What will it take for the U. S. Air Force to enter the twenty-first century? They're about to find out-but at a deadly price. All hell breaks loose in Asia when China strikes at Taiwan. A. U. S. effort to bolster Taiwan meets with a stunning setback that encourages an emboldened China to advance on territory it lost decades ago. Meanwhile, Chinese allies in North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran begin their own offensives, triggering conflicts from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula. Aerial strike warfare expert Patrick McLanahan and genius aerospace engineer Jon Masters are authorized by the President to put a bold plan into action: convert the Air Force's recently retired B-52 Strato fortress bomber fleet to the new EB-52 Mega fortress "flying battleship" standard and deploy them to Asia. With a small band of civilian and military colleagues, McLanahan goes to work outfitting his mini-fleet with a payload of cutting-edge stealth missiles. If anything can turn the tide, these new weapons are it. But are they enough? And have they come too late?
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
April 17, 2007 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- File size: 168035 KB
- Duration: 05:50:04
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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June 2, 1997
" `It's nothing you haven't done before, General,' McLanahan said. `I know you've gone over the Mach at one hundred AGL in the B-1B, and you've shook off fighters in a B-52 down low before, too.' " Readers whose pulse rises at sentences like that will find that Brown's (Storming Heaven) latest hymn to airborne death and destruction will get their engines up to full rev. Laden with acronyms like COMNAVAIRPAC and CINCPAC, full of stiffly worded patriotism ("And thank you for what you and Tiger Jamieson did over Iran and the Persian Gulf. You averted a major world oil crisis, and probably another Desert Storm. Job well done"), the narrative nevertheless manages to jet through a complex story involving a Chinese plot to retake Taiwan. Crippled by huge budget cuts, the Air Force looks hopeless in the face of this aggression--until a secret, private fleet of Megafortresses comes to the rescue. As usual, Brown's encyclopedic knowledge of everything military (and his boyish delight in putting it all down on paper) go a long way toward excusing his tinny dialogue and leaden prose. -
The People's Republic of China chooses tactical nuclear weapons and strategic scheming to overrun Taiwan and take complete control of Southeast Asia. Part of the ploy includes bombing some of their own ships. Along the way, several military installations, air fields, ships, and even a United States aircraft carrier are vaporized. The only thing that can stop this swath of destruction is a hybrid B-52 bomber and its renegade crew. Reader Edward Lewis's lack of vocal warmth seems to fit right in. His delivery is crisp, with good pace and tempo. However, he works way too hard at the voices of the principal characters. T.J.M. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
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