Customer Reviews

Space Wars

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I could not stop reading this book! Heard the author on Coast To Coast AM radio show. Bought the book and cannot tell you how pleased I am that I did.

A great read - Even though the book is fiction you'll gain some insight re: US security systems - hardware/software/their operations, how other countries interact with US (esp Iran) and a wake-up call for Western society. This should be read by all U.S. Citizens...especially the politicians

This engaging read so reminded me of Dale Brown's series that began with Flight of the Old Dog and has continued to entertain for the better part of 20 years. Evil forces threaten the United States and equipped with the latest in secret high tech stuff the United States Air Force rides to the rescue. That we have moved into low orbit and near space is only a sign of where technology is now and where conflict may well be in the near future.

The book is clearly intended to warn about (and stimulate congressional funding of countermeasures to) the risks that destruction of our low orbit satellites could pose to U.S. commercial and military superiority. The book clearly succeeds in this objective, even if it is a little preachy at times. And, it points up the naivete of those who believe that near space will never become a battlefield because there are no (admitted) weapons there yet.

The new element this book contributes to its genre is to introduce wargaming as a technique for developing strategies in ongoing conflict situations. Wargaming has been around a long time, and has played a significant role in developing strategies in previous conflicts (see e.g. the winning side in the Franco-Prussian War). Unfortunately, we do not learn enough about the ongoing game in this book, other than statements attributing various nifty ideas to the players in the game. More information about the game and its course would have made this a five star.

I bought this book along with "Counter Space," to boost my understanding of what will shape future military conflicts. Both books are technical and provided me with a wealth of information. But, more than that these are really interesting novels written by three authors with incredible credentials.
If you're up for a little technical reading, I'd highly recommend both "Counter Space," and "Space Wars."

Not a great effort with way too much politics and really poorly developed characters. Too bad as the premise is good and the subject matter is interesting and somewhat disturbing. My thought is to concentrate on non-fiction in this area as the information would be better sourced, and you won't have to suffer through the "fighter jock as know-it-all" prose.

About three-quarters of the way into SPACE WARS: THE FIRST SIX HOURS OF WORLD WAR III, the authors - the trio of Michael J. Coumatos, William B. Scott, and William J. Birnes - decide to introduce some political editorializing vicariously by having a ranking military officer dump on his former Commander-in-Chief by referring to an intentionally unnamed man as "the failed Cowboy President of the last eight years." Hmm ... wonder who THAT could be? Despite the fact that no military officer I know or have met speaks that way of any President or Commander-in-Chief, the obvious (and all too easy) politicization of a fictional war seems beneath the writers here, especially moreso when that failed Cowboy President's defense program essentially saves the day in the last chapters of the book, and the authors are curiously absent any editorial smack-downs (or suck-ups!) to this fictional world they've created.

Up front, SPACE WARS offers a unique and exciting premise: in 2010, Iran (I thought they weren't a threat, U.N.?) instigates a near-nuclear nightmare (I thought they WEREN'T looking for military nuclear uses?) against the backdrop of hurling the U.S. back to the technological Stone Age (or maybe the 1950's) by crippling its space-based advantages with a new terrorist-controlled maser weapon. There are suicide bombers and drug cartels finally willing to cooperate with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (yeah, that Ahmandinejad, the same one most mainstream pundits claim is a bit of a radical laughingstock). Thank goodness that General Howard Aster and a whole slew of military techno-experts are on the job producing war game scenarios that promise to keep America one step ahead of the bad guys (or so you think, dear reader!).

Don't get me wrong (my favorite expression the older I get): somewhere deep within the complex and evolutionary ideas within SPACE WARS, there's a truly great non-fiction book. An in-depth exploration of the technology and the people required to staff the next evolution in satellites, space platforms, computer viruses, high altitude star-planes, and the endless military applications would prove fascinating, and I think that's largely why I was disappointed with the novel. This is a fictional account - and, worse, it feels like a fictional account - so there isn't enough time dedicated to the science aspect of everything covered within. Couple that reality with the fact that the conclusion to the story isn't really a conclusion at all - only an affirmation that "it doesn't end here" - and I think any avid reader might find more than a few shortcomings tied into these pages. The prose moves slowly, almost as if three writers took a crack at it when one may've sufficed, but I'm reviewing only the merits of the finished product, not necessarily the drawbacks to the process used to get it there. In short, I wanted more science and less science fiction, I think, so perhaps I wasn't the intended audience.

Despite the fact that the novel covers a "fictional" timeframe from April 3rd to May 4th, the authors have somehow curious decided upon the book's most grievous error: "The First Six Hours of World War III." Last I looked, there were more than thirty days between the two dates in question, so I'm at a total, complete loss to determine which six hours within these chosen events are the first six hours. From the best I can tell, it's more than a mildly disjointed assertion on their part, as the book contains no conventional war to speak of but instead focuses on recounting a series of war-related events - or terrorist state "acts of war" is probably more applicable.

Also, for some reason, the authors insist on reminding the reader that military officers - regardless of which branch they serve - all possess nicknames. Hank "Speed" Griffin is introduced as Hank "Speed" Griffin ... and then he's re-introduced as Hank "Speed" Griffin ... and then he's re-re-introduced as Hank "Speed" Griffin multiple times in the book ... in fact, I'd argue that it's done often enough with many enough characters that it borders on the absurd, almost an unintentional slight to military officers and the worlds they've created for themselves. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it almost borders on farce, and I don't think that was the authors' intent with such serious subject matter, but, at the end of the day, what can I say?

I'm just Ed "The Reviewer" Lee, so I could be mistaken.

This novel appears to be the fictionalization of a military wargame which explored what would happen if U.S. space satellites were systematically attacked.

The characters are at best paper-thin, and the dialogue is laughable. I was particularly amused by the highly educated general talking about "that sumbitchin maser."

Moreover, because it seems to be based on a wargame/exercise, the story simply stops abruptly at the point where the wargame terminated. There's some minor effort given to keeping the door cracked open for future development, but it's rather like the novel was (thankfully) truncated at the end of a random chapter.

Like many books written by people with military experience, the book lionizes one particular type of person. Pilots write books with heroic pilots, special operators write books with heroic snake-eaters. Here, in a book written by wargamers, the military wargamers are super-heroes: they're better intelligence analysts than the intelligence people, they're better at crafting national policy than the politicians, they understand the stratgic operational and tactical level of war better than anybody. Had the book been a few chapters longer, I'm certain the wargamers would have found ways to go faster than a speeding bullet and demonstrate more power than a locomotive.

A fascinating subject, but badly explored by this book. Read some non-fiction about the topic; it'll be better. And it'll skip the horrific dialogue.

This book is very detailed and makes it somewhat difficult to maintain concentrated, but the events as unfolded can lead one to believe that we are headed down that exact path. Descriptions of the Nov 2008 presidential election and the subsequent unravelling of American influence in the world are stunningly accurate right up thru the current date. The 2nd half of the book is almost impossible to take a break from. I intend to re-read this book to no doubt pick out more detail.

Unlike novels (even Fist of God), this is a real nailbiter that throws in a real world scenario.
Space is the next frontier: already told by many, but confirmed now.
The possibilities are NOT fiction and the author throws in a curve ball many times (the canadian woman caught and killed, the chinese laser attack against the spaceplane), etc.

This book although fiction, is based on hard facts with a view to the next big war in which the military's use of space and adversarial counter-space could very well be big issue. I especially like the "war gaming" aspects. The book takes the reader through decision making processes and war gaming of scenarios.