Acid Test

Rating:
Summary: Good book, but could have been much better.
Review: "Acid Test," was written by screenwriter/novelist Ross LaManna, author of movies "Rush Hour", "Cliff Hanger," "Universal Soldier," and other popular movies. Acid Test was his first novel, characterized as a geo-political thriller. I began as most action type thrillers seem to with an action scene with gun battles, car chases, etc. The novel is about a military investigator (Air Force OSI) on a mission to thwart a Bin Laden type terrorist (Batu Khan, a direct descendant of Ghengis Khan, living in the deserts of Afghanastan, and other places) who is trying to unite the torn apart Soviet states by force.

The novel had great promise at the beginning and was very realistic. LaManna knows how to write dialogue between characters because he is a screenwriter. However, the novel quickly became too much to handle. It became so farfetched, with such things as the hero using a rocket engine strapped to a truck to catch up to an enemy and later jumping between moving advanced jet fighters, that I almost could not continue reading it. It seems that he took a promising novel idea and tried to turn it into his next action packed, but ludicrous movie. To me it really ruined what could have been a very good novel. A co-worker of mine who is a former OSI agent like myself also read it and we were both very disappointed. It could have been much better. If we had expected that type of novel, that would have been different. But I was expecting a much more serious type of novel.

Rating:
Summary: Great story!
Review: "Acid Test" reads like a big summer blockbuster. It's crammed with over the top characters, technology and plot elements. "Acid Test" is pure entertaining fluff. It's a literary marshmellow. It should make an awesome movie.

Rating:
Summary: Exciting international thriller
Review: In the last fifty or so years, no country has risen and expanded faster than the Trans Altaic Alliance. Its leader, the charismatic but deadly Batu Khan, has consolidated eight nations in three years without a drop of blood being shed as he pushes his agenda of reforming the Mongol Empire. However, his methodology dramatically changes when his Kaldum Elite troops overthrow the elected government in Georgia and execute the president, his wife and two small children.

Having ignored the rise of he TAA, the United States President Marsh knows a confrontation is inevitable. As he prepares to drum up support among his allies and the American people, weird homicides occur in which sudden personality change sends a calm normal person over the edge. Air Force Agent Matt Wilder has witnessed the phenomena twice and begins inquiries into it just as he is needed to help in the incident between America and the TAA.

ACID TEST is a fast-paced international thriller that will take readers along for a speed-of-light ride. The story line is filled with non-stop action, but Ross LaManna provides one too many subplots to his resourceful tale. The elements involving the TAA rise and threat is fabulous and worth the read. The subplot centering on sudden personality change is interesting in its own light, but could have used its own book as it fails to enhance the political thriller. Still, fans of action to the nth degree will delight in ACID TEST, a novel that proves Mr. LaManna more than just passes the writing examination of public approval.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Good first effort, but needs work
Review: LaManna's first novel is very good for a first time. The action and dialouge are first rate. LaManna obviously did a great amount of research on the Air Force and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in particular. Some on the weapons that LaManna created are almost believable. However, the Trans-Altain Alliance villains are unbelievable as are some of the action scenes. This is a good book, but if you want a techno-thriller, you're hard-pressed to beat Tom Clancy's ultra-accurate research and believable plot lines. Wait until paperback - I wish I had.

Rating:
Summary: Short on reality, Big on Action
Review: Lots of fun to read with never a dull moment, but a bit difficult to believe. The action in the book which takes place around an area of the world currently at the center of the world's attention is slightly unnerving.

Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining
Review: This book was very entertaining. It starts out fast and doesn't let up. I listened to the audio version and it was very well narrated.

Rating:
Summary: On acid it might seem real
Review: This is Ross Lamanna's first novel. He also wrote 'Rush Hour' with Jackie Chan. This novel reads a lot like an action movie including the super hero and the evil villains.

Batu Khan, self-named after the grandson of Genghis Khan, has created an empire from some of the old countries of the Soviet Union. Khan's empire, known as the TAA (Trans-Altaic Alliance), which has an army of 1.5 million, looks to rule the world one day. With top-secret technology and an army of super soldiers-thanks to drugs-Khans' threat is real.

Matt Wilder, an agent for the OSI, is investigating a series of murders committed by normally sane and passive people that seem to lose control and go haywire. Wilder soon finds a connection between these gruesome murders and Khan's plot for world domination.

There is no doubt this is an action packed, wham-bam read. I would call it a comic book novel. With the futuristic weaponry (microwave guns) and the inhuman feats (jumping from rocket ship to rocket ship at 150,000 feet with a tear in the spacesuit) to the action (incursion tubes used to carry six horsemen on their steeds then parachuted out of a big airplane). Oh, and Wilder is also blind in one eye. He certainly can perform some amazing feats without depth perception.

A fun book to read, though at times laughable.

Recommended for younger readers.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but not as tight as other authors
Review: This would have worked better as a comedy. I can't take this nonsense seriously.

Rating:
Summary: Reads just like an action movie
Review: Though 'Acid Test' has a promising beginning, it soon devolves into a number of cliches that come straight from an action movie, which of course is what the author is, a movie writer. You have unstoppable enemies that can take multiple gunshots to the chest and keep on coming, the hero who's the only one who knows the full story and has to struggle to get his superiors to believe him, the super-villain that marries high-technology with wacky religious beliefs, and there's even a connection to the 60's. Some may see prescience in the author's predictions, but here the story veers into the ridiculous. The author has a few hundred horse archers conquering countries like Georgia and the Ukraine which have armies in the hundreds of thousands, and defeating highly trained commandos. Macguyver-like, the hero crash lands a next-generation warplane and then repairs it on the ground with tools from a hardware store. True to action movie formula, in the end many threads are left unresolved, leaving the possibility of a sequel. I for one, sincerely hope there won't be one.

Rating:
Summary: puhhhhlease
Review: Wow I think that Ross took some of the same acid the President did. This is so over the top unbelieveable that it turned into a comedy. Lamanna can obviously write, but he has to bring his material back to earth a bit. If you want plausible action, check out Gonzalo Lira's "Acrobat." A great story with a great twist and soon to be made into a movie by Miramax.