Red Army

Underboss_3

I just picked up the book Red Army by Ralph Peters at a used bookstore. I haven't started it yet, but it basically deals with a conventional world war III (focusing solely on Soviet characters). Has anyone else given this a read yet?
 

Grimm Reaper

Not remotely.

...oh, the Americans are expanding their military and have joined forces with the PRC while most of the Red Army is stuck occupying Central Europe but why should that worry us?...​
 

Marius

The only Ralph Peters book I read was called "The War in 2020". In it a revitalised Japanese military invade Siberia, with the help of South Africans. The book was written before apartheid fell, so its got all the cliches of white South Africans, racist, crap accents, Afrikaans is an ugly language etc. As a South African that just turned me off his writing forever.
 

Stalker

Banned
Marius said:
The only Ralph Peters book I read was called "The War in 2020". In it a revitalised Japanese military invade Siberia, with the help of South Africans. The book was written before apartheid fell, so its got all the cliches of white South Africans, racist, crap accents, Afrikaans is an ugly language etc. As a South African that just turned me off his writing forever.
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So what Ralph Peters does is using cliches. When he writes about Russia, I wish he had never even tried doing that for the whoe thing is downright crap. But that is my personal opinion.
 

Adam

Marius said:
The only Ralph Peters book I read was called "The War in 2020". In it a revitalised Japanese military invade Siberia, with the help of South Africans. The book was written before apartheid fell, so its got all the cliches of white South Africans, racist, crap accents, Afrikaans is an ugly language etc. As a South African that just turned me off his writing forever.
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With the exception of South African involvement, that sounds a whole lot like the plot of a Coonts novel I'd recently read.
 

Dave Howery

Marius said:
The only Ralph Peters book I read was called "The War in 2020". In it a revitalised Japanese military invade Siberia, with the help of South Africans. The book was written before apartheid fell, so its got all the cliches of white South Africans, racist, crap accents, Afrikaans is an ugly language etc. As a South African that just turned me off his writing forever.
Click to expand...

It also speculates about another hellish disease coming out of Africa, and this one hits the whole world like the Black Plague. After that, it's wars in Los Angeles against the gangs, in Mexico, in Russia...

another anachronism is that the USSR is still around...
 

Underboss_3

Marius said:
The only Ralph Peters book I read was called "The War in 2020". In it a revitalised Japanese military invade Siberia, with the help of South Africans. The book was written before apartheid fell, so its got all the cliches of white South Africans, racist, crap accents, Afrikaans is an ugly language etc. As a South African that just turned me off his writing forever.
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Once again the Japanese ally with White Supremecists. What could go wrong!! I saw that book on the shelves too. I almost picked it up.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

Dave Howery said:
It also speculates about another hellish disease coming out of Africa, and this one hits the whole world like the Black Plague. After that, it's wars in Los Angeles against the gangs, in Mexico, in Russia...

another anachronism is that the USSR is still around...
Click to expand...

Granted, when the book was written, it seemed plausible. When I think of 1980s right-wing literature, that book is the example I put up.
 

Dave Howery

Underboss_3 said:
Once again the Japanese ally with White Supremecists. What could go wrong!! I saw that book on the shelves too. I almost picked it up.
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they also end up allying with Russian Muslim groups who are fighting against the Soviets.. and of course, the Muslims are insular, bullying, full of machismo, and generally unlikable... gee, no racism there...
 

gtrof

I've read Red Army. It was a good book, disagreed with the ending, but still a good book. I like how it protrays the Russians as soldiers, not sterotypical Reds that show up in quite a few technothrillers.
 

Ivan Druzhkov

On a similar note, I've started reading a novel by James P. Hogan called Engame Enigma. It was written in the mid-1980s, and revolves around an American spy mission on the Soviet's new massive space station. It's set in 2014-ish, and so far I've seen Madagascar divided into pro-Soviet and pro-American sections [!], rumors of increasing power in China, Japan, Brazil, and the "Southeast Asian Alliance" (sucks to be you, EU), and a lot of technology that doesn't seem all that different from what I'd find in a Best Buy today.

So far, I'm not hating it.
 

Melvin Loh

Didn't read RED ARMY, but I didn't mind THE WAR IN 2020 as an interesting yet oud\tdated old FH novel. However, it shocked me with how the XVIII Airborne Corps, deploying to Zaire in 2005, gets cut to pieces by the new Jap technology used by the South Africans, without firing a shot.
 

Underboss_3

Another book I picked up just yesterday (reading through Red Army got me on a WW III kick) is Team Yankee by Harold Coyle. I'm about 1/4th of the way through it. It's got a lot of great tank battle scenes.

For anyone who hasn't read it yet, check it out. It's better than Red Army. At least so far.
 

Dave Howery

I have TEAM YANKEE... it is indeed a pretty good book.... it's set in the background of the 'Third World War' novel by Hackett, and the political/general course of the war background follows that scenario...
 
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