The Blackcollar

The Blackcollars were a legendary outfit of warriors, spies andsaboteurs, with superhuman skills and abilities. Earth is under controlof aliens, but rebels still exist.One of them, the protagonist in this book, wants to be free. To dothis, he pins his hope on finding a lost blackcollar unit to aid therebellion.All, however, is not as it seems, and the truth about the blackcollars will shock him.

This book (and its sequel) exemplify Zahn's ability to connect disparate characters and settings into a cohesive whole; weaving a tapestry of danger and comeraderie into a fast paced thrill ride. The downsides are that the story begun in this book and continued in the sequel are not finished--there are at least two more books needed to cap this plot.

This and the Spinneret book are Zahn's best (he eventually lost me in the Cobra series & Coming of Age). This is action-packed and suspenseful. The Blackcollar, with their super-human reflexes were man's last hope against the alien invaders. This is the story of their guerrilla war against that enemy - and their human nemesis, Galway, who is attempting to prevent the Blackcollar from doing greater damage to mankind than has already been done by the aliens. Excellent.

This was a good book. A fun book. UNfortunately, it doesn't quite live up to Zahn's potential. Everything else of his I've read has a lot of gray areas. Not this one. It's just Blackcollars good, alien conspirators bad. This was still a fun book, and I highly recommend it, it just didn't have that great sense of balance that his other books, like Cobra, or Angelmass have.

If you enjoy science fiction mixed with martial arts, as well as a book with plenty of action, this book is for you. It's companion novel, "The Backlash Mission", is also a worthwhile read. After re-reading the novels for the -nth- time recently, I'm ready for the (long awaited) third novel in the series!