Special Ops [Paperback]

His other statements of "fact" are equally erroneous. For example, the word "sub-supersonic" was made up by the reviewer. It never actually appeared in the book.

In all, the reviewer based a scathing criticism of a 1000,000 word novel on a handful of miscellaneous terms scattered throughout the novel and whose attention to the plot -- which is, of course, what any novel is mainly about, is limited to the asinine observation that "The mere thought of a computer system that develops the power of thought and the means to destroy human beings beggars belief." If such a development is inconceivable to the reviewer then the reviewer needs remedial reading lessons.

Finally, the reviewer has a spelling problem, such as with the word "friagtes" instead of "frigates." Either that or he's trying to tell us that "friagtes" is the correct term.

Again, this review was a scream of pure, mindless hate and jealousy. Special Ops is a novel, not a documentary. I believe it is irresponsible to print hate reviews of this kind, and by "this kind" I mean mindless, hate-filled screams of jealous rage from sick losers who use the time-worn, empty tactic of scouring a book for a line here and a word there that can be taken out of context and used as a pretext to justify an attack, and disregarding the entire substance and basis of the novel as a whole.

I believe that individuals who write these reviews need therapy but should not be permitted to use a book review page as a therapy session. Just as writers of spam are blocked because they are offensive, this sort of review is just another type of spam and there should be a way to block it too.

Special Ops is a damn good technothriller. The fact that this creep was so full of twisted hate toward it means he probably wished he could write something half as good.

The plot of this novel has some merit but is simply unbelievable at times. The mere thought of a computer system that develops the power of thought and the means to destroy human beings beggars belief.

Similarly, the author's grasp of technical detail seems to in need of some strong supprt. He tells us of 10 kiloton nuclear bombs that have the power of a thosand tons of TNT rather than TEN thousand. He talks of 290 degrees of latitude - a measure that cannot exceed 90 degrees north or south. We read about nuclear powered aircraft carriers which weigh all of 3,000 tons. Of 747 aircraft that fly at 60 knots! And HALO parachute jumps that open at 27,000 ft. The author just doesn't seem to understand a lot of the acronyms he's using, and uses them simply because he thinks they make the story look good. His grasp of military time in ZULU time is shocking. He seems to think that 0700 Zulu would be dawn in Korea whereas it would in fact be 1700 hrs LOCAL. Consequently, there is rampant misuse of Zulu time designation which means that the plot becomes quite meaningless. We are also treated to the prospect of the SR71 Blackbird aircraft consuming 2 tons of fuel per SECOND setting out on a 1hr flight. During that time it would consume, according to Alexander, 7,200 TONS of fuel - the same weight as a naval destroyer or two friagtes. He tells us about a depleted uranium tank round that is 'sub-supersonic'. Mr Alexander, something is either supersonic or subsonic. It can't be both!

The book is simply littered with errors of this nature.

Frankly, it shows great contempt for the reader and a very poor attention to detail. A decent editor might, just might, have made a difference but a more attentive author would not have made these basic errors in the first place.