Storming Heaven [Abridged] (Audio Cassette)

It seems almost impossible to buy a well-written action novel. They all seem to be written by people who haven't learned how to write a book with characters, real characters who stand up off the page. "Storming Heaven" is, regrettably, no exception.

"Storming Heaven" is yet another of those books written by men who like to have their photos taken standing on military vehicles wearing baseball caps. This book is written in 'head hopping' mode, which is usually reseved for romance novels. The writer hops about from character to character. After a few pages the unfortunate reader feels quite dizzy.

One might hope that the publisher could advise this writer on learning how to write in a focussed viewpoint. This would be a slim hope as the book seems to have been published from its first draft and without benefit of an editor. An example of the nonsense:

(The viewpoint for the moment is supposed to be with Vincenti, a fighter pilot)
The stress in the controller's voice was painfully obvious and Vincenti knew why. As soon as he heard a break, Cazaux interjected . . .

In the above, it should be 'Vincenti interjected' not Cazaux, who is fleeing from the fighter. Evidently the writer can't remember which viewpoint he's in, so there's not much hope for the reader.

The text is chock full of acronyms, all of which are lovingly explained - not once, but over and over. 'The Air-Force E3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning And Communications System)' . . . 'The WAO, or Weapons Assignment Officer, was the overall supervisor of the section of the command center that controlled the fighters from takeoff to landing and monitored the entire intercept." . . . (yawn) and if I see one more time, 'The HUD (Head Up Display) I shall scream. Boring, boring, boring. If the author really needs to soak in acronmys then let him include a glossary of terms. Better still let him write nonfiction. He should have had plenty of practice since this book is written like a stuffy nonfiction weapons manual.

Apart from the above, the writing style is extremely dull. When Brown introduces a character he stops the story dead, with large passages of exposition concerning who this is, where they went to school, and so on, instead of gradually releasing such information a little at a time while keeping the story alive. E.G:
' Hardcastle was tall and lean, with gray hair, a bit longer than he wore it in his Coast Guard days, swept gracefully back from his forehead. "Character lines" were deeply etched around his narrow blue eyes, giving him a hawklike image to match his politics. He wore lightly tinted glasses now . . "
- and on and on and on, nearly two pages of this boring tripe. This description begins on page five. You'd think that Hardcastle, from his two solid pages of yawn-making, 'was', and 'were', and 'what he was wearing' must be a crucial character, but Hardcastle then disappears as a character and still hasn't reappeared by page 105, which is the point I was unable to continue reading this pulp and consigned it to the trash. Which is where it belongs. 'Nuff said.