From Publishers Weekly
McAllister's first novel is a stunning tour de force. After enlisting in the Army as a nurse, young Mary Damico develops a "talent" for dreaming about the future, a device that allows the author to portray the Vietnam War with unforgettable power. Her ability to "see" the soldiers who will be her patients before they in fact are wounded proves devastating to Mary, but not to Col. John Bucannon, who is heading up a CIA experiment to determine the potential of such psychic gifts in warfare. Accordingly, Bucannon has Mary transferred from Cam Rahn Bay to his Central Highlands camp, where many similar "talents" are assembled. Bucannon assigns them dangerous missions to test the accuracy of Mary's dreams. His plans lead to an astounding operation: he sends Mary, her friend and lover Lt. Steve Balsam, mind-reading Captain Kelly and teenaged Corporal Cooper, who "reads" what his German shepherd senses, into North Vietnam. There they are to ferret out plastic explosives hidden by the French in a cave, and use them to blow up the Red River dike. Bucannon's real purpose is not revealed until the first part of a surreal, two-part ending. Masterful interior monologues that yield eerie, tingling tension make this terrifying novel one of the most memorable chronicles of the Vietnam war.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
During the Vietnam War individuals with special powers (ESP, etc.) are assigned to an unusual unit run by John Bucannon, who has gifts himself, and who seeks to exploit all under his command. The team's mission: to go to North Vietnam disguised as Russians and blow up dikes to flood the countryside. The training and the mission are suffused with madness, and the physical horrors are matched with mental ones. Throughout the narrative are interspersed transcripts of interviews, memos, etc. The apocalytic ending does strain the willing suspension of disbelief. Still, the story is fascinating, very well told, and likely to appeal to readers of Vietnam War fiction and nonfiction. A first novel.
-Robert H. Donahugh, Youngstown and Mahoning Cty. P.L., OhioCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.