Sword Point [Hardcover]

Harold Coyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1991

Gambling on hostile relations between Iran and the US, the Soviet Union invades Iran. America strikes back but when the Soviet onslaught is stopped by an American counter-attack, the superpowers discover that Iranian fanatics have a nuclear bomb ready to explode.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his foreword U.S. Army officer Coyle ( Team Yankee ) says that the Red Army treasures "conformity and discipline" while the U.S. "places its trust in the ability of the individual soldier and his leaders." We are not surprised, therefore, when his thriller picks the winner of a two-month war between the superpowers in Iran. There is a little suspense about whether Iran, fighting both "satans," will detonate an atomic bomb, and somewhat less about whether the U.S.S.R. will start chemical warfare. The narrative consists mainly of set pieces on back-and-forth desert fighting, flashing from one side to another and featuring some continuing characters. But all the characters are paper-thin and all sound equally earnest and boring. Interest is not sustained by the book's undeniable authenticity, which has all the style of a training manual. And confusion arrives with the authentic alphabet soup: lots of info about MRRs, RDEs, BDUs, etc. Coyle's prose is often clumsy, the chapter-head quotes (from Napoleon, Sherman et al.) are as pertinent as fortune cookies and the ending manages to be sentimental and ungrammatical at the same time. Paperback rights to Pocket Books; Literary Guild dual main selection; Military Book Club main selection; major ad/promo.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 397 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (July 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671665537
• ISBN-13: 978-0671665531
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coyles early work in "Sword Point" is his best., July 29, 1998

By 

Derek Weese [e-mail] (Monroe Michigan USA and proud) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sword Point (Paperback)

Although we no longer have to fear from a Soviet invasion of Iran it is still agood book. The use of many Russian characters is a welcome sight indeed and the fact that the U.S. does'nt win all in the end is also something we don't see everyday. If you like extremely realistic land warfare and a very exciting storyline you have to read "SWORD POINT".

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cold War heats up in Iranian desert....., November 10, 2003

By 

Alex Diaz-Granados "fardreaming writer" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sword Point (Hardcover)

Following the success of Team Yankee, a depiction of World War III as seen from company level, Harold Coyle achieved acclaim with Sword Point, a novel pitting the United States and the Soviet Union in armed conflict in Iran.

Set in the late 1980s, Sword Point begins with the peacetime routine of an American Army unit in the middle of a training exercise at Ft. Campbell, Ky. In a scene that mixes Coyle's fine eye for detail and wry humorous touches, Staff Sergeant Donald Duncan's infantry platoon carefully sets up an ambush against an OPFOR (opposing force):

"The ensuing firefight would short but bloodless. The men of both Duncan's platoon and the OPFOR....were using MILES, short for "multiple integrated laser engagement system." Each weapon was tipped with a rectangular gray box which emitted a laser beam every time the weapon was fired. Every man....had laser detectors on his helmet and web gear that would detect the laser from another weapon. When this happened, a buzzer, also attached to each man's gear, would go off, telling him and his buddies that he was 'dead.' The use of MILES ensured that there would be no doubt who won and who lost, a far cry from the days when most training exercises degenerated into screaming matches of 'I shot you' and 'No you didn't.' "

But as Duncan and his men "struggle" through their training exercise, halfway around the world a Soviet armored column rumbles toward the Iranian border in the predawn darkness. The Soviet leadership has decided to invade -- Coyle never really tells us why -- Iran, planning to conquer the country and reach the Straits of Hormuz in four weeks' time. Some of the junior Red Army officers are apprehensive -- the Afghan War has taught the Soviets much about the costs of fighting against desperate Muslims -- but Moscow and the Soviet General Staff don't believe there will be much opposition from Iran...or the West.

But as soon as the Soviets launch their invasion, America mobilizes, and soon U.S. forces head to the Persian Gulf. Within weeks, the news are full of images of combat between the two superpowers as battles are fought on air, land and sea.

But the Soviets are not the only enemy the American forces face in Iran. The ayatollahs still rule the Islamic Iranian Republic, and while they fight fiercely against the Russians, the Iranians welcome the U.S. forces not with flowers but with bullets. And even when Iran's forces are forced to retreat under pressure from both foreign forces, the mullahs who wield power in Tehran pin their hopes on a desperate and deadly gambit that, if it works, will destroy the homelands of the nations the Iranians call the Great and Lesser Satans.

But Coyle's talent lies not just with the description of grand strategy, the tactics and weapons used in war, but with the very human portrayal of his cast of characters. Whether he is writing about Major Scott Dixon of the U.S. Army or Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Ilvanich of the Soviet Army, Coyle wisely doesn't resort to the stereotypical "good guy vs. bad guy" style of storytelling. Yes, this is a novel of war, but Coyle (a former Army officer who served in Desert Storm) has genuine affection for the profession of arms and the men and women who serve their country, no matter which country it is.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent but not outstanding, November 15, 2000

By 

Kyle Maxwell (Irving, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sword Point (Paperback)

This is a decent showing. There's no central character, but that seems to have been intentional: by not focusing too much on any particular individual, we get glimpses of the effect of war on various soldiers on both sides. There are numerous flaws, though, most notably the fact that there seems to be very little reason to set the battle in Iran. Maybe by setting the novel in an "out-of-the-way" country, Coyle wanted to avoid too many preconceived notions on the part of the reader. Unfortunately, since for the most part nothing is done in the book to really set the book in Iran (other than desert battles and fanatic Iranians), the setting is mostly an afterthought.

Further, Coyle doesn't delve as deeply into the motivations of his characters as he did in "Team Yankee", which is a far better thought-out novel. Major Scott Dixon, a recurring character in several of Coyle's later novels, makes his appearances, and there are some particularly moving moments. especially towards the conclusion of the novel, involving dead American soldiers. But the strategy of not spending too much time on any particular character has the sad effect of making it difficult to really care about any of them.

One other notable characteristic is the fact that the reader is never given much of an explanation or rationalization of the US' involvement in a Soviet invasion of Iran. At first, this was a major annoyance, until it dawned on me that Coyle was making a subtle point about soldiers as implements of policy without necessarily understanding those policies or even knowing what they are, similar to Vietnam.

Overall, this isn't as good a novel as his first effort "Team Yankee", which did a better job of exploring the psyche of the line soldier (Coyle's fundamental motif). But it's decent enough on its own. The author has a point he's trying to make, and he does indeed do so.