Wings of Steele

Dark Cover, Book 4

By: Jeffrey J Burger

Narrated by: Kevin Clay

Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

"The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space." (Carl Sagan)

Secret alien operatives have spent decades infiltrating humanity; government, military, and key positions in the populace to prepare the world's population for control and mass slavery. The planet's mineral resources notwithstanding, the most viable commodity on the planet is its people and the best way to control them is a one-world government. But with the arrival of Jack Steele's Task Force Lancer, the alien operatives are desperate for a way out and will stop at nothing to prevent their capture. A global nuclear war threatens the very survival of humanity and the existence of Earth, prompting a spy-versus-spy game of cat and mouse, forcing Jack Steele to play an entirely new role....

No one knows what they are capable of until they are pushed to the breaking point...desperate times call for desperate measures and heroes are born under pressure. But life and death is a roll of the dice for Jack, his crew, and his extended family, with evil and danger lurking in the most unlikely places. Some may not survive....

©2016 Jeffrey J Burger (P)2017 Jeffrey J Burger

plot

I have no idea what is going on in this book .... i think its a foreshadowing of the next book... or a massive book split in two. the plot is everywhere and i have no clue what the point was at the end ...worth it though, lots of side character development.

Love the series!

Another great book in the series! Jack's story continues but this time it involves more of the Masons. I think that is a great touch to the story! The Masons are a bit mysterious and their story is even more mysterious than what we know on Earth. I'd love to hear more about them in the next book. I just hope book 5 won't take as long to come out because I will hunt you down Mr Burger (on Facebook) and I will just politely ask when book 5 comes out because I'm a nice guy and a fan, but in my head I'll be screaming at you to finish it! lol Excellent narration by Kevin Clay! I'm glad to see the author continue with the same narrator. Kevin Clay is one of my favorite narrators!

Good continuation.

I love this series and had some good point but something seems to be missing. I am not sure what but it does.. still can't wait for the next one...

excellant book am going crazy waiting for book 5

a must read by all . Jeffery keeps you riveted to your seat through out the books making you want for more

my review

awesome! I can not wait for the next one to come out hopefully its not to long. more

Great Space Opera.

This a fun read and good audible book.
Kevin Clay has a good voice. Although he has one pronunciation quirk in his narrative style that I find bothersome. He uses a very hard g sound on words that end in g or have the letter g in there makeup.
This might be a regional dialect or accent. Still I find it a little bothersome.
Saying that I still purchased all four audible books.

Blew through this one.

Any additional comments?

I hope they continue to develop the animal companion characters. I would love to see a doberman show up.

Wow! When is the next book?

Outstanding! Lots of story arcs, and every one of them is out standing. I can’t wait for the next book.

too long of a wait

the problem with this book is that it seems there are too many many stories and there's no general direction of where it's going I only got it because of the previous three in the way that it ended I don't think I will get the fifth book

One of the worst Sc-Fi book I have ever read...

What would have made Wings of Steele better?

The only thing that could make this story better is to start over. I am a writer myself and this is now the second time I have had to pan a truly terrible book. Something I have never done before. I have listened to the previous 3 books in this series and to be honest while not great and full of anti-government ill informed drivel, this book makes them all look like Left Wing "Love the Big Gov" propaganda. Be warned this book book is so completly anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim heck anti-Christian as well if you consider the completly un Christ like way he portrays his version of "Good law abiding, family loving faithful believers." As a devout Christian I was horrified by his portrayal of a Pastor (Supposedly wonderful Christlike guy devoted to his parishioners). The man who is supposed to have been called to the ministry and living his life as a Christ like example greats people at his door with an AR-15 stuck in their face. The the author just acts like it is no big deal. Forget the fact that this supposed man of God is hiding in his home instead of being out in the community helping in a time of crisis or even just looking after his parishioners. No he is busy sticking an AR in the face of anyone who dares come to his door. That the author obviously cannot see how wrong this is just points out how out of touch he is with anything that bears a resemblance to reality.

Most authors get better as they gain experience writing multiple books. Jeffrey Burger has gotten worse with each book. Unfortunately we share the same first name. I insist that not all we Jeffrey's are this ignorant.

I know this review is harsh and over the top but as an author I find it just astonishing how poorly written, researched, plotted etc etc all of these books since the first two have been. While all have been pretty darn right wing government ruins lives bad this 4th one is on a whole different level. You know the kind. The ones who hate government and want to destroy it but somehow think the lack of government translates into their kind of government. He even goes so far as to go after the refugees that have recently fled to Europe for safety. In his mind when things went bad all these terrible "Muslims", which are always just a breath away from becoming wild eyed extremist, are just sitting around like sleeping agents in their thousands waiting to pounce on the poor ignorant west. His portrayals are so over the top and monstrously bigoted that, and I kid you, they never say anything without including the cry of "Allah Akbar" in every sentence. I kid you not it's true.

