Customer Reviews

Crusade!

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Crusade is the latest major story by Stuart Slade set in what is called the fictional "TBO" universe, following the first story in the "Big One" (which established the premise in which the Halifax coup in Great Britain led to a drastically different outcome for World War 2). It is an interesting but flawed read, centering around a showdown between the United States and the rising "Caliphate", an extremist Islamic regime controlling most of the Middle East and expanding its presence into North Africa. A secondary theme of the novel is to show the weaknesses in a strategic doctrine known as "Massive Retaliation", held during the Eisenhower Presidency in our history and by the US government in the TBO universe.

All of Stuart Slade's novels reflect his extensive background in military and technical analysis, and it shows primarily in his painstaking accuracy regarding military weapons and nuclear technology. In addition to this, the prior problems with grammatical errors has been greatly ameliorated, and characterization (particularly of the President's staff) has greatly improved, at least with regards to the Americans. Although his depiction of Robert S. McNamara (shown under a thin pseudonym disguise) wanders into the slightly cartoonish, the opinions held by McNamara are representative of his actual positions, and Slade goes to detail to show why they were bad decisions that, in our real history, led to military issues in America.

The weakness of this novel lies primarily in the Caliphate. Stuart has indicated that the Caliphate is a "what if?" (similar to the Halifax coup) used to show what a regime that embodied everything that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban desire would look like, but in this case, its plausibility is rather weak, and the idea that the reason given for its existence (a religious-led coup in Iran to overthrow a weakening Mossadegh Presidency) could lead to a transnational empire of this type of Islam stretches belief. He greatly under-estimates the power of secular nationalism (as well as hybridizations between Islam and nationalism in that period) in the Arab World during that time period, as well as the development of Islamist ideology (much of which hadn't quite congealed into the form used by Al-Qaeda today). Moreover, his portrayal of the Caliphate's leadership is rather silly - he portrays them as a bunch of fanatic bumblers who sit in council meetings, beating their chests even as their actions lead to a vast, annihilatory nuclear strike heading their way.

In spite of the weakness of the Caliphate, this remains an interesting story. I would recommend its purchase to anyone who was interested in "The Big One".

Another trip into a different world, one where the USA doesn't fight it's enemies, it destroys them. Not something for everyone, I know, but for those who are brave enough it is a winner.

The Caliphate, which is a confederation of the Islamic Radicals, is making trouble. It's up to SAC to show them the error of their ways, or to die.

If you like alternate history and might-have-beens then this is likely for you. If you think war and warfare is never an answer, stay away.

This is another great book in this SAC series. You should read the first book in the series to follow the history of this book. This is set in 1965 with the B-58 and B-52's. Well worth your money. Can't wait for the next book.

This Novel needs to be read in the context of Stuart Slade's original work, The Big One. He has set up an alternative history chain, based on England having dropped out of World War Two. Lacking an ability to invade Europe as happened in our time-line, the war was eventually concluded with the nuclear obliteration of Germany. You'll have to read TBO to learn the details.

The United States emerged from WW-II as a nation that did not much get involved in foreign affairs. We do not fight our enemies; we destroyed them. The Army was drawn down to nearly nothing. SAC ruled the skies. We had a mighty armament, but only one arrow in our quiver. Instant sunshine.

The TBO series of novels is an exploration of where that strategy can lead. It was a strategy that was powerful, but limited. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Crusade is a powerful and compelling exploration of what can happen when you neglect a significant part of the World. It looks at what can happen if you take your eye off the ball.

As always, Stuart has a lot of fun with his character development. His important characters have depth and believability. People do things because that's the way people behave. Somehow, that manages to further the plot.

Stuart's work just keeps getting better and better.

Great theme, but the book is let down by poor story development, and characterisation. If the main characters had been given more depth, and the story had been expanded to explain the historical circumstances, particularly the roles played by the major non-European powers such as Russia, China, and the U.S.A., while the Islamic forces were conquering Europe, the novel would have been a much better read.

I really enjoyed this book. Compatible to what is going on today. Excellent series of books.

As a major fan of alternative history, I was intrigued by the author's premise of a massive nuclear strike on Germany at the end of World War 2 The Big One. Every reader needs to start at the beginning of the series to fully understand the background and enjoy the characters. This book does a good job of continuing the series. It shows the rise of Islamic fanaticism and the challenges it poses to other world powers. I also enjoyed seeing the love between aviators and their machines. An excellent story with detailed military technology.

When I was shopping for a friend, I could have gotten him any technothriller I wanted. But there was an author I had heard about named Stuart Slade who's works I was curious in reading for myself. The problem with Stuart was not only had I heard mostly negative opinions about his work, but actually read one of his stories online. It just wasn't very engaging, and lacked that feeling of immediacy, the feeling that you were there. But I was still curious about his proper novels, and so got one for my friend, knowing that his standards were low enough that he would enjoy it regardless.

The book was named Crusade, and suffered from not very engaging writing, a lack of immediacy, one-sided writing, historical unrealism, awful characterization, and a sort of "this happened, then this happened, then this happened" narrative quality due to the many views the narrator focuses on. It was technically accurate. However, my response to its technical accuracy was basically "so what?"

