Vortex [Paperback]

Larry Bond (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Macdonald (1991)
• ASIN: B000JFD1AC
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,532,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LARRY BOND is the author of numerous New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Vortex, Cauldron, and The Enemy Within. He previously worked with Jim DeFelice on the Larry Bond's First Team series. A former Naval Intelligence officer, warfare analyst and anti-submarine technology expert, he makes his home in Springfield, Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very strong effort from Bond, June 19, 2001

By 

Timothy J. Kindler (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vortex (Mass Market Paperback)

Having read and enjoyed three other novels by Bond, I have been working my way through his previous works. With Vortex, I was not disappointed. Vortex was a very strong effort, albeit not quite as good as Bond's Red Phoenix which was truly outstanding. Bond presents another high-tech military thriller -- in this case set in South Africa. The storyline is entirely plausible, with a key event putting the country in turmoil and setting the stage for all of the fast and furious action that is to follow. As in Bond's other works, character development is solid, diverse and believable. The reader truly understands not only the emotional turmoil of battle, but also the underlying political issues of South Africa and the surrounding region. If you like Bond or the military thriller in general, Vortex will be a worthwhile read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars South Africa Explodes in Bond's Technothriller..., November 6, 2003

By 

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

This review is from: Vortex (Mass Market Paperback)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the end of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation created both a problem and a challenge to "future war" novelists: how do you create believable scenarios in which America and her allies fight against possible real-world enemies? After all, with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the scaling back of U.S. forces in Europe, a Red Storm Rising-class World War III novel was obsolete. But at the same time, the military-fiction genre was still very viable...as long as writers came up with credible adversaries to cause havoc in the world.

Vortex, Larry Bond and Patrick Larkin's second collaborative effort, is set in early 1990s South Africa before the white minority relinquished its death-grip on power. It paints a dark scenario of a desperate Boer-dominated government using its military and police to destabilize neighboring "black" African nations and fight a Marxist-leaning African National Congress and its armed guerrillas.

Vortex starts out, as many techno-thrillers often do, with a seemingly isolated event. In the prologue, a team of South African Army commandos and a black ANC turncoat execute a raid on an ANC safe house/headquarters in Gawamba, Zimbabwe. Led by Capt. Rolf Bekker, the South African commandos wipe out an ANC guerrilla cell and capture a safe full of documents (which they photograph and leave apparently undiscovered), then return to their base without serious loss.

In Bond's alternate history, years of sanctions and diplomatic isolation have failed to end apartheid and white rule of the Union of South Africa. Instead, the Boers (descendants of South Africa's original Dutch settlers) who dominate the government have become more repressive and paranoid. For their part, the ANC's leaders have grown weary of waiting for the West to press for change by peaceful means, and Marxist hard-liners have come up with a campaign code named Broken Covenant. Its goal: to win by force what years of negotiations and international condemnation have not...the end of white rule and the establishment of a black-dominated government. And by the end of the novel, South Africa's internal strife becomes a conflict pitting Anglo-American forces against various opponents, including Cuban Army units sent by Fidel Castro.

Bond's depiction of a war in South Africa now seems a bit of a stretch, but given that he was a former naval intelligence officer (and designer of the Harpoon war game), perhaps his research into apartheid-era South African affairs gave him insights that most of his readers didn't have. At times the depiction of the South African "bad guys" reminds one of Hitler's Third Reich, especially when Bond and Larkin write about the more die-hard racist government ministers; Karl Vorster, a South African Hitler-like figure and Marius van der Heijden, deputy minister of Law and Order, who seems to have studied under Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, so extreme are his racist views. But as in many World War II novels, there are "good" South Africans who, when push comes to shove, find the courage to rise against the injustices that they have previously defended.

Of course, it helps to have a little mix of romance, youthful rebellion and a healthy dose of American firepower, and as in Red Phoenix, American weaponry and military units play a huge role in Vortex's plot. In some ways, it's formulaic and the reader knows things will have a rosy ending, but in other ways Vortex is fascinating. Readers will be surprised to know how puritanical the Boer society was (a friend of mine who visited South Africa in the late '70s said Playboy-style magazines were not sold there) and how tense relations used to be between the Dutch- and English-descended whites. The officers with English surnames are often distrusted by their Boer counterparts and are often more critical of apartheid than is healthy for their careers. But just as there are "good Germans" in WWII fact and fiction, there are also "good Boers" who join forces with American and British troops to end the bloody conflict that threatens to end their country's very existence.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Before the Rainbow Nation...., September 20, 2000

By 

Allan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vortex (Mass Market Paperback)

There was apartheid. An evil stain across the face of a great nation. As it started to crumble, Brown wrote about what might happen, if....

It was actually rather nice, if not down-right gob-smackingly amazing - to find apopular U.S. author who specialises in techno-military-thrillers acknowledging that life does exist south of the Equator.

Bond writes good stuff. This a great, galloping read. It proceeds at an enormous pace, like a grass fire across the veldt. Anyone who enjoys a story of sweat, blood, terror, and war... well, this one's for you. Enjoy.