Bright Star

Rating:
Summary: fairly good story hit by sappy and forced love story
Review: Bright Star is a sequel of sorts to Sword Point. Here, the aftereffects of a US-Soviet war is explored two years after the shooting has stopped. The horrors of the war deeply affect both countries: in the US, a war hero becomes congressman and hopes that the mistakes in the last war won't affect Americans in the next one. In the USSR, veterans of that war are treated without respect (probably not unlike those who went through Afghanistan) even by other members of the military. The title Bright Star refers to the US-Egypt joint military exercise. A war between Egypt and Libya erupts when it is found out that Libya is behind an assassination attempt. Egypt attacks Libya in retaliation. The war snowballs and threaten to escalate into another war between USA and USSR. This book also puts the character Scott Dixon into a even more major character. We'll see that the horrors of the last war threaten to ruin his wife and kids. And suddenly another woman from the past enters into his life, news reporter Jan Fields.

I'm glad to see writer Harold Coyle become more comofortable with the characters he created. It's also neat to read additional tales and misadventures of the American and Soviet characters faced in the last US-Soviet war. If you've read Sword Point, you'll even appreciate some of the feelings and motivations of some of the characters in this book. This book also shows a fact: America cuts back its military after a major conflict.

However, Bright Star does suffer from a love affair that is too sappy for its own good and at some points just too convenient. The battles also lack the tension I felt in the previous book. Perhaps because America fighting the Russians again is rather old hat in this book. After all, the US president in the story is not afraid to attack Soviet airbase like he's not afraid to bomb Yugoslavia. It also appears there's not much to be expected of Egyptian attack on Libya.

Anyway, I'm happy I got the book with a painting of an M1 tank on its cover rather than the ugly foil cover you see at the top of this page.

Rating:
Summary: fairly good story hit by sappy and forced love story
Review: Bright Star is a sequel of sorts to Sword Point. Here, the aftereffects of a US-Soviet war is explored two years after the shooting has stopped. The horrors of the war deeply affect both countries: in the US, a war hero becomes congressman and hopes that the mistakes in the last war won't affect Americans in the next one. In the USSR, veterans of that war are treated without respect (probably not unlike those who went through Afghanistan) even by other members of the military. The title Bright Star refers to the US-Egypt joint military exercise. A war between Egypt and Libya erupts when it is found out that Libya is behind an assassination attempt. Egypt attacks Libya in retaliation. The war snowballs and threaten to escalate into another war between USA and USSR. This book also puts the character Scott Dixon into a even more major character. We'll see that the horrors of the last war threaten to ruin his wife and kids. And suddenly another woman from the past enters into his life, news reporter Jan Fields.

I'm glad to see writer Harold Coyle become more comofortable with the characters he created. It's also neat to read additional tales and misadventures of the American and Soviet characters faced in the last US-Soviet war. If you've read Sword Point, you'll even appreciate some of the feelings and motivations of some of the characters in this book. This book also shows a fact: America cuts back its military after a major conflict.

However, Bright Star does suffer from a love affair that is too sappy for its own good and at some points just too convenient. The battles also lack the tension I felt in the previous book. Perhaps because America fighting the Russians again is rather old hat in this book. After all, the US president in the story is not afraid to attack Soviet airbase like he's not afraid to bomb Yugoslavia. It also appears there's not much to be expected of Egyptian attack on Libya.

Anyway, I'm happy I got the book with a painting of an M1 tank on its cover rather than the ugly foil cover you see at the top of this page.

Rating:
Summary: A look at the hearts and minds of warriors.....
Review: Bright Star, Harold Coyle's third novel and second in a continuing series following the careers of various Army officers, is an intriguing and very human look at the lives of professional soldiers both on the home front and on the field of battle.

Set sometime before the fall of the Soviet Union and after the events of Sword Point, Bright Star once again features Scott Dixon, Hal Cerro, Nikolai Ilvanich and Fay Dixon (Scott's wife) and introduces television reporter Jan Fields, a rising star in a cable news network and former colleague of Fay's.

The novel starts on a somber note as Major (promotable) Dixon sits at his home computer writing a letter of resignation from the Army he has served and loved for years. The war in Iran has left an emotional scar, and his wife's hopes for a return to her journalism career after Scotty's expected after-20-year retirement have been put on hold by her husband's deployment to fight the Soviets in the Persian Gulf. The strains of the conflict -- nightmares of battles for Scott, the sudden upending of long-made plans for Fay -- create a vast emotional chasm between husband and wife.

