Review: Alex Hunter gets stoned in Greece
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 14, 2014
GORGON is the latest in Greig Beck's "Alex Hunter" novels featuring the eponymous super soldier who seems to grow stronger, more powerful and to gain more superhuman abilities with each novel.  In this outing, Alex, who has survived tremendous physical and psychological insult in the last two entries (THIS GREEN HELL and BLACK MOUNTAIN) is finally healed and returns as leader of Hammerson's elite HAWC unit.  There is trouble in Turkey where an antiquities thief has loosed a deadly entity that turns anyone who looks at it to stone.  Alex and the HAWC's mission is to figure out what it is and how to stop it before it reaches Turkish and Greek population centers and kills millions.  All this is complicated by the appearance of Uli Borshov, Alex's Russian counterpart who once shot Alex in the head, leaving him for dead but triggering some of the changes that turned Alex into the Arcadian.GORGON is a fun, easy read.  One should probably read the other Alex Hunter novels, in sequence first, to get the full backstory, but also to see how Alex has changed over the course of the novels, growing more and more powerful with each entry.  Beck excels in pacing, and as in all of his novels, things get faster and tighter and the excitement builds over the latter quarter of the novel so much that it is almost impossible to put the book down.As in the other Alex Hunter novels, Beck uses matters of historical record, pseudo-scientific tidbits and his own fertile imagination to fashion an original story that captivates.  Beck is fond of cryptobiology and xenobiology, which feature prominently in GORGON as well as all the other Alex Hunter entries.  This makes these stories a novel blend of sci-fi and military adventure.I do have a few bones to pick, however.  The science in this one is unusually weak and there are several rather large errors in the descriptions of the eye and visual system, the nervous system and how exoskeletons like the MECH suits (which really exist, although not quite so powerful as in the book) are controlled by the user.  And truth be told, I think I liked Alex a little better when he was a little less superman-like.  Finally, the final showdown between Borshov and Alex, after all this time, was very anticlimactic.Not the strongest entry in the series but nevertheless, still a fun read.  If you have read the other Alex Hunter novels, I don't see how you can not read this one.  And I'll be around for the next one.Recommended.J.M. Tepper