American military presence. The rest of the book doesn't live up to that promise. The Russians sneer, while our heroes' bureaucrat superiors rant about how the heroes aren't team players. The villain is just another overly-ambitious sleaze. There's plenty of action, but little coherent plot to stitch it on. There's a great action sequence involving the futile attempts to escape Russian airspace after the nearly ruined rescue, but it's hobbled. I don't care how experienced Brown is at military flight - his flight sequences are horrible - he barely establishes POV for his characters, frequently allows his characters to engage in full dialogue that doesn't hint to the stress of their high-performance flying and often merely summarizes what should be a heated and fleshed-out battle, but in Brown's flat prose, comes off as detailed and vivid as some late-1980's style flight simulator game. Although Brown pushes his reputation for "realism", he includes some exotic new stuff that makes his writing look as unrealistic as ever (electro-ray guns, cybernetic armor) and has yet to make the more real stuff (existing hardware like airplanes) seem realistic. Brown has got to realize that techno-thriller fans are more savvy than they were in 1987 and has got to do more than recycle the same plot over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Book From Dale Brown
Review: In this book, Pavel Kazakov tries to take over all of Europe, all so he can make money with his oil company. Patrick McLanahan has to go in and stop him. Loaded with the best of weapons from BERP-Suits to Megafortress-2 Bombers to brand new missiles, this book is another excellent book from Dale Brown.
Rating:
Summary: Incredulous, Just Incredulous.
Review: It seems incredulous, to make incredulous remarks about this novel. Although I have noticed from several of his past novels, that this seems to be, without a doubt, Mr Brown's favorite word, it was certainly overused throughout this novel. I still consider him one of my favorite authors, as I anxiously await the arrival of each new book; but I would have gladly waited a little longer for this one, were he to have it reviewed by a better editor. A good read, but far from his best :-(
Rating: 
Summary: Can I get a refund?
Review: My problem with this book is that the story is completely unbelievable. Not the pipeline business, the premise showed promise, but the actions taken by the main characters in response to the pipeline business. And since their reactions are the driving force behind this story, the story was unbelievable. Techno-Thrillers are best when they are accurate. Not just as to technology, but in the response to and application of that technology. Example: At one point, the US Government must try to rescue one CIA agent hidden in the woods in the middle of Russia. We are supposed to believe that the appropriate application of force is to send an extraction team in a "stealth" tilt rotor aircraft(?) guarded by 2 "super-mega-do-everything" stealth B1 Bombers? During the rescue, why aren't all of the people on the tilt rotor aircraft wearing the "super-mega-do-everything" bullet-proof suits? This would have prevented at least one casualty during the rescue (did anyone besides me notice that there were no attempts to rescue that poor crew member . . . what was her name? Oh yea, Disposable Crew Member #3, Female). Was there any reason the guy in the "super-mega-do-everything" bullet-proof suit with the "super-mega-do-everything" helmet couldn't just let the tilt-rotor pilot wear the helmet so he could see where he was going? Why didn't the tilt-rotor pilot have the "super-mega-do-everything" sub-cutaneous cell phone/GPS unit? With that he could have been directed out of the danger area. This also would have relieved us from one of the more poorly written parts of the book, namely the confusing "flashlight tag" join-up flight sequence. Also, if operational doctrine called for 2 super-mega stealth B1 Bombers, why weren't there 2 "stealth" tilt rotor craft? The second tilt rotor could have gone back instead of the more unbelievable "stealing a Turkish helicopter" scene. Are we really supposed to believe that the Turkish helicopter crew was happy to fly into Russia at "rail-gun" point in the middle of a Russian air force mobilization? Later in the book a chapter ends with a late night escape from the FBI. The next chapter starts "months later." What was the rogue team doing all that time? This is undeveloped story-line. As I read this book I never felt that any main characters were in danger. Was this because I didn't care about all of these recurring characters or was it because the "super-mega" stealth B1 Bomber, like a 21st centry deus ex machina was always on the scene to save the day....
Rating:
Summary: Hey Dale! Where's the beef?
Review: Okay! I admit it. I'm a technothriller junkie. I like Dale Brown's work, most of it at least. Warrior Class isn't his best work. It was good reading, but it just wasn't a page turner in the "I don't care if it's 5am...I'm going to finish this book!" genre. At times, I had to force myself to read. The basic plot premise was believable, even if President Thorn wasn't. Pavel Kazakov, the bad guy, is believable. The hardware is getting less believable as time goes by. I still don't understand Russian. I finally slogged through the book to get to the ending, and I was let down. I kept asking, "Where's the beef?" I'll inspect the goods more carefully next time before buying. Now it's off to the store to buy some beef. Three stars. That's it.
Rating:
Summary: Warrior Class
Review: Once again Dale Brown has Patrick McLanahan in the middle of it all again. He keeps to his traditional style and makes it almost impossible to put the book down. I highly recommend this book.
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