But Dixon is a soldier to his very marrow, and although he is listless and even resigned to accept whatever backwater job he's offered by his superiors, Scotty tosses the letter of resignation away and waits for new orders to be cut, much to Fay's discontent.

And when a UH-60 helicopter carrying Lt. Col. William Dedinger is shot down in Sudan by a guerrilla team, Scott Dixon, Medal of Honor winner, is assigned to serve as the chief of staff of the 2nd U.S. Corps (Forward) in Cairo, Egypt. There, he's to assist in the expected prepositioning of Army equipment in that cautiously friendly Middle Eastern country, in addition to other, more classified tasks. It's a mostly desk-bound assignment, very much the opposite of the combat-geared armored task force command he declined around the same time he was contemplating leaving the Army.

Naturally, Scotty's new posting and promotion to light colonel don't do anything to help heal the growing rift with his wife, who is forced to cancel her acceptance of a job with CBS to accompany Scott to Cairo. And although she does get another job with her former college roommate and friend Jan Fields, the sojourn to Egypt will have unhappy consequences.

Meanwhile, the ambitions of Libyan Col. Nafissi will soon lead to another conflict that will once again pit the United States and the Soviet Union against each other as the superpowers go to the assistance of their client states -- Egypt and Libya. Soon the desert sands are littered with wrecked tanks and dead soldiers as fierce battles are waged on the air, land, sea....and the hearts of combat veterans such as Scotty Dixon and Capt. Hal Cerro.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning, faultless read.
Review: Harold Coyle has written another classic. After reading THE TEN THOUSAND, SWORD POINT and CODE OF HONOUR, I stumbled across this in a London bookstore and once again was not disappointed. The story of a Middle East conflict involving Egypt and Sudan occupied by US forces, and Ethiopia and Libya occupied by the Soviets might seem a little out of date now, considering events in the Gulf began to occur just after this book was wriiten, but it is still a brilliant read.Coyle's descriptions of the military hardware and their capabilities are well researched and the characters are much more three-dimensional than most other books of this genre. Particularly Scott Dixon's crisis-ridden marriage to Fay, and his comfort in reporter Jan Fields, which comes to a head right in the thick of the fighting. The maps are a good guide, as with all his other books, on how the action scenes take place on the ground with tank and mechanised battalions, and there's also action at sea and in the air. Also very plausible is the SS-18s converted to carry nerve gas warheads, made all too realistic by Saddam's recent (presumed?) developments in that field! The locations, particularly Egypt, are authentically portrayed, having travelled to the Middle East(and returning there again in a couple of weeks!) one can imagine oneself being there witnessing it all. All in all, essential reading. If you're an aspiring writer such as I am(I'm working on my second manuscript now), Harold Coyle's books come highly recommended! I read this one in one sitting until the early hours.

Rating:
Summary: Not enough battle scenes
Review: I love Harold Coyles books. My favorite so far being Team Yankee. Bright Star, however, was rather slow in comparison to his other "Modern Warfare" books. I felt that there were not enough of those intense, realistic battle scenes that he's known for. The points of view from the different characters would have been more interesting, if there was more action to refer to. At times, I was only able to pick up where I left off of by referring to what stage the love relationship was at!!! Unfortunately, this book was easy to put down, and harder to pick up to resume reading. Don't let this book stop you from reading his other GREAT books, though!! He is otherwise, one of my favorite authors for techno thrillers !

Rating:
Summary: Not enough battle scenes
Review: I love Harold Coyles books. My favorite so far being Team Yankee. Bright Star, however, was rather slow in comparison to his other "Modern Warfare" books. I felt that there were not enough of those intense, realistic battle scenes that he's known for. The points of view from the different characters would have been more interesting, if there was more action to refer to. At times, I was only able to pick up where I left off of by referring to what stage the love relationship was at!!! Unfortunately, this book was easy to put down, and harder to pick up to resume reading. Don't let this book stop you from reading his other GREAT books, though!! He is otherwise, one of my favorite authors for techno thrillers !

Rating:
Summary: A confusing slow read
Review: I was disappointed in this book after reading Team Yankee (a five star read). The author writes from several viewpoints-Russian advisor, Russian commander,bad American commander, Libyan commander, different American soldiers. However it just doesn't work. Many of the characters were either not well developed or I just didn't care about them. It seemed like maybe the author was trying to do too much in one book.