Battlefield Ukraine

Red Storm Series, Book 1

By: James Rosone, Miranda Watson

Narrated by: Joel Richards

Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

Why do wars really start?

In Battlefield Ukraine, all the usual suspects are hard at work: battles over resources, money, and miscommunication. This predictive novel explores a potential war between NATO and Russia over the fate of the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.... You'll hope this realistic scenario doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Lines have been drawn in the sand, but how firm are they? Will the massive disinformation campaign by the Russians trick the new American administration to do their bidding? Will the new American president back down, or will the world creep one step closer toward global war?

©2017 James Rosone and Miranda Watson (P)2018 Tantor

A Young Adult Disinformation Fantasy

Hey, this is fiction. I get that. But so many of the characters "torn from today's headlines" are absolutely cartoonish. The story is so chock full of Russian talking points ranging from the fascist anti-Russian regime in Ukraine to US election interference it had me wondering if the author was an unwitting dupe or a paid Kremlin employee. The thoughtful and insightful president who constantly outwits the bad guys, the lying media, the intelligence community, his political rivals and is surrounded by incompetent military leadership is the literary equivalent of photoshopping President Trump's head onto the picture of Rocky. If you have no experience with the military and are looking for a young adult political/military novel as a break from watching Russia Television and One America News give this a try. The reader really does a decent job.

A great start to a new techno-thriller series.

First let me say that you should ignore the perfidious leftoids with TDS giving negative reviews of this book. I think maybe they are mad that some of the more nefarious characters in this book resemble their political side. With that said I have long been a fan of books like Red Storm Rising, Red Phoenix and Team Yankee. Those books however were written when the Warsaw Pact was still a thing and therefore have become dated. I was looking for something new along those lines even if still set during the height of the cold war and stumbled across this series quite by accident.

I think the author has a good grasp of how geopolitics could take a turn for the worse and how the resulting modern wars may be fought. There seemed to be a good blend of political intrigue as well as action scenes. Regarding the action scenes, there were a few minor issues I noticed with some of the fire commands during tank engagements but nothing major or too immersion breaking and I only noticed these issues since I am a former tanker myself.

The narrator did a pretty good job as well and he did use different voices for some of the different characters but I did find myself at times wishing for a slightly greater range of accents and inflections. Still it was a lively enough reading that I never felt like I was being lulled to sleep. Overall I am looking forward to the next books in this series to see how the continuing saga unfolds.

Disappointing

Not well researched. Politically, 'fake news'. Enjoyable enough ; if you like the genre, it'll do.

Not bad, not Clancy

I have always gone for speculative military fiction and so this peaked my interest.

The story/scenario is pretty great but the character building, dialogue, and prose is often lacking. (Some of this I would place in the narrator. Often felt like someone was reading a newspaper more than an article.

I’ll check out the next one but hope the dialogue and character arks get better.

Over one of the better WWIII plausibilities.

Outstanding Story!

Great techno thriller, can't wait to buy more in the series! Edge of seat thriller!

A worthy homage to Red Storm Rising

I applaud the author for taking the Red Storm Rising task of trying to novelize something as complex as WWIII. They really did an excellent job in creating a plausible scenario and working the details in the technology. This is the meat and potatoes of any good techno thriller series and it is well done here. I really look forward to the next in the series.

That being said, there are a number of logical inconsistencies and clichés. The Russian and Chinese military leaders come off as something akin to Boris Badanoff and Dr. No. The authors attempt to tie the story into current events also falls a bit flat. The American president is a thinly veiled sketch of what conservatives hoped Trump would be, which just comes off as naively comical considering the actual facts. Likewise, the attempt at depicting liberal/left leaning politicians and citizens is cartoonish and comes off as "what conservatives like to think liberals are like". To be fair Tom Clancy had the same lack of craft to do it too. Honestly much of this aspect of the book is ham-fisted and can be skipped without loss to the story.

Unless you have military jargon, info and equipment memorized keep a laptop handy to Google up what you need. It is worth it to get a visual on the latest in 21st century next gen kit.

Amazing

An excellently researched and thought provoking story. The story telling is truly captivating and I felt attached to the fictional characters within the first few minutes. I highly recommend you give this series a try!

Interesting story

Very interesting, mostly plausible premise. Some of the details were a little Slavaboo biased, but if you dont seriously follow defense news you probably won't notice.

Engaging

This book has me hooked and I am now ready to listen to all six. It feels realistic in that the U.S. doesn't dominate and quickly win every political or military conflict.

Great narrator! Loved his different voices.

Great book. Loved how it took modern politics and made a great unbias book. AMAZING!

Right up my street

Brilliant first book if you like military thrillers. it sets up a good atmosphere for the next book in the series

Ridiculous propaganda not great storytelling

It is such a shame that the author was more interested in creating RWNJ/cryptofascist revisionist political propaganda than in developing a great plot and engaging action sections.
The audio narrative was ok but could have been vastly improved by learning for example how to pronounce place names properly (ex the anglicised version of Moscow is not pronounced with a mooing cow in it).

This could have been a great book but the author has other ideas, Tom Clancy he isn't!
I gave up trying to listen to this as it was not enjoyable. Avoid this and seek something better.

A very underwhelming experience

I can appreciate the work that was put into this. The war proceeds largely as several thinkers and tacticians would have thought it would go had the Russian Armed Forces worked as advertised and the military knowledge of the writers is apparent besides some blatantly hilarious moments like a Russian Submariner referring to the Black Sea as an Ocean.

But there's no book here, no story. The characters are flat and uninteresting because they usually appear for one chapter or two, they speak like clichés on legs, a situation exacerbated by the supremely inept narrator. Seriously, most chapters are similar to After Action Reports and the flat and dead way that they are narrated elicits the same excitement as filing your taxes with the help of the most uninteresting accountant in the world.

Good soldier, bad politicians

Unfortunately this was wasted money due to misleading Trump fans. Next time I will read the reviews more carefully.

If you liked Red Storm Rising you will like this

As the title says if you liked the detailed descriptions of military tactics and hardware in Red Storm Rising you will like this. The characters and their motivations are paper thin but if you push through the first hour the rest of the book is great.

Very very good

Realistic premise based on reality ie; NATO bases in former WarPac countries provoke Russian military aggression. There is no comfy blue v red victory just the beginning of a realistic scenario of the start of WWiii with a whole series of books to get through before all is played out on a world stage. looking forward to the rest of the books