The Warbirds, which I recently revisited, holds up pretty well over time. Parts of it are obviously dated - the use of F-4s in a frontline combat role, and of course the Soviet Union and the proximity of the events in the book to the Iran-Iraq war. But, if you're reading this review, these probably aren't things to worry about.

The Warbirds is at its best as the story of a combat unit in the post-Vietnam military struggling to prepare for war, as a portrait of a unit under wartime conditions, and as a study of leadership. As a whole, it remains an excellent novel.

The novel begins with the 45th Air Wing posted to Egypt, where the first segment of the book begins. As storm clouds gather in the Persian Gulf, and following a clash with Libyan plans, the unit is reposted to RAF Stonewood for training purposes, under its talented new leader "Muddy" Waters. The last third of the book covers its posting to the Persian Gulf to oppose an Iranian campaign to overrun the oilfields.

Richard Herman has a real talent in populating his novels with distinctive and memorable characters. The Warbirds establishes the core group of the early Herman novels, in particular: Anthony "Muddy" Waters, Jack Locke, James "Thunder" Bryant, Doc Landis, Rupert Stansell and Ambler Furry. Herman defines his characters by their actions. The resulting is a set of interesting and likable individuals.

Perhaps by virtue of his own Air Force experience, Herman's depiction of the service is frank. Particular emphasis is paid to the necessity of adaptation under training and combat conditions. Bureaucracy takes its toll on the characters, and the hero, Muddy Waters, is forced to repeatedly defend both his men and his command from rivals in the Air Force.

The last third of the book contains some very well rendered depictions of combat. The 45th is steadily attritted by combat against an Iranian army, and, in the final section of the book, forced to fight for its life against an amphibious attack. The losses it suffers are made vivid by the author's willingness to sacrifice likable characters (something lacking in other genre authors).

Good characterization, tense action and (amateur editorial review above to the contrary) solid plotting make The Warbirds an early classic of the military genre and a great first novel for Richard Herman. By all means read this and then Force of Eagles, which is its immediate sequel.

With vivid characters and outstanding technical support to throw the reader into the action it is a treat. You get to watch the inner workings of Generals and politicians dancing around each in a sabre dance. As you ride with the young hotshot Lt. Locke, you will feel every G as he throws you for a loop. Richard Herman Jr. is a worthy techno-fiction writer for someone first starting out in the gerne.

Definetly one of the best thrillers I've come across in a long time. "The Warbirds" doesn't neccessarily have all kinds of high-tech weapons and aircraft you see in other fine thrillers, but instead Herman focuses on the development of the characters themselves, and includes one action-filled scene after another, with vivid flying sequences involving everything from tense training emergencies to all-out war. The fact that Herman flew F-4s in combat lends a large degree of credibility to his descriptions of aircraft, weapons, and the people who fly them. A top-notch thriller from start to finish!

Every bit as intense as the new WWII airwar novel I just read, "The Triumph and the Glory", and as action-packed as any of Clancy's best, "Iron Gate" is a super book, I was very impressed with it.

This is an action-packed thriller for readers who like fast actions and war scenes. Unlike Tom Clancy, (who slow down the actions with too much tech-data), Richard Herman does not waste too much time to bring the readers right into the actions. The flow of the story is smooth and the writer keeps readers interested at all times. I would recommand reading Dark Wing before reading Iron Gate (although the story is not as smooth, it gives you more information about the main characters).

Dale Brown and Tom Clancy are great, but Richard Herman is the best! His only equal is Stephen Coonts. The only problem I have with Herman is that he kills off his main characters (eg., Muddy Waters and Jack Locke). I am presently reading Iron Gate and cannot put it down. Keep up the good work Mr. Herman!

For some reason the entire line up of Richard Herman's books appeared on my favourite bookseller's shelves a year or so ago, at ridiculously low prices. I was intrigued, and laid out the necessary bucks.

Well - it was worthg it. In fact, twice the price would have been fair. Not, of course, that I'm complaining.

"Force Of eagles" is the second of Herman's books, and it's a great yarn. Tautly plotted, with excellent airborne and land battle sequences, the action's non-stop. The concentrated action, however, doesn't interfere with the development of a bunch of likeable characters.

Yes folks, it's battle time, and the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. (OK, so they're a little cliched. But hey... get with the picture. They are the bad guys, after all!)

The scenario's realistic (Herman must have war-gamed the action a number of times) and is told from a number of perspectives: the pilots, the ground-crew, the medics, the CO and his staff, the odd civilian.

Good stuff... as good as Dale Brown, without the political posturing of the letter.

This is the first book I picked up by Herman ( I just happened to see the F-15 Eagle on the cover while browsing a bookstore). I have re-read this book so many times the binding is coming loose! I had to go back and read his first novel The Warbirds and have added it and every book since Force of Eagles to my collection. If you like reading about the military and the Air Force in paticular, Herman is the author for you! Lots of action scenes as well as political background information. A general synopsis of the book would be what could have happnened had the U.S. lost the Gulf War.

