Battle Born

After the comic-strip exploits of THE TIN MAN, Dale Brown returns to airborne action with BATTLE BORN. And man, is there plenty of it or what? In this entertaining story, North Korea is developing nuclear, chemical and bio warfare while its population, and small military units, are in the grip of famine. During a joint Japan-South Korea-US war game in the Pacific, South Korean forces break away and invade the North. This causes a renegade North Korean Army officer to launch a low level nuke-chem-bio strike on the South. As the dust settles, and the North Korean military mutinies against its leaders, China shows an interest, feeling threatened by the new United Korea. Meanwhile, in the US, General Patrick McLanahan, our ongoing hero, is training a motley crew of B-1B Lancer pilots hard as their airbase is threatened with closure. This gives Dale some opportunity to bring in some new characters, and also re-introduce old ones such as Rebecca Catherine Furness, the heroine of CHAINS OF COMMAND, who is romancing Rinc Seaver, a washed out bombardier who lost his crew at the start during an exercise. And when tensions mount in Korea and China, McLanahan has to speed up training his wannabe Top Guns on the new EB-1 Megafortress-2, with awesome new technologies such as laser 3-d radar(LADAR)and the LANCELOT plasma anti-satellite weapon. Plus an assortment of cruise missiles among others! Will his new Megafortress crews prevent the Third World War? Once again, Dale Brown goes for action all the way. He has done extremely well to continue using his old faces such as McLanahan, Dave Luger, Hal Briggs and so on from previous novels and bring in a host of new ones on top. The Korean side of the action is also well crafted, and considering events in recent months in North Korea, this scenario could well happen, crazy as it sounds. The futuristic weaponry is feasible - submarine action author Michael diMercurio has also utitlised the plasma weapon, albeit in torpedo form in PIRANHA FIRING POINT, Brown shows its possible airborne capabilities in such a way that he could design it himself! And make it work! As he has done with BATTLE BORN. Well done Dale Brown.

gMissile one awayc launcher rotatingc missile two awayc missile three away!h As the aircraft released the missiles, suddenly, the enemy missile disappeared, not even having an explosion. The name of this book, gBattle Bornh really fits the plot of this story. The aircraft on the cover also shows the aircraft that is being used in the story, allowing us to imagine what is going on. This story starts at Korea, where the World War II is about to start. An unidentified aircraft runs into South Korea carrying a nuclear weapon. This incident threatened all the countries throughout the world. In the United States, General Samson had developed the Lancelot program, which will later become the strongest antiballistic weapon. To develop and lead the B-1 Lancers, Patrick McLanahan entered the secret base in Nevada. While the U.S. developed the Lancelot program, other countries were moving too... As reading this story, I had felt as if I was actually living in this story, watching all this happen. I think this is a great book and I recommend it.

I have always enjoyed Mr. Brown's work. "The Tin Man" ruined what had been a unbroken string of great work. This book is a first rate Dale Brown adventure. The book is well written, maintains a steady, fast pace that fans have loved since the original "Flight Of The Old Dog". I read the nearly 400 page book in 24 hours, it's that good. Dale Brown the original is back and at his best, and some old and new friends have come with him. "The Tin Man" is dead or in OZ which is where he should have stayed. Welcome back Dale Brown!

Military fiction novelist Dale brown has finally published,after a long wait mind you, his newest novel called "Battle Born". I personnaly received the book on last Thursday from the publisher. I hasten to say that this is the best Dale Brown novel to date. It only took two days to read this 390+ page novel. I just could not put the book down. Patrick McLanahan, Dave Luger and the rest of the Megafortress crew rejoin in this novel performing operations at the relatively new Elliot Air Force Base. And yes the rumors are true, this is new "Megafortress-2". It is a bigger and badder HAWC creation. I wont ruin anything from the book, but war erupts over Korea again and here comes the new EB-1C. As always, Elliot Air Force Base runs the risk of being shut down. Like I said earlier, this is my favorite military fiction novel of all time. I guess I can I am kinda bent toward this novel because I am currently a memeber of the 28th Bomb Wing of Ellsworth A.F.B., South Dakota. Dale came here last spring to get source material for this book. He kindly gives some hearty kudos in the book to the people here at Ellsworth. I will close this review with three words, "BUY THIS BOOK".Take care all and read books!