Operation Roswell

Kevin Randle's take on the Roswell Incident lends itself well to a sprawling potboiler of a novel. If you read it without an agenda, it is simply fun! If, on the other hand, you try to accept it as a fictionalization of actual events, then you will probably get embroiled in details and miss out on the enjoyment. Personally, I don't know if the Roswell Incident occurred, nor do I care. I have read enough about it and seen enough on TV to have a passing familiarity, so I never got lost in the novel. What I did enjoy was Randle's characterizations of Harry S. Truman and Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay. Putting two such powerful personalities in a closed room and letting the sparks fly was enough of a hoot to carry the rest of the book--even when I wasn't all that thrilled with the details. For the record, there are two things that bothered me about Randle's research. First, was having a jet fighter in 1947 equipped with air-to-air missiles. Uh-uh. Our only jet fighter in 1947 was the Lockheed F-80 and it was equipped with six .50 caliber machine guns, and a very primitive radar ranging device for the gunsight. At that time, there were rockets that could be slung under a fighter's wings, but they were for air-to-ground use, and didn't enjoy anything near pin-point accuracy. Second, Randle does a fairly good job with a shoot-em-up near the end of the book, but spoils the scene by having the 'reek of cordite' hanging around after the shooting. Uh-uh. Cordite was used for only a very short time, well before 1947. At the time of the novel, the smokeless propellants were light-years ahead of cordite and had a very different aroma. Those nits aside, I liked the book and plan to advise several of my friends to buy their own copy.

It's pretty well done, if it drags a bit in places. I was reminded while reading of a (possibly apocryphal) story (that she swore really scared her friend) from my ex-wife that a friend of hers got lost at the Pentagon and happened into a room that was supposed to be locked but the door was open - and there in a glass cylinder of fluid was a creature like that described in Operation Roswell (though no mention of the fangs). I saw a UFO once myself when I was 15, walking outside one night with my mother. We saw it together. I spent some time talking once, by accident really, with those two guys who said one of them had gotten abducted while out on a logging crew. Those guys said that inside the ship was nothing at all like the movie. This story. Well, if that's how it really was, ...but that's hard to believe. Sort of a cross between "Gremlins" and night of the vampires fallen from outer space. Hard to fathom how an extraterrestrial could be adapted to our biology enough to use our blood for meals. And the energy dynamics of growing a living organism are highly endothermic - it takes quite a bit of energy. How could all those replicants have been grown like that? Seriously, the total blood volume of the few people identified wouldn't come close. The creatures seemed to just live on blood. Sure, you had 22 people listed as missing, but even then, that might give enough energy for maybe one critter. Although, who knows - maybe it's a designed critter. But even then, thermodynamics needs to add up somehow. Seems implausible by the end. It doesn't answer how the creatures were killed. The hero watched the underground detonation of the a-bomb from a mile away, and is inside a tunnel that is connected to the complex that got blown? Hmmm. Well, perhaps possible if the blast sealed the tunnel shut, sinced it was circular. But if the hero lived, and the creatures were in the tunnel ahead of them all the way, as described, then the little vampire critter-kids survived too; they were tough little buggers for sure...

In the summer of 1947, many people claim they witnessed unidentified flying objects soaring in the proximity of the White Sands nuclear testing grounds. The crafts show up on radar. As far as the American military is concerned, the UFOs perform operations light years ahead of anything the US Air Force can execute such as almost instant acceleration and deceleration and on a dime curve maneuvers.President Truman assumes that the desert show is just that a clever hoax as he concentrates on the real menace, Stalin's Soviet Union. However, to ease concern, especially with an election next year, he assigns General Curtis to do whatever is necessary. Fire first and damn the consequences LeMay orders his pilots to shoot down one of the crafts. Soon luck occurs near Roswell as a triangular shaped craft with no wings crashes. Four dead humanoid aliens are inside, but one survived. Truman orders a full cover-up to prevent a public panic even as the craft and its occupants are taken to Nevada where LeMay insures a nuclear weapon remains on stand by alert.OPERATION ROSWELL is a fun and plausible fictionalized account of the famous Roswell incident. UFOlogists and the ET crowd will enjoy this well written action thriller that uses real people to add to the feel of authenticity. Kevin Randle may be a believer, but he insures that doubting Thomas and Thomasina will enjoy the story line yet find the plot quite feasible, making this a novel for anyone who relishes the "truth is out there".Harriet Klausner