The genral at the pentogon is very mad because he wants his people out of prison. he does not care who does the job. Stansell gets the job and puts together a rescue team to get the pows out, but it is not easy trying to do all this. THIS book is the best i would recomend this book to any one.

Herman Ridderbos asserts that the material authority of the New Testament canon properly belongs within the scope of redemptive history, with the apostles serving as Old Testament-style prophets and witnesses to the redemptive event of Jesus Christ, specially commissioned and authorized by him to proclaim the kerygma. ... Ridderbos is extremely helpful in dispelling myths about the early church granting an authority to a group of writings arbitrarily and a-historically. He clearly demonstrates that the apostles saw themselves in a continuing line of witnesses to God's acting in history, and that the early church accepted this authority. His interaction with Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Reformed perspectives on the canon are helpful as he tries to clarify how his view both rejects the Roman Catholic and Lutheran teaching and builds upon the Reformed view. In its usefulness as an apologetic work, Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures is hindered by the centrality of the a priori of faith. However, for those who hold to this a priori already, it is a thorough justification in its defense.

This is not a review but a correction - the translator should be "Gaffin", not "Graffin"

This thin and razor sharp piece of scholarship is essential to the understanding and defense of true protestant religion. Too many so-called protestants don't know the first thing about "Sola Scriptura." And among the slightly aware, canonicity is a much neglected topic. Get a life and read this book today.

What a peace-nik. Not that that's all bad, but when you don't go to war, because you don't want your son to become a pilot in 15 years. Come on Dick?!? Richard Herman, a former pilot, was probably much better in a plane (I hope). This would've been a great story to sit around and hear him tell in a bar somewhere, but the book just made me want to slap the president. (ok, so I guess it is like real life) I would never recommend NOT reading a book, but if you've got a choice you may want to put this on the back burner for when you can't find anything else to read.

If you like Dale Brown, you'll love this book. Contains the power struggles in Washington focused around the White House, Pentagon, and personalities. On the aviation side, a good read as well. If you like reading high tech espionage books with ample doses of power, intrigue and war, this book is for you. A perfect book to take along on a vacation. Others have commented that Herman wasn't factual with the aviation, the Washington power struggles, and I think he could have closed the story a little better. I don't know about you, but I read to relax, and this one was a fun read. I couldn't wait to get a few moments to take in another chapter or two. I loved it!

This is the first Richard Herman novel I have read, and I was pleased with it's intelligence, and relevance to today's politics and culture. Human relationships, world affairs and the mlitary are portrayed with depth and subtlety. I've noticd all the reviews posted about Herman's books are posted by men. This might give the misleading-if prejudiced- impression that these books are "Wham Band- shoot-em-up" books. Not true. Everyone might enjoy- and benefit- from this book

Well, start off with very flat stereotypically characters: Brave dashing American Hero (hot pilot low responsibility), Toss in some evil Arabs (chemical warfare types), some brave Zionists (protecting their country), even a sexy female spy (only there for the love interest and honey trap). Now mix this well with a scene stolen right from TopGun, a tragic flight accident to turn our hero around by interfacing him with a experienced legend.

This book is the typical formula that that was old after Clancy's first book - it is looking no better with age. So, we have nothing new - but the death of many trees. It is a sad thing that this type of book gets published when there are probably much better books just waiting.

Israel is under siege (again) in "Firebreak" by USAF Veteran Richard Herman. While armies and fighter planes converge on Israel, both Israel's and America's leadership grapple around like blind men, and opportunists on overy side use every subtle (and not so subtle) trick to turn things their way. Author Richard Herman is supposed to be an expert on military aviation, but he may be out of his league when he goes into the political sphere (actually, few of the political machinations in "Firebreak" are subtle), and when he goes into combat flight mode - supposedly his expert area - Herman creates flight scenes to anemic to remind readers of the high-speed knife-fights that first aroused their interest in air combat.

In between the combat, Herman shows a less-than-deft approach to Israeli politics. USAF pilots, well educated as they are, usually have their own opinions about such subjects as Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the settlements erected there - but Herman's protagonist is conveneiently clueless, and the readers can take heart that a sultry Israeli love interest is on hand to explain the UN resolutions against the Settlements while arab bombs rain down from above. The Knesset scenes, where charachteristically litiguous Isreali politicians censure each other for believing their own propaganda, is probably accurate. Less so are scenes meant to depict life in typical Israeli combat units. One such unit, a tank platoon, contains a Druze arab and an orthodox jew, the latter of the two doesn't really do anything but annoy his commander. Because the orthodox doesn't really exist outside his CO's negative perspective, he comes across less as a separate charachter than a blank apparently intended to symbolize all orthodox jewish soldiers. Let those orthodox jews who serve extended military tours debate the accuracy - it's simply poor writing, the product of any writer who can push just about anything with his miltary credentials, no matter how unrelated to his area of actual expertise. Doubtless orthodox soldiers still unaccounted for in the Lebanon war weren't given copies of "Firebreak" to enliven their captivity (assuming they lived long enough for the paperback ed.)