Let me explain Stuart's background for why I feel this is the case. Stuart is a longtime military systems expert. This explains his technical accuracy, and his literary flaws.

The lack of immediacy and engaging writing comes from someone who has seen weapons systems as just different statistics going against each other, and battles just from technical histories. This detailed nature of his writing takes all the immediacy out of it. How can you be swept in the confusion of a fictional battle when the weapons and conditions are described in perfect detail? It just lacks that almost intangible sense of good battles. It also makes characterization poor, as military reports and technical histories are not known for their good characterization.

The other flaws are only indirectly related to Stuart's background. The historical unrealism is due to his personal militarist biases, and due to the fact that you can know a lot about one subject without knowing much about other subjects:

Example: He creates a ludicrous Muslim superstate in Crusade called the Caliphate that apparently only holds together because its members hate the rest of the world more than each other-without explaining why this is the case. The Caliphate's leaders are all a bunch of raving nuts that lack any sense of pragmatism or clear thinking, as they repeatedly attack the US military despite the US being more than willing to nuke the opposition into oblivion if they're attacked in the setting. The Caliphate is also much stricter than just about every real Muslim country, as it's outlawed all science (!), forbidden women to hold any jobs whatsoever, has warships shoot at boats of refugees who try to leave, and whose leaders generally act as unintentionally hilarious zealots.

Gee, guess what Stuart's opinion of Islam is?

The one-sided writing holds true in his battles. Now I'm not bothered by it technically (There's a naval battle in Crusade where the US Navy wipes out an inferior Caliphate fleet without taking any losses-given what I know of naval battles, it's realistic), but am bothered by it literarily, as a one-sided stomp is no fun. It also extends to his opinions-oh boy, another example is in order:

Stuart believes that planes are better at delivering nukes than large ballistic missiles, and that developing said missiles instead of higher-performance planes was a mistake. A plane flying very fast could be very hard to hit, and planes are more versatile, being able to be redirected or called off once they're flying, be used again after they drop their nukes, and can be used for other purposes besides dropping nukes. The reason why missiles were chosen historically is that they're more cost-effective, and the theory was that a nuclear war would only involve one salvo anyway, so you might as well go with what's more cost-effective. His argument favoring planes is totally valid, and I have no problem with that.

However, the historical figures that were responsible for developing missiles (most notable R. MacNamara, renamed McNorman in Crusade), are not portrayed as people who just made a bad decision, they're portrayed as cartoonish mustache twirling villains. For example, in Crusade during a meeting, "McNorman" is described as literally sneering "My calculations show that if we were using missiles instead of planes, and didn't spend the money on our missile defense programs, we could afford a decent army". It's not the literal text, but it's a decent enough approximation. "McNorman" shows similar villainous attitudes throughout the entire book. Stuart's background gives him strong opinions and biases, and his lack of literary skill means that he can't keep those biases in check.

Stuart Slade is an undeniable expert in military matters, and it shows in his writing, both positively and negatively. Unfortunately, expert military analysts do not necessarily make for good writers.

This book and it's predecessors were a gift from a friend who knew I liked AltHist material. In only read it out of curiosity, to see if it was as bad as "The Big One".
It was worse......probably because Slade had to come up with his own villains (all the Nazi's were dead). So he chose Islam; it's difficult to know if he did this because of his own views or just to appeal to his market. It doesn't really matter, the result is awful.

Slade can't write. He may be OK at simple technical stuff but he's incapable of writing novels. It's really that simple. He fails to engage the reader; his right-wing Republican/Libertarian militarist views ooze through as one-sided perspective; his plot lacks any kind of historical realism; he cannot create real characters; and he simply cannot write a decent narrative.

Even his vaunted technical accuracy is questionable; he allows his biases too free a reign and his works have technical developments happening far faster than reasonable, and working far more reliably. His obsession with manned bomber aircraft, for example, has him make LeMay POTUS and cancel all strategic missile programmes..........
His character "McNorman", for example, is a thinly veiled portrayal of Robert MacNamara. Slade's salivating over programmes, such as the B-70 bomber, canceled by McNamara, causes him to show McNorman as a cartoonish villain, rather than a real person with real decisions to make........

Having read Mr. Slade's previous works (online and dead-tree versions, both) this is a fitting and welcome follow-up. Make no mistake, familiarization with the universe, while not required for reading this work, should be done so all relationships are understood. There are extensive background stories to this universe and not all have made it to book form yet. A TBOverse anthology will hopefully appear soon.

Mr. Slade is a military systems expert and yes, it shows. Both in writing detail and style. Yet, this does not prevent characters from developing, but those hung up on the style and technical detail may find themselves preoccupied. This is Military Alt-History. You might be able to write it without the depth of detail provided by Mr. Slade, but his stories would suffer; there would be too many unanswered questions.

Further, the realism abounds. The weapons systems highlighted all existed as production, experimental or planned systems. The narrative shows the teething problems of developing systems and there is NO one sided battle. Everything seems to be a challenge with new people, equipment and operating rules. Many mistakes occur, but are worked through--at a cost.

These books should be a must-read for any military alt-history fan.

To Mr. Slade: More please!