Review: Pulse-pounding action
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 16, 2012
If you're a fan of the real-time method of narration, where the action cascades all around and you almost hear a ticking clock in your head, you're going to like FAST.The television show 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as agent Jack Bauer, is a well-known example of real-time narration, with each episode showing one hour of Bauer's life. FAST is written in that same style, with the kind of action that will keep you on the edge of your seat.In this book, which was more than 800 pages on my Kindle, a Marine FAST team, on a mission to support a group of weapons inspectors, walks right into the middle of a terrorist attack. The main characters are:*  Third Unit -- A FAST Team headed by Captain Alex Coleman with key members Cpl. Marlin Martinez, Sgt. William King and Cpl. Forest Kelso. They also pick up Dr. Vanessa Sharp, director of the facility and Alex Coleman's ex-wife, along the way.*  A shadowy terrorist force led by mercenary Cameron Cairns with a supporting cast of Francis Gould, the evil scientist, and team leader, Lt. Krisko Borivoj, or Bora.*  The nearly unstoppable, half-ton biological organisms bred by Gould to kill humans and foment terrorIt's all about the action. Events are intense and often conveyed in short, urgent sentences. Much of the dialogue is clipped, concise and realistic for a virtual war zone. Even so, Brown incorporates a great analogy here and there. A couple of examples are "the smell of water stored for a hundred years in a rusty can" and "dark and messy, like a tooth cavity."The plot is well thought out and Brown does a great job of interweaving events occurring simultaneously at different locations. Not once did I scratch my head and (irritably) backtrack to refresh my memory. A big help in that regard are several diagrams of the facility provided in the preface that give the reader a head start visualizing the terrain.Character development can't be rated in the usual way since the book presents a single day's events, and on any given day, people are who they are. Even so, the author makes the main characters distinct and memorable.The book's one significant flaw is that its nimble writing is marred by the need for better editing. There are quite a few mechanical errors and typos in the text. An edit for length wouldn't be out of place, either. But here's the good news. I have it directly from the author -- who surprised me with an unsolicited note when I rated another book he'd written -- that an updated, re-edited edition is coming in the near future.Overall, this book is an exciting read and I rate it four stars.(Note: A positive review of this book was not solicited by the author. The opinions stated here are mine alone and were not influenced by any other person.)