The Mongol (The Casca Series) [Unknown Binding]

Barry Sadler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Singer, soldier, songwriter and author, Barry Allen Sadler led a colorful life that brought him to national prominence in 1966 with the release of his Vietnam-era hit The Ballad of the Green Berets. A native of Carlsbad, New Mexico, Barry joined the Air Force in 1958 and spent a year in Japan. After returning to the States he traveled thought the West and worked a variety of jobs, developing his aptitude for music along the way, and teaching himself to play the guitar.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 7 pages
• Publisher: Books in Motion (December 2004)
• ISBN-10: 1581168926
• ISBN-13: 978-1581168921
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Casca#22: the Mongol, February 24, 2000

By 

tony roberts - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mongol (Casca, No. 22) (Paperback)

After spending 10 years in collecting the entire series of Casca books I was very eager to read about The Mongol which was the last but one I collected. Being something of a history nut I knew a fair bit about the history of Genghis Khan and found little in Barry Sadler's story that didn't sound true. I was however a little disappointed in the way the story seemed to tail off and die. It was as though Sadler got a point in the story and thought 'gee, better finish this quick as its getting a bit long'. That aside the story told well the formative part of Genghis' rise to power - I particularly liked Casca's "Conan the Barbarian" role as the chained beast at the beginning. I was a bit puzzled at the character of Qubilai - surely he was Genghis' grandson and never saw Genghis alive? No matter, the story was well written and was typical Sadler, action, adventure and mayhem. Sadler will be missed.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good historical/action fiction, July 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mongol (Casca, No. 22) (Paperback)

In this story Casca wanders to the Mongolian plains in the late 1100's to meet up with a young tribesman who will someday be known as Ghengis Kahn, leader of all Mongols. He takes this young kid and teaches him the skills that only someone with over a thousand years of experience could, how to fight, lead men, and wage war.

The Khan character was well developed. I actually did some research on Ghengis Kahn after I got done reading this book and found Sadlers research pretty sound. He did change some of the names of the key historical figures though, but I couldn't figure out what the reason for that was.

It is too bad we can't ask him. I'm sure he'd have a good reason behind it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Indian Summer for Sadler's writing, October 29, 2007

By 

Tony Roberts (Bristol, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mongol (Casca, No. 22) (Paperback)

Barry Sadler's Casca books, 22 in all of the (currently written) 26, varied in quality. Some were very good, some ordinary and a couple simply awful. Most of this was due to Sadler's name being put to the work of ghost writers so you can excuse some of the bad novels being written by people who knew nothing of the character. As for Sadler himself, most of the time he managed to write punchy stories with good amounts of action and they rarely disappointed.

The Mongol was found on his PC after he died, almost completed. The last bit was finished off by a colleague (and if you look closely you can tell the difference in writing style from the rest of the novel). This was easily the best of the latter dozen of the books attributed to Sadler and concerned the early years of Genghis Khan's rise to power, guided by our eponymous hero afte rbeing rescued from a life of slavery fighting a-la Conan the Barbarian as a chained fighting dog against other slaves.

The process of moulding the disparate tribes of Mongolia into a fighting force is dealt with here, as Casca and the young Temujin - who would one day become Genghis Khan - gradually built up their followers and battled against the odds and jealous warlords to fashion the unstoppable Mongol Horde that would one day cover the biggest area any empire in history achieved. The relationship between the teacher (Casca) and the student (Temujin) is of interest and you can see how the Mongol grows into a confident young warlord and eventually outgrows his teacher.

The only gripe I had about this was the sudden ending and of course this is understandable as Sadler died before he could finish it. I am left wondering how he would have completed it, but that's something we can only ever guess at.