I just finished reading Warriors by Ted Bell. I liked it, but but there are also some criticisms I have. I will talk about them here.
Main Summary
Warriors is part of the Alex Hawke series of books. These are books about the adventures of Alex Hawke and the people who surround him. Alex Hawke is an M16 (British intelligence agency) officer. The people who surround him include Ambrose Converge — the head investigator for a police unit, Stoke — a member of a US organization that cooperates with the FBI, Nell — Alex's love interest, Rosow — the fictional president of the US, and Brock — a hot headed CIA Officer.
The first half of the book is dedicated mainly to the setup and background to build out the characters and the political landscape that they are living in. It is well done, with character building intermixed with events outside the characters lives in order to add context and enrich the story. This paints a landscape of a hostile world in which the US is on the brink of war with China, the president has been assassinated by the Chinese, and there is a rouge Chinese military leader who wants to take over China and go to war. In addition, the Chinese have leapfrogged the US in terms of military tech by kidnapping a key US defense contractors head engineer by the name of Dr.Chase.
When the latter half of the book is reached the story shifts focus from character building to a play by play of the lives of a few main characters, splitting time between them when they are physically separated. Here, the characters are set up to go on an mission to rescue Dr.Chase and his family from the Chinese. This involves many people trying to stop them, and several people do end up assassinated in the process.
Finally, they go on the mission to rescue Dr.Chase from the Chinese. They first rescue his family, and are about to turn to head home, when they learn the location of the Dr.Chase from his wife. They then quickly change plans with some added circumstances to put the pressure on. They succeed in the end although some of the people are lost along the way. They also succeed in destroying the various submarines with the help of Dr.Chase.
Writing Style
The writing style is fairly consistent throughout the book. It goes at a fast clip with lots of energy and dialog. This only relaxes towards the end of the book when things quiet down a bit as the drama is over. The dialog is very good, and is oftentimes funny. One example of this is when the characters are at a very serious meeting with lots of high ranking officials, and they are proposing a plan to ally with a counter terrorist group for their mission. Hawke is asking about the state of the group and this is the conversation that follows:
"Nope. I met Froggy [leader of the group] at a bar in Miami Beach two weeks ago. The Frogman says they've completely reinvented themselves in the wake of Syria. More... what's the word... elite. Yeah, more elite. Not just a bunch of hotheaded badasses on a tropical island getting shit-faced on rum all day."
"No?"
"No. Straight hard-ass now."
"New and improved. Good...
Evaluation
Although the first section of the book does a really great job of making the world more vivid, it feels quite long when reading. This is due to the lack of continuity between the snippets of stories that make it hard to get invested. I would however admit that the later part of the story benefits very well from this additional setup and it makes that part feel very engaging, as you have the context of the world to make it feel real.
There is also another potential problem with the text, and that is a distinct lack of female characters. There are a few, but there are probably 5x more male characters then there are female characters. I guess that might be accurate — the military is fairly gender exclusive — but it's not that fun. Although I do understand that it is harder to make these sorts of badass characters female due to there being less examples in modern texts, it would be a lot more fun and creative of a story had Ted Bell invented them.
Overall this was a good book, with lots of good content, action, and humorous dialog. It was a bit long feeling in parts though, and there weren't that many female characters.
Book Recommendations
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