The characters, dialogue, scene construction and heck even the language is so stilted and cliche that the greatest value this book could ever have is as a warning and example of bad writing. Jeffrey Burger is a great example of the kind of writer so many great authors bemoan as being able to flood the genre with absolute garbage. All because it is so easy to publish completly unedited and just flat out primary school quality manuscripts in the wild west of self publishing on Amazon.

I apologize to the narrator because he does do a good job. He polished this turd to about as bright as it could be polished.

At every level this book comes dangerously close to being something that I as a fairly conservative white guy am just appalled to even say. It is very close to being a manifesto of hate, ignorance and bigotry wrapped up in the guise of fiction. From little things to big things like this. Every woman in this book no matter how competent, intelligent or important is ultimately portrayed as a subservient little girl to the strong, always white, men who dominate every aspect of the environment. Even the main characters wife, who is a queen feels compelled to anoint her husband as KIng of her realm. The only strong competent female in the story line that is not subservient is an alien. Of course even she is a cliche "Cat Woman" alien. Personally I think there is a typical odd fetish going on their with this author. It fits the type of personality for sure. You will not find people of any color other than white unless they are evil, left wing liberals, muslims or any other religion than Christian (Although I am wondering if this guy is a Mormon. Since they are not Christians and have a very different ethical view of the world it would explain much. Many of these types of writers seem to increasingly be Mormons these days. It's odd).

The one time a Black man appears in the story line he actually writes his dialogue with " Ded Dat, dude, ain't no thing boss, I was holleren at cha" ....It goes on and on. It's as if he lifted all his language from Tom Sawyer. Not to mention he is supposed to speak like he is James Earl Jones as well. Of course all the white guys in the scenes speak with perfect english and bright voices. I actually think this guy is such a bigot he might not even realize what he is doing. The Black business some characters hide inside of is....wait for it.....A liquor business. Unreal. LOL, it just occured to me the main characters pet dog is even a German Shepard. Living in Birmingham Alabama that little detail just jumped out.

There are even some what little things like his portrayal of executions by the main characters wife on her wonderful enlightened planet. She takes her enemies asd has them sliced vertically inch by inch with lasers. cutting them apart like sandwich meat. The intent is specifically to keep them alive and suffering as long as possible as their bodies are sliced away. This woman then minutes later is all lightness and love talking to her beloved husband in a cross "universe" magical hand wavium phone call. Perhaps the author does not realize that he has turned this character into a sociopath and that any society which would commit such acts against anyone in the name of justice is not the great conservative utopia he seems to want it to be but a sick sick sick place. He also does not seem to have a problem once again with this kind of thing from a "CHristian" stand point. It really makes one wonder where he gets his perspective and makes me hope and pray as a Christian that there are are not too many such places out there. Ultimately any society is measured by how they treat those at their mercy and that includes people in the custody of the state for any reason.

One little thing that does make me crazy. I really wish that these people writing sci-fi would get even a small amount of education or at least take the time to learn something about the environment in which they set their soap operas. Chief among them is to PLEASE STOP REFERRING TO WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY A GALAXY AS "THE UNIVERSE"!!!!!! This really does make me nuts. I mean good grief!! Do they know the difference between the universe and a galaxy? If your going to have your ships flitting around the universe willy nilly you had better get a grip on what light speed is and stop solving all FTL with wormholes. The size of the power source or mass of a gravity well capable of generating a galaxy to galaxy worm hole or even fold is well...just learn better or stop witting sci-fi and go back to high school and try to graduate again. There is no way you ever went to anything but a community college or received something worthless like a business degree if you did anything beyond high school.

You would also think such a right wing anti government pro military guy would know something about the military. His knowledge there is as weak as his scientific knowledge.

If you want to read something like this series but dramatically better written DRAMATICALLY better try the "Silver Ships" series by S.H. Jucha, The "LIve Free or Die" series by John Ringo or the excellent and fun or better yet have a really really great time reading the first two books in the Boboverse "We are Bob" and "For we are Many" by Dennis Taylor.

I know I have really torn after this book and its author but you really should not waste your time, money or credits on this mess. UNLESS you are a writer yourself and want to use it as a foil against bad writing.

It is just possible that Jeffrey Burger wrote this book in the throes and worship of the The Great Pumpkin Donald Trump. It sounds so much like the kind of mindless ignorant drivel you would hear at any of his rallies. I feel certain that any rally with in a thousand miles of Mr. Burger was attended by him. The ideology of this book is so similar to the confused out of his depth rhetoric espoused by Mr. Orange and his Kool Aid Drinkers.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jeffrey J Burger again?

NO

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He didn't...He was good

What character would you cut from Wings of Steele?

All of them

Any additional comments?

DO NOT WASTE MONEY and this book comes very close to being a right wing manifesto.