Synopsis
When the president launches the first American satellite defense system, Soviet officials feel threatened and take measures to retaliate, in a Cold War techno-thriller
Reviews
Butler's ( The Iskra Incident ) second techno-thriller devolves in a near future, with the U.S. ready to deploy an antimissile satellite as the first part of a strategic defense system. The Soviet Union responds with Red Lightning, a space-based network of satellites that can destroy rockets before they even leave earth's atmosphere. America's answer is "black thunder," atmosphere-based satellite-killing missiles launched not from a glamorous F-15 nor from a state-of-the-art B-2 bomber, but from a workaday C-141 transport. Mike Chisholm, an Air Force colonel, leads a handpicked team that includes his ex-fiancee, Maj. Sandi Turner as copilot. The action never stops as Chisholm and his crew match wits and skills with terrorists, MIGs and laser beams, all on their way to the final confrontation with Red Lightning. Although the characters are generic and the political setting unsophisticated, reflective readers will appreciate both Butler's contention that even the most complex weapons system can somehow be countered and Butler's casting of Air Force transport crews as heroes instead of the more customary supporting players. The author is a retired Air Force colonel.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Resurgent Russians preempt America's launch of a military supersatellite with their own system of orbiting hunter-killers. Col. Butler's first military thriller (The Iskra Incident, 1990) also featured non-perestroika Soviets. When Norman Schwarzkopf wiped out the Iraqi threat, he also knocked out Middle Eastern dictators as serious literary supervillains. So it's back to the USSR. Here, Russian General Novikov--former astronaut, former hockey star--has engineered a brilliant response to the challenge he expects from the cocky US. When the American President announces his plan to launch Defender, a peacekeeping Star War fortress, Novikov beats him to the punch and fires off his own pack of Borzoi anti-satellite satellites and parks a manned, nuclear-powered monster satellite in synchronous orbit over the Americas. The Russians can see and shoot down any rocket in the world. Defender's launch is effectively blocked. For the moment. But USAF Col. Michael Chisholm, who has spent his post- flying career days boning up on orbitology, has a plan. Knowing the Borzois to be at their most vulnerable when whizzing over Antarctica, Chisholm plans to pack a big jet transport full of missiles and launch them in midair where the Russians won't be looking. Among Chisholm's flight crew are his favorite loadmaster, his boozy but capable master flight mechanic, and the good-looking pilot he planned to marry until their careers clashed. Pretty pokey until the plane takes off. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Brigadier General Peter L. Novikov and Colonel Mike Chisholm square off against each other as this novel rockets off the launch pad in the race to militarize space. With just enough technical jargon to inform but not confuse the lay reader, Butler describes the very plausible could-be scenario of the Soviet response to a planned U.S. first-launch defensive satellite. Alternating chapters between opposing camps, he lets the tension build with final-countdown accuracy. The two major protagonists, both aging veterans of their respective services, approach their tasks with a healthy cynicism not often found in current technothrillers. Recommended.
-David Lee Poremba, Detroit P.L.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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