Battlefield Ukraine: Book One of the Red Storm Series: 1

In viiewof recent developments - believable

I enjoy a good read packed with military and political plots but like many others I have my favourite authors. So it was a risk to buy something new but I am so glad that I decided to try new authors and a fresh approach to the global power threats that we have to live with nowadays.

Book 1There is an inbuilt unfair pro USA leaning which becomes more obvious as you read the book. The general unfolding of the story line casts the Russians as the bad guys and the USA / Western democracies as freedom loving good guys. This is a great shame it could be so much better.Book 2I have just started out on this book and it is beginning to follow the same leanings as book 1 but with the addition of the Chinese----good guys / bad guys.Having now got 2/3rds of the way through this book i have given it up as a lost cause. With Russia, China, and North Korea on one side cast as the bad guys and the USA + the rest of the western world on the other side, it will no doubt pan out as a win win for the good guys meaning USA and us hangers on.It's a great shame it could have been so much better.

As much as I enjoyed this series I still feel after re-reading it that the underlying anti-british theme detracts from what could have been an excellent series unfortunately there's barely a mention of British forces fighting for nato yet numerous mentions of German forces fighting for nato which is ironic considering in real life Britain has given more to defend the Ukraine compared to a very reluctant Germany, in comparison to real events the series hasn't aged well but it's still a worthwhile read though their other series Rigged is a better read

The characters have depth and are 3 dimensional and the book is fast paced. Looking forward to to the “Korea”.Thanks

I read this because a friend described it as "prescient" in the light of the current war in Ukraine. It is based on the premise of a world war being triggered by a Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, while there is some overlap with this scenario and our current reality, the book is not at all prescient. It treats the Ukrainians as cyphers for the US with no agency or capacity to make decisions themselves. It vastly overestimate the capabilities of Russian armed forces, who launch a pre-emptive strike against NATO, using cyber attacks to down satellites and stealth aircraft to neutralise NATO defences. Obviously, we now know that the Russian's don't have the capacity to take down the Ukrainian rail network, let alone US satellites and their airforce is unable to operate safely over Ukrainian airspace. There is no way it could mount a serious attack on NATO. Having said all that, there are moments of excitement and drama, although a weakness is that there are too many perspectives so you don't have an opportunity to get invested in particular characters. Tom Clancy used to avoid this problem by focusing narratives on particular characters within the broader tapestry of his fictional conflicts. Sadly these authors don't have Clancy's eye for storytelling.

A lot of thought clearly went into this story and the brutality is sobering at times. A great read

Looks like a cracking start to a good series. Well written, good range of character from top to bottom and lots of action.