BACK IN ACTION

Old soldiers never die... except inside, when they lack a reason to live. Old soldier Wes Stauer is dying inside, from sheer lack of purpose.

And then comes the knock on the door: "Our leader's son and heir has been kidnapped. We don't know where he is. We need you to get him back for us. The people who have him are numerous, warlike, and well armed. But money is no object."

And then old soldiers-sailors and airmen, too-stop fading away and come back into sharp focus.

Praise for Tom Kratman:

"Kratman's [Caliphate] is a brisk page turner full of startling twists... he's a professional military man... so he's certainly up to speed on the military and geopolitical conceits of the book." -Mark Steyn, Maclean's Magazine

"Kratman's written the future [in Caliphate], and it's scary." -John Ringo

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    I really like Kratmans books and this was no exception. The book starts off a little bit slow and theres quite a bit of military/technical jargon, but with half a brain and, at times wikipedia, its no problem. Once the action really takes off, its impossible to lay the book down. The concept of this new series is interesting and Kratmans world view is very close to my own. If youre worried about the jargon being too technical for a foreigner, ill point out im swedish and didnt have much of a problem with it.

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    Well written, and in contrast to what I dreaded after reading comments about this author also readable for people outside the US

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    Fun read with a good mix of action, technology, lessons on training and more. Will be interested in seeing where this series goes.

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    I just finished reading this book.
    First, it is reminiscient of the Carrera series in its political slant, although I did not find it as heavy-handed and preachy as some parts of those novels.

    On its own, Countdown: The Liberators is a good military-fiction read.

    The hard-to swallow:
    One of the things I always find pretty laughable is the "tech-savvy" retired General Officer. 99% or the currently serving General Officers are blatant luddites, and fall to pieces and scream for their Signals officer when their blackberrys and outlook stop working. The premise that any of them have the ability to back-channel hacks into resources is beyond far-fetched.
    Also, most military fiction starts with one of two premises: either a person is already independently, fabulously wealthy (e.g. every book written by W.E.B. Griffin) or comes into a huge pile of cash early on. I have seen how good mil-fiction can be written without the need for the protagonist having governmental-sized treasuries, it is possible, just takes some doing. Cash, of course, makes everything easier, but it is also the "magic wand" that makes most sci-fi unreadable. Sure, who wouldn't/couldn't do "X" with an unlimited supply of currency?

    Now for the good:
    The book is well paced, doesn't fall to long periods of Dickensian over-description and leaves some things best to the imagination. Soldiers talk like soldiers talk, and are generally a moral lot, and Mr. Kratman got that perfectly. (No surprise there.) Descriptions of capabilities and limitations of equipment are pretty accurate too, and generally exist only to explain particular plot relevancies--why they have to use certain widgets, why the limitations of those widget affect the plan, how they overcome or work within those limitations.
    The SOF-types in the book are portrayed as actual humans, not physical demigods who never get a scratch, or worse, manage to chop off their limbs themselves so they can keep fighting with the remaining limbs. Snipers miss, People die, people make good decisions with the best available data and still have bad results--just like life.
    I think this could very easily develop into a series of books.

    All in all, an entertaining and fun read.

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    The author spends a good deal of time describing specific hardware that might mean something to someone else, and describing logistics. But overall the story flows well and is a compelling read. I will buy the sequel.

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    This promises to be a very interesting series. Very well worth the read. On the strength of this book alone, I've decided to purchase and read other books from this author.

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