Dragon Storm: China invades Taiwan Book Reviews

Dragon Storm is a Clancyesque technothriller based around a near future attempt by China to conquer Taiwan with conventional forces.

McFadden, author of several other thrillers, such as Landing Party , Brother King , and Forge Valley, had done an earlier version of this scenario in his Formosa Straits, and in this expanded version undates the technology and order-of-battle.

McFadden gives us a very good mix of characters sketches, a fast pace, and lots of bang bang. Of special merit is the way he deftly handles infowar operations from the macro level down to the granular level, showing how a news team functions and how a host nation plants stories. Anyone who liked the early Clancy novels [before they turned into a mass produced product line] should enjoy this.

As with most technothrillers, the end/wrap-up is a tad deus ex machina, but that is the nature of the genre.

Our Reviewer: Scott Palter graduated from Dartmouth and Stanford Law. A veteran war gamer, one of the old SPI playtesters, he is also a game developer and was founder and publisher of West End Games. His most recent reviews for StrategyPageincludeForgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia,Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, Normandy Crucible: The Decisive Battle that Shaped World War II in Europe, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, andExorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany.