Casca returns from the Chinese empire and runs into Shapur II, the reigning king of the Persian Empire. Almost against his will, Casca joins the empire and becomes one of its greatest generals. As a whole, this story weaves good historical fact research with excellent military strategy. The battle scenes in this book are well planned and completely original. The major fallback to this novel is the woman whom Casca falls for. The story lacks a strong romantic base, and the romance detracts from the storyline and the series in general. All in all, this title lives up to the series name and Sadler's writing ability.

This story is set right before the events that began the first book and shows how Casca came to be in the army hospital. This is about Casca trying to stop a Viet Cong assassin squad carrying out its mission, and the personal duel between Casca and the Viet squad leader that has a unique conclusion in the crocodile infested swamps of southern Vietnam. You can tell from the dialogue and action sequences that the author had been there and this gives the book that authentic feel that many war stories don't have.

Although historically accurate - and the author here seems to have taken great pains on historic detail, more than can be said for some of his others - the story appears at times disjointed as though more than one person wrote this. The return of Casca to the lands of the Teotec keeps the interest going but it isn't the best written story. I liked the chapter he was in the Spanish dungeon, however, and this was the best written part.

Agree with Jadapandy below. A great novelizaion of historcal war events. Sadler's tireless research results in an action-packed adventure that leaves the reader spellbound, and wanting more. Did anyone say "High-Lander"?

tHIS IS YET ANOTHER INSTALLMENT IN ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST DIFFERENT BOOK SERIES TO DATE. aLL ARE GOOD, SOME JUST BETTER THAN OTