Firebreak (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is the typical formula that that was old after Clancy's first book - it is looking no better with age. So, we have nothing new - but the death of many trees. It is a sad thing that this type of book gets published when there are probably much better books just waiting.

In between the combat, Herman shows a less-than-deft approach to Israeli politics. USAF pilots, well educated as they are, usually have their own opinions about such subjects as Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the settlements erected there - but Herman's protagonist is conveneiently clueless, and the readers can take heart that a sultry Israeli love interest is on hand to explain the UN resolutions against the Settlements while arab bombs rain down from above. The Knesset scenes, where charachteristically litiguous Isreali politicians censure each other for believing their own propaganda, is probably accurate. Less so are scenes meant to depict life in typical Israeli combat units. One such unit, a tank platoon, contains a Druze arab and an orthodox jew, the latter of the two doesn't really do anything but annoy his commander. Because the orthodox doesn't really exist outside his CO's negative perspective, he comes across less as a separate charachter than a blank apparently intended to symbolize all orthodox jewish soldiers. Let those orthodox jews who serve extended military tours debate the accuracy - it's simply poor writing, the product of any writer who can push just about anything with his miltary credentials, no matter how unrelated to his area of actual expertise. Doubtless orthodox soldiers still unaccounted for in the Lebanon war weren't given copies of "Firebreak" to enliven their captivity (assuming they lived long enough for the paperback ed.)

Worst of all, Herman's Israeli protagonist is the sexy Israeli linked up with the novel's hero. When are writers going to wise-up and realize how dated this stereotype is? This has to be the 3rd book I've read since the Gulf war that featured Israelis exploiting sex. Desert Storm, which showed how far ahead our military is in just about every way, has also revealed the how medeival technothriller writers are. Herman's understanding of the mid-east clearly neglects how often real-life anti-zionists (whether Islamic fundamentalist or secular pan-arabist) fall back on the stereotype of Female Mossad agents seducing otherwise stalwart arabs into sedition. So dated is this stereotype that, were Herman's military units comparably equipped, they'd be fighting with slingshots and pointy sticks.

Instead, Herman applies his critical thinking to his command of military technology, but even here comes up flat. These have to be the flattest flight scenes of any technothriller - comparable to some circa-1991 flight simulator. As usual for this sort of book, the plane come off feeling less like soaring engines of military might than cheap plastic models. Ofcourse the author refuses to depict air-to-air confrontations from a single point-of-view, preferring instead to show where his planes are at all times. In real air combat, the relative positions of different planes is one of the single most important factors. Herman's inability to exploit this element robs his air combat of both drama and realism, marring a book with little credibility to recommend it.