Review: Excellent Sci-Fi
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 24, 2014
I've come to like Christopher Nuttall's stories. This book gave us a slightly different take on the seemingly benevolent 'First Contact" story line. It was a good story with very good character development. There were sub-plots that all came together logically and overall it was a very good read.Now for the negative. I know Mr. Nuttall is not from the US and isn't totally familiar with our military organization and ranking system but I do wish he would do some research and get it right. A couple of points:"Special Forces" (Green Berets) and Army Rangers are Special Operations (Spec Ops) groups that are part of the US Army. Their ranks are Private, Corporal, Sargent, etc..Force Recon is a unique group that is specifically part of the US Marine's. The Marines use basically the same ranking system as the US Army but with slightly different rank badges.SEALs are US Navy and do not include Marines or Army personnel. The Navy does not have privates, corporals, Sargent, etc. the ranking structure for enlisted Navy personal, even SEALs is Seaman, Petty Officer, Chief Petty Officer, etc..None of this is to say that the Green Berets, Army Rangers, Force Recon, and SEALs don't work together sometimes. Even then you would not call a Force Recon Marine a Green Beret, Ranger, or SEAL operator. A SEAL would never be a Sargent, he would be a Petty Officer (3rd class, 2nd class, or 1st class), Chief Petty Officer (Chief, Senior Chief, or Master Chief), Warrant Officer, or some other grade of commissioned officer.All this is probably a small point and doesn't mean much at all to most who read these stories and are not familiar with the US military ranking structure. For those of us who do know the difference it is just a glitch in the story that could be easily fixed by either online research or having one of your many readers verify for accuracy.