Invasion [Hardcover]

Logically if one wishes to dominate the plannet then one has to deal with the United States. Both the Germans and the Japanese learned to their cost what happens when you leave the USA to its own devices.

I agree that the plot at times seems a bit contrived, but that is a minor quibble, and I disagree with the rewviewer that thought that the anti-helicoper mine used by Special Forces soldier Captain Jim Hart was fantastical. Modern battlefield SAM systems such as Stinger and Startreak will knock down a target 95% of the time, and automatic launching systems for anti-tank missiles already exist. The British Army use an anti-tank mine based on the LAW-80 which uses a laser system to tell the missile when to fire. I would not be surprised to see a similar system in service for SAMs by the second or third decade of this century when the novel appears to be set.

Harry also does a great service by demonstrating that not all future wars will be bloodless, or walkovers for the West. While all of the talk in the past few years has been about 'Operations other than War' -Peacekeeping, the potential for a major world war still exists out there, and Harry has given us a timely warning of this.
I also agree with the other reviewers who draw attension to the fact that military technology will increacingly cancel each other out, and war will depend on the infantryman (or woman), again. We depend solely on high technology at our peril.
The Chinese, whether they reamain Communist or not, are expansionist, and feel the world owes them special consideration, I believe that sooner, or later they will come into conflict wih the west.

If I have one gripe it is that I would like to know how Europe is coping with this war. We learn that the combined E.U navies were defeated by the Chinese, but hear nothing of attempts to re-build.
Surely the British, with their long naval traditions, would not stand by and see the oceans dominated by a hostile power. Surely the UK would be undertaking an arsenal ship biulding programme for the Royal Navy. Moreover has Britain fully mobilised, as in WW1 and WW2? Is the British Army now a conscript force of several million?

Perhaps Harry is leaving European matters, and the exploits of the USS Ronald Regan and Bill Baker, for his next novel.
I await it impatiently.

The story was fascinating to anyone with a vague knowledge of America; but as a twenty year old suburban anyone with no memory of even the Falklands War, it was terrifying but compelling to think about what would happen if my world suddenly fell apart, my house and family destroyed, my country chaged beyond recongnition, and me expected, overnight, to turn into a fighting machine ready to kill and maim hundreds of equally misplaced kids.

The story was much better written with its interlocking characters than had it just been a purely strategic and military story of a battle. Harry is a twenty-first century answer to the Great War poets and authors for thought-provoking-ness; and an equal of Tom Clancy.

But if you want an idea of what a land war would be like in the US, this is a chilling account of a large-scale infantry war in a country not so far from home.

The book is set in the near future where technological advancements in missile technology has effectively removed aircraft and armor from the battlefield. The US and its European allies have lost control of the oceans to a huge Chinese navy. The shores of the United States suddenly become vulnerable to invasion. Both sides have invested in nuclear shields, so the war reverts back to the hard slog of combat on the ground, which is graphically described.

You might think it couldn't happen here. This book shows you what would happen if it did.

Yes, the characterisation is poor, the plot often highly contrived, but I couldn't put it down.