Worst of all, Herman's Israeli protagonist is the sexy Israeli linked up with the novel's hero. When are writers going to wise-up and realize how dated this stereotype is? This has to be the 3rd book I've read since the Gulf war that featured Israelis exploiting sex. Desert Storm, which showed how far ahead our military is in just about every way, has also revealed the how medeival technothriller writers are. Herman's understanding of the mid-east clearly neglects how often real-life anti-zionists (whether Islamic fundamentalist or secular pan-arabist) fall back on the stereotype of Female Mossad agents seducing otherwise stalwart arabs into sedition. So dated is this stereotype that, were Herman's military units comparably equipped, they'd be fighting with slingshots and pointy sticks.

Instead, Herman applies his critical thinking to his command of military technology, but even here comes up flat. These have to be the flattest flight scenes of any technothriller - comparable to some circa-1991 flight simulator. As usual for this sort of book, the plane come off feeling less like soaring engines of military might than cheap plastic models. Ofcourse the author refuses to depict air-to-air confrontations from a single point-of-view, preferring instead to show where his planes are at all times. In real air combat, the relative positions of different planes is one of the single most important factors. Herman's inability to exploit this element robs his air combat of both drama and realism, marring a book with little credibility to recommend it.

In the footsteps of his previous novels The Warbirds and Force of Eagles, it shows formerly irresponsible pilot Jack Locke in command of a squadron in the 45th with the grandson of the President under his command. This book shows how Matt Pontowski changed from a spoiled grandson to a top-notch fighter pilot with confirmed kills in combatOne thing about Herman that happens quite often, is that he seems to kill off his characters prematurely, such in the case of Col. Waters, Thunder Bryant, and in this book, Jack Locke and Mike Martin. However, this "aura" of death serves as a prod for the upcoming officers to prove their worth. Some do, and some don't. The former fighter pilot certainly writes a great book, one that is worth reading over and over without losing any of its impact.

Dark Wing was OK, but definetly not Mr. Herman's best. It was the first A-10 novel I've come across, and the flight scenes were excellent, however they only made up a small portion of the book, with the rest occupied with various other subplots, many of which I felt weren't needed for the story. The whole thing with Kamigami formulating all his strategy based on his girlfriend's dreams and predictions of the future seemed a wee bit far-fetched, and didn't add much, if anything, to the story. Still, it's essential reading for any Herman fan.

The book was a sugestion from my military father so I knew that if it had to do with the military it would be good. I was right in believing so. The book kept me enchanted and I followed along wanting more. I was indeedwanting more when it ended and would love to see him right another one. I've always loved the A-10 and Rich did it justice.

Dark Wing is the second book by Richard Herman that I have read, and I can say that it is fantastic! He gives the A-10 the needed publicity it deserves as a kick ass warplane. The plot is interesting and has lots of twists and turns. His technical descriptions are great, not over-explaining things and not under-explaining them. This book drops from a 10 to a 9 because of all the Chinese names, internal Chinese politics, and Chinese spirituality. Other than that, a great read.

This book is a complete waste. The central thesis is a
joke. The South spilled a lot of blood trying to save their
new nation and to say they lacked nationalism is bad. There was
problems with State's Rights issues among the various Governors
of the States (esp. Georgia, N. Carolina) but among the soldiers
it wasn't that bad.

The author's continued comparison of the South's
military tactic's to those of German and French General's
who served under Napolean is just annoying since the books
written by these Generals were either not yet published in
English or published at all and I doubt that many confederates
spent much time reading them the works in French or German.

This book is just another reason why many people think
history is boring. If you want a good read, pick up a Civil
War book by James McPherson, Shelby Foote, Douglas Southall
Freeman, or Bruce Catton.

The thesis of this book is that the South lost the War because of insufficient nationalism. To call this argument preposterous is to be kind. Out of a white population of nine million the South lost a quarter of a million dead and many times that number in wounded. The South kept fighting until every Southern city was controlled by the Union. A small agrarian nation, the South fought a large, industrialized nascent world power. Unbelievably the South came close to winning this unequal contest. To contend that the South failed because of lack of will is ahistoric and a contemptible insult to the brave rebels who fell under the stars and bars. A better judge of Southern will during that war was General Grant who, while attacking the Southern cause, admitted that never had men fought harder for a cause than the Southerners.

Every time I look at this book I cringe. These "scholars" simply ignore the battles themselves. The battles deteriorated southern will, not the other way around!! This book is horrible and I am cringing as I write.