Holding the Line (Spec Ops Squad) [Mass Market Paperback]

Rick Shelley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2001

Before Spec Ops Squad training is complete, Sergeant Bart "Dragon" Drak gets the news that the enemy Ilion Federation is making a push towards the core worlds, which would spell doom for Earth and its allies. Now, the Spec Ops Squad must hold off the Federation tide to the last man--or alien.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ace; First Edition edition (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441008348
• ISBN-13: 978-0441008346
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,910,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rate it "B" for Boring..., October 12, 2001

By 

Gordon P. Gailey (Norman, OK USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Holding the Line (Spec Ops Squad) (Mass Market Paperback)

The only reason that I finished the book was a desire to see if the author could salvage it somehow in the last ten pages.

The problems:
1) Special Ops? No, this is only light infantry running around in the woods without heavy artillery or tanks. Sorry, but it reads like a "paint ball" tournament. If you want to read about "Special Ops" try out "The Last Legion" by Chris Bunch. If you can find it "Sten" by Bunch and Cole is better! Sherman and Cragg's "Starfist:First to Fight" is also good.

2) The Character's deep war trauma (psychodrama): he returns to the planet where his former unit was smashed by the enemy's first attacks of the war. No flashbacks, no trauma, no...anything. Try Hemry's book "Stark's War"--more action and more character development (or at least something that shows the "hero" is alive!).

3) Romance (or just plain Soft Porn)? The military is strictly male in this book and, get this, there are two (2) females mentioned in the entire book: his Mom, who he hasn't talked to since he enlisted years ago, and his ex-girlfriend, who ditched him on enlistment __years__ ago.

4) Galactic Politics: what politcs? The bad guy neanderthal-oids don't like the lizard-oids... <Wow> Try some of David Drake's
"Hammer Slammer's" books, more action and far more depth... David Brin's "Startide Rising" would also be a good choice.

5) Interesting Aliens? **Yawn** The tree-monkey-oids are afraid of the gorilla-oids and the... Try David Brin's "The Uplift War", and see __aliens__.

The sad thing is that the writer can do better! Read his "Lucky 13th" trilogy and leave this one for the recycle bin.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly beleivable, November 23, 2001

By 

Andrey Subbotin (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holding the Line (Spec Ops Squad) (Mass Market Paperback)

Unlike the usual smart alec mil-sf heroes, Drak and his squad of assorted aliens go where brass sends them, shoot enemy, get shot at, do not know big picture until much later and do NOT save the universe by daring action. The general feeling is not one of adventure, but of hard, unpleasant, dangerous work that has to be done.
This basic honesty and unwillingness to entertain is strangely charming, reminding me of WW2 memoirs. Buy this book if you like careful, unhurried world-building for the sake of itself. Do not buy it if you like adventure and galactic intrigue.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Bag of Grunts, March 6, 2003

By 

Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Holding the Line (Spec Ops Squad) (Mass Market Paperback)

Holding the Line (2001) is the first novel in the Spec Ops Squad series. During the war with the Ilion Federation, Bart Drak is the squad leader of a special ops squad in the Ranger Battalion of the 1st Combined Regiment, a unit including every species in the Alliance of Light.

In this novel, Bart has just returned from Dintsen, where his ranger battalion has been mauled by the surprise attack that started the war with the Ilion. Since the unit was on Dintsen only for joint training with a divotect battalion, the casualty rate in his unit was very high -- 75% dead -- and even worse among the divotect. Bart is training infantry recruits at Fort Campbell when he is pulled out of the field to meet Major Wellman, the battalion commander, to be informed that he has volunteered for the 1st Combined Regiment. As usual, he and Wellman get thoroughly irritated at each other.

Bart's orders say that he is to report for transport to Dancer, a previously uninhabited world in the middle of nowhere. There he meets his squad: Lance Corporal Fred Wilkins, the only other human; Corporal Ying'vi Souvana and Lance Corporal Trau'vi Kiervauna, the porracci; Privates Iyi Col Hihi and Oyo Col Hihi, the biraunta; Private Jaibie, the abarand; Private Ooyonoa, the divotect; and Privates Fang and Claw, the ghuroh (whose real names are impossible to spell or to pronounce). Although Bart has been warned that porracci are aggressive and replace their superiors through trial by combat, he is not told that biraunta are terrified of porracci. Moreover, the ghuroh do not even arrive until the eleventh week of training.

The regiment's first assignment is to take back Dintsen from the Ilion Federation. They will be reinforced with a porracci battalion and two additional mobile artillery batteries, but they will face an estimated six battalions of combat troops, mostly tonatin. They are already outnumbered six-to-five going in, not counting the defenders advantage in a spaceborne assault.

This novel portrays future warfare from the point of view of the men who fight and die in the war zones. The author has at least a nodding acquaintance with military terminology and practices, but I can't find any mentions of military service in his (rather short) bio. In any case, he makes this story come alive; you feel like you are serving at Bart's side in garrison and in combat.

Recommended for Shelley fans and anyone who enjoys small-unit combat SF stories.

-Arthur W. Jordin