Customer Reviews

Dale Browns Dreamland (Dale Browns Dreamland 1)

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

 

 

Dale Brown has collaborated with Jim DeFelice(check out his WAR BREAKER, by the way) to produce an excellent new novel set roughly around the end of Dale's DAY OF THE CHEETAH but tying in nicely with SHADOWS OF STEEL. In the story, Colonel Tecumseh DOG Bastian is assigned by the White House to get Dreamland, the secret base at Nevada's Groom Lake, back into shape or else defence budget cuts will force the place to close. The first half of the book deals with experimenting on new weapons systems, in particular the FLIGHTHAWK unmanned aerial vehicles and also development of the EB-52 Megafortress, another old favourite! Dale Brown has also done well in creating some new characters, such as hotshot F-16 pilot Mack Smith, paraplegic ex-pilot Jeff Stockard who is a leading player with the FLIGHTHAWK system and is also burned out, concerned about his marriage to Megafortress pilot Breanna Bastian Stockard, daughter of 'Dog'. All these personal dramas intertwine well when things heat up in the book's secomd half. As well as the new faces, we also get cameo appearances from Patrick MacLanahan, loose cannon General Brad Elliot(who I sadly miss, this character really rocks!), Madcap Magician SPECFOR operative Hal Briggs and also National Security Advisor Deborah O'Day, who is undecided about closing Dreamland. Overall, memorable characters, fast pacing, easy-to-read narrative and some interesting military technology which might be in use today(you just never know what they've got hidden away) and some pulsating action scenes in the air and on the ground with a deployment of a Marine Expeditionary Unit on a search and rescue mission make this new Dale Brown story well worth the read. I eagerly look forward to reading more in the DREAMLAND series!

Was excited about this new series from Brown based on the goings-on at Dreamland. The opening novel takes place in 1995, not long after the events in his novel Day of the Cheetah. Basically, General Elliot is out of the picture at Dreamland, and Congress and all the other higher ups are close to closing this place down.

Enter Colonel Dog Bastian. He takes over Dreamland, figuring it will be ditched by the powers that be. This is the slow, and I mean slow part of the book, pretty much the first one half to two thirds of the book. Generally, we introduce new characters, besides Bastian, including his daughter and pilot Breanna Stockard, and her husband, who is wheel-chaired after a training accident in the prologue, Jeff. A few cameos from Dale Brown's other novels appear, such as McClanahan and Briggs. The only one that takes part in most of this novel from the past novels is Nancy Cheshire.

While they are working on projects at HAWC, tensions are mounting in Somalia, where Iranians are shipping in Silkworm missles. Also, involved is Libya. The Iranians are trying to get a "Greater Islamic League" set up against the west.

Eventually, our friends at Dreamland are sent over, in their modified EB-52 Megafortresses...along with U/MF's Flighthawks, which are unmanned planes flown by Jeff from inside the EB-52.

The novel picks up speed in the last one quarter as we have aerial and land battle scenes. Can the guys and gals of Dreamland succeed in their mission, and if so, this could save the Dreamland facility.

Also enjoyed Brown and Defelice adding some action from the Navy, and Marines in this one. If not for most of the book being slow, this would have ranked higher.

Betting the series will get better, now that the characters have been developed. Worth getting if you're a techno-thriller fan.

This book introduced some a lot of new characters, for those of you who are familiar with DB and his other novels. The Return of the Megafortress and the other Hi-tech gadgets give a thrill. While those familiar with this type of book, following conversations that switch between "call signs" and names won't be hard to follow.

This is the first book I've read by Brown and overall it was pretty good. The book has an interesting cast of characters, each with their own personality and although they're backgrounds are often somewhat mysterious, their is a definite uniqueness to each.

The problem I had with this book is that I sometimes found it difficult to follow what was happening and how various events were related. But, their were fairly detailed descriptions of the various aerial scenarios which are often riveting.

I'm a pretty big Tom Clancy fan and for those of you who've read his work I'll tell you that Brown's writing, unlike Clancy's, focuses much more on the military side to stories and only a little on the political implications. And this story seemed a little less intricate than Clancy's work.

I think the book is pretty good and the stories concerning this top-secret government installation have a lot of room for potential. Dale Brown is no Tom Clancy, but he's talented and has written a novel worth reading if you're really interested.

The book as a whole entity was excellent...same Dale Brown preciseness as in all of his previous works. The only problem I had was the starting of a new set of characters halfway through his original series...The timelines of the original cast being away during the time of this book just didn't add up. As I said, however, as a stand-alone book, it was great!

I think I enjoyed this Dale Brown book more than any others I have read. Perhaps, he strikes chord with me in that he knocks the idea of a JSF project and continues his love affair with the B-52 megafortress featured in earlier books.

It ius a straight forward story about people ont he sharp end of the stick taking car eo fhte bad guys (the Iranians this time). Interesting technology and good action.

This is my first Dale Brown book, so I haven't read enough to make a judgment on the author. However, I found it hard to keep my interest in this book. The character development consisted of little more than their name and call sign. The characters all tend to be petty, and self centered with little variation. The 'no one is better than me' attitude was tiring in the beginning, and the trend stayed through the entire book. It was very much like a soap opera.

On a good note, the action scenes were enjoyable, but I found myself not really caring what happenes to the characters in the end. I just wanted to get to the end so I could know what happened, and not completely waste the couple of bucks that I spent on the book. My recomendation if you want to read this book is to check it out at the library.

I don't know what input Jim Defelice had with this book, nor have I ever read anything else by him. However, this book certainly was another typical Dale Brown winner. I commend their collobration on this book and enjoyed the deviation from Dale's normal cast of characters despite having a few of our old friends present. I have yet to look back at other DB books to confirm the timing of Dreamleand relative to his other books. I was a little thrown off by the fact that McCllanahan was still out of the Air Force, since I believe was brought back in under th rank of general in Fatal Terrain.

From the looks of it, Dale Brown is filling in the time between the end of Day of the Cheetah and the beginning of Shadows of Steel. I've always wanted to know what was happening at Dreamland after General Elliot was relieved and the other principal officers were forced out of the Air Force.

The only problem I have about the book is that there seemed to have been some ret-con going on. According to Shadows of Steel and Fatal Terrain, Dreamland was closed down after the Dreamstar incident but from what I've read its obvious that Dreamland is staying operational. So what's the story?

As soon as I saw the recommendation from Clive Cussler I should have known....
Dale Brown has written some good stuff but this is awful. Overly technical and the first half reads like a soap opera! No action until way into the second half of the book and while the action is well handled, the characters are on the dull side.
I am sure many of you will now enjoy voting that this is an unhelpful review, but this was a painful read at times.
Zzzzzzzzzz.