Warlord by Ted Bell

This is my second Ted Bell Book. This is in the adult as opposed to young adult genre. This is a thriller right off of the pages of the newspaper (or nytimes.com). The British Royal Family is threatened by terrorists and a shell shocked, combat fatigued Alex Hawke is called in to save the day. This book is a medley of rock and roll action.

This is a fun read. Alex Hawke makes James Bond look like a girl scout. His pal Stokely is intimidating even on paper. The characterizations were colorful and entertaining. Action was pretty much non-stop. The mysterious Smith was truly evil personified. I liked the back story use, it gave the characters more depth. The use of contemporary personages made the book more believable. Conspiracy buffs will revel in it’s contents and conjectures.

Bell painted Alex’s despair very well. It was easy to wallow in his grief. Loyalty and honor are too often ignored in modern novels, Bell captured both.

I highly recommend the book.

Body of work of Ted Bell

Web site: http://www.tedbellbooks
.com/home.html

The Peshawar Lancers By S. M. Stirling

Stirling has proposed a post meteoroid holocaust world with the holocaust set in the late 1800’s. The world has recovered to the point of early 1900’s and the novel deals with the political ramifications of the dramtically changed world. Characters are well done, story is exciting, I had trouble putting it down. My biggest critisim is that there is no sequel. This book screams for a sequal, what’s the point of getting you into a very interesting environment, enticing you with good characterizations and then leaving you hang. Stirling’s characters exhibit the characteristics that I think exemplify scifi and fantasy, courage, loyalty, nobility, concern for mankind, all things that are often hard to find in current fiction as well as in the real world. Read this!

Body of work of S.M. Stirling

Review: http://donh.best.vwh.net/Esperanto/Literaturo/Recenzoj/peshawar.html

Web Site: http://www.smstirling.com/