Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Choosers of the Slain by James H Cobb

A friend at work was clearing out a lot of their old books and asked if I wanted any.  I said, “Sure thing, I’ll take a couple”. The next day I arrived at work and found eight books sitting on my desk, among them were four books by James H Cobb; Choosers of the Slain, Storm Dragon, Sea Fighter and Target Lock.

Choosers of the Slain caught my eye for two reasons; 1) I love a series and it was book one in the series, and 2) the phrase caught my eye, it’s the English translation for the Norse word Valkyrie, the female warriors who chose those amongst the slain Norse warriors on the battlefield to go to Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain in Asgard. Enough of the history lesson, on reading the cover and discovering that Cobb’s hero, was in fact a heroine, Commander Amanda Lee Garrett, so the title seemed to make a lot of sense.

I don’t usually read war stories, I prefer something a bit more futuristic and seeing that this story was written in 1996 and set in 2006, I was intrigued to see if what the author was calling a futuristic war ship compared to what exists now.  Commander Garrett, captains a LCS (littoral combat ship) guided missile destroyer, with the Navy’s latest electronics warfare, Aegis radar systems and is the world’s first true ocean going stealth warship. After reading this book, I did some research about LCS vessels and found that Cobb had done a very fine job in 1996 of predicting the capabilities of this class of ship, which has only been in service a couple of years, check out this Wiki Link if you want to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship

Anyway, back to the book, it’s not just a war story, though it is full of action and the combat scenes are extremely well written, keeping an edge to the excitement but not excessive in melodramtic over detailing (if that makes any sense what so ever?).  The story is also about relationships in the modern military, there is a potential love interest  for Garret here, but I am also talking about the relationships between a ship’s crew. A group of people crammed together in close confined quarters of mixed ranks, backgrounds and life experience. This book gives a good insight into how much a ship’s crew not only respect each other but also care for their ship mates.

My Synopsis:
Anyway back to the book in question, Choosers of the Slain, it begins as most books of this type do by setting up the scenario: It’s late autumn in Antarctica, the last pristine region on earth that as yet has not been mined for its minerals and resources. A lone British scientific outpost is suddenly overrun by a foreign aggressor,  Argentina, looking to capture the region just before winter sets in and therefore making a counter attack by the British and her allies highly improbable. A move which should buy the Argentinians enough time to establish a military presence and start harvesting the region’s resources. The Argentinians are still stinging from the Falkland’s conflict, but now have bigger ambitions than just a small group of islands.

Commander Amanda Lee Garrett is in command of the USS Cunningham, the first vessel of its kind, unique and as yet untested in either extreme conditions or combat.  The ship is one of the obvious stars of this book and rightly so, Cobb has obviously done his research well in bringing what was at the time a concept ship on paper, to life.  This is Garrett’s first major command, but the reasons for her getting the job soon become obvious, she is sharp minded, extremely intelligent, courageous and as hard as iron in the face of conflict. Due to technical problems the Cunningham soon becomes the only US vessel anywhere within range and heads into an incredible game of cat and mouse with the massed Argentine Navy and Air Force, on the unpredictable wintery waters of Drake’s Passage.

The characters are extremely easy to get to know and just as importantly likeable, I found myself actually wanting to know much more about the Cunningham’s bridge crew and specialists. Cobb gave me just enough to actually be interested in these side characters without them dominating any section of the storyline too much.

Cover Art:



The book: Choosers of the Slain.
The author: James H Cobb
Series name: The Amanda Garret series
Genre: Action, Warfare, Thriller
First published: 1996
My rating out of 10: It’s a 7.5, this is Cobb’s first work and though I really enjoyed the entire Amanda Garret series this book remains my firm favourite of the four.  If you see this book grab it, it’s well worth the effort.

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