Firefox

Rating:
Summary: Mach 5 Thriller delivers
Review: "Firefox" is the code name for a new breed of Russian fighter, a plane that's invisible to radar, outruns missiles, and wields an arsenal guided by the pilot's thoughts. With nothing remotely capable of matching the super-jet on their drawing boards, British and American spymatsers hit on a seemingly impossible, virtually suicidal plan: send one of their pilots into Russia - into the Russians' high-security flight-test center - to find the super plane, and steal it. Complicating things is Mitchell Gant, the west's designated skyjacker, a burnt out Viet Nam vet who test flew captured Russian planes for the CIA. Scarred within after being shotdown, Gant's plods on, begging to be discovered and put out of his misery.

Like the plan, "Fireox" the novel seems like a no-brainer - Craig Thomas seems unsure of his hold on military technology, and by his prose, you'd never confuse him with other authors who've done the stuff they've written about (like fly planes and get shot at). Instead, Thomas' crisp prose, an almost constant state of tension and an almost supersonic pacing put "Firefox" ahead of just about any other aviation technothriller. Bets of all are the flying scenes. While other writers boast of being able to put the reader inside the cockpit of a high-performance fighter - only Thomas delivers. Unlike other authors, Thomas knows the tension, stark terror and gallons of adrenaline that a fighter pilot can be expected to go through while trapped in a dogfight. Then there's Thomas' hero - Gant. Thomas' conceit is that Gant's superiors were so ready to see there case fail, that they chose the one man least capable of pulling it off. Gant is unlike any technothriller writer you've ever read about - he begins the novel trapped in a chronic nervous breakdown. Yet he excels over the cardboard charachters of other books who just push buttons and read computer screens. Those charachters just register information - Gant actually experiences it as real people would. With the exception of "Flight ofthe Intruder", and Thomas' other Mitchell Gant novels, this is probably the best air-war thriller you'll read. Sequels included "Firefox Down", "Winterhawk" and "A Different War" - "Winterhawk" being my favorite story, but never outrunning the flying scenes of "Firefox".

Rating:
Summary: Fast Paced
Review: I enjoyed the book although I actually liked the movie better then the book, which rarely happens for me. I just wanted more of the book, more character development, more detail on the spy tradecraft. The story is great, the detail is there, and I just wanted maybe 50 more pages. The book moves very fast and because it does not have volume it is easily a weekend book. I would recommend the book; I just thought it needed more.

Rating:
Summary: Fast Paced
Review: I enjoyed the book although I actually liked the movie better then the book, which rarely happens for me. I just wanted more of the book, more character development, more detail on the spy tradecraft. The story is great, the detail is there, and I just wanted maybe 50 more pages. The book moves very fast and because it does not have volume it is easily a weekend book. I would recommend the book; I just thought it needed more.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best of its genre
Review: This is brilliant! I first read this when I was 15, when the movie came out in the UK, and looking back on it, much of the technology of the Firefox MiG-23 arcraft has come to fruitition in real life! In particular, the EFA-2000 Eurofighter and of course, the Stealth features. Even today, this is a story I would recommend to any thriller fan. The Moscow scenes are as authentic as `The Cardinal Of The Kremlin`(Tom Clancy), the methods he uses to get to the Firefox are plausible and in general, the style of writing and grammar is furiously fast-paced in similar vein to Alistair MacLean or Clive Cussler.
Altogether, a must read!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Military Fiction
Review: Though it may take American Readers a spell to get used to the British linguistics, Thomas has a captivating spy thriller here that is hard to put down and excitement galore. The epitomy of Thomas' fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Military Fiction
Review: Though it may take American Readers a spell to get used to the British linguistics, Thomas has a captivating spy thriller here that is hard to put down and excitement galore. The epitomy of Thomas' fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Mitch Gant--the flying Rambo
Review: Unlike the original Rambo, author Craig Thomas has brought his troubled Air Force Nam vet through four stories--this book, a sequel "Firefox Down" that continues the journey of Gant's stolen MiG out of Soviet airspace into Scandinavia, "Winterhawk" in which Gant uses a MiL chopper that the Israelis stole for the US to rescue a deep cover agent from their Baikonur rocket base, and "A Different War" which was never published for US release (I bagged a used copy of that one courtesy of rare book site Alibris). In that one, Gant is called upon to investigate an airline tragedy that ends up having corporate skulduggery at its roots--thus its title. The Gant of the printed page is a bit different from the Gant on the screen--in action roles, Eastwood always plays his characters as laconic and menacing. This Gant is more intense, more of an envelope-pusher. As such, he's a lot like David Morrell's Rambo--you'd never make the connection on the screen.