Customer Reviews

Edge of Battle: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

...if YOU are, you might want to skip this book. I love military techno-thrillers, but this isn't one. The dialogue belongs in a comic book, the characters are poorly developed, and while I don't mind a meaningful sex scene that lends something to the story, the ones in this book are sophomoric and gratuitous. Dale brown had a few good books in him, but that was yesteryear. What's that old saying about a bunch of monkeys pounding on a typewriter?

For a better novel of war with Mexico, read Harold Coyle's TRIAL BY FIRE.

After reading all of Brown's novels from Flight of the Old Dog to PLan of Attack, I advised the author in my review of the last one to retire the Old Dog and Patrick MacClanahan. They had served well for a great many years, but is was time to send them into retirement. Apparently Brown agreed whether he ever saw my advice or not.

When Act of War came out, I saw the reviews and was dissuaded from reading it. However, this one intrigued me. The few reviews either loved it (five stars) or hated it (one star) and inasmuch as the author had chosen a story that dealt with the issue of immigration, I decided to give it a go. I was going to be spending some time on vacation and that is often the best time to give a book a workout.

After doing so I settled somewhere in the middle on my thoughts of this story. The discussions about what to do about border issues that are held in the administration are probably not far from the mark as to what is happening today. You have those that want the border enforced without militarizing it. You have those that want the border enforced with a military presence in a supportive, but not enforcement role and you have those that want to build the fence, put troops there to enforce it and develop a policy to deal with the illegals that are here and those that would like to immigrate. The first time these positions were trotted out and explained by their exponents was informative. However, returning to the White House for the whining and backbiting that ensues when things do not go well gets a bit old after a while. That is not to say it isn't realistic as there is enough whining and backbiting in the real White House and on Capital Hill these days to go around, but it makes the story seem repetitive and unnecessairly drawn out.

Brown still has his "Gee Whiz" contraptions although instead of planes he goes to the Tin Men type of Cyborts. I hope they exist if the US owns them, but I suspect they are still a figment of his imagination.

He also introduces some Mexican politicians who will make this book a non-starter South of the Border. At times you can't figure out who you hate more - the Mexicans who are out to feather their nests and careers at the expense of anyone who stands in their way or the Russian terrorists who are still intent on obtaining nuclear weapons to use against us.

Having said all of that, I finished the book, thought it was worth reading, thought it could have been better and if I had it to do over again, I would probably wait for paper back.

Dale Brown has written some great thrillers. But that was yesteryear. His newest, "Edge Of Battle" is saved from the trash heap only by the fact that it moves along quickly, kind of like a comicbook. And that is its only saving grace.

The plot is ridiculous; the characters thinner than paper and the technology (surprisingly) dated. The latter is difficult to believe since Brown made his reputation largely on techno-thrillers. But this one read's like the science section from last year's Popular Science magazine.

The story is that the U.S. - Mexican border is totally porous: millions of illegal immigrants are flooding the U.S. Brown's backstory of U.S. politicians "arguing" about the issue is silly as is his invention of talk radio giant Bob O'Rourke who rants against illegal immigration and demands that something be done.

On the other side of the border, a Mexican known as "Commandante Veracruz" urges illegal immigrants to essentially demand their "rights" from the U.S. government. Mexico has a woman President and a totally unbelievable interior minister who plays a major part in the story along with a Russian terrorist.

The whole thing is silly. Brown simply can't pull this silly story off.

Jason Richter and his unit of CIDs (Cybernetic Infantry Devices) are supposed to slow the illegal immigration. Oddly, Brown sidetracks the deployment of the CIDs, which turn ordinary men and women into super-soldiers, to favor his insipid political story.

Brown lays it on thick about various unmanned aerial vehicles, which becomes as exciting as listening to traffic reports on the radio. He has the terrorists deploy some exotic weaponry here and there.

Overall though Brown simply establishes that throwing lots of acronymns around isn't enough to create a compelling read. "Edge Of Battle" is readable, but not at all exciting or memorable. His last novel, "Act Of War," featuring many of the same characters was similarly dull. Brown, frankly, seems to have lost his edge and is doing little more than churning out words to meet the demands of his contract and to line his pocket with the dollars of unwary readers.

Jerry

I have been an admirer of Dale Brown's early work and was stunned when I picked up "Act of War" a couple of years ago to find it a work perhaps written by a third grader. The ideas were stupid. The characters largely dispicable and the plot silly to point of absurdity.

When I found Edge of Battle on the shelves at my local library I thought, "Everyone is entitled to a bad day!" and picked it up. Worst mistake of 2006. The people running the United States government and military in this book are morons, without redeeming social worth and should be banned from ever appearing in print again. The story is even stupider than "Act of War" and frankly I was hoping someone would nuke me and put me out of my misery.

I turned the book back into the library unfinished and unlamented. I hereby resolve to never read a Dale Brown book again.

I couldn't finish the book, it was so bad. Cardboard cut-out characters, no-way-baby plot(?) and dialogue, it is far from Brown's better work. Makes me wonder if someone else wrote this for Dale Brown.

I bought this at the airport and the first 150 pages or so are quite entertaining, but it gets progressively repetitive and convoluted with each passing chapter. I'm struggling to finish it. The characters are bad stereotypes, the dialog is often silly, and the sub-plots are just unbelievable. It's also way too long--where's the editor? It's my first Dale Brown and I can believe his earlier work is probably much better. At some point, I think these big authors go on auto-pilot, who knows, but avoid it.

I'm not going to go into all the reasons this book is bad. They've been touched upon already in previous reviews. I personally read 10-15 books a year and through the years have only had 1 or 2 other ones I just could NOT finish. Add this to the list. Just a poor book all around. The fact that several other reviewers also talk about not being able to finish the book should speak for itself, and raise a big red flag for anyone thinking of buying this book. Don't waste your time, and money.

When I pick up a book of this ilk, I am basically looking for entertainment. Well, this book contains page after page after page of pontifications from various angles about the current mess on our border with Mexico. Including was the obligatory obnoxious Limbaugh/O'Reilly clone, saying things neither of those guys would ever think about saying. These issues are not so complex that they could not have been quickly introduced and then used as the background for a decent thriller. As written, however, the book lurches for several hundred pages from small snippets of action to lengthy passages of political hand-wringing.

The action eventually gets going, and the package is wrapped up in a nice little bundle that defies credulity. I guess I don't regret having read it, but I'm sure glad I checked it out from the library instead of buying it.

Just finished listening to the Unabridged Audio book Edge of Battle by Dale Brown. Generally, I like Dale Brown's works, but, this book was simply too long with tooooooo little action. Many many long long long dialogs (a radio DJ making speeches) that hammer the same point over and over.

Very little action, lots of talking. This would have been much better if it had been abridged from the current 12 CDs down to about 4 CDs. Obviously, not one of my favorite books.

At the beginning of the book, I thought this book, except for the cybernetic infantry devices, could actually happen. But it quickly spiraled to places that lost any slight grasp on the realms of possibility. And it needed to have some slight plausibility because the writing was so uneven. Some of the action sequences are quite good, but they are separated by pages upon pages of redundant bombastic rhetoric. To be sure, Brown gives equal voice to both sides of the Mexican illegal immigration equation, but he does so repeatedly and breaks no new ground. While it has it high points, its low points make them too difficult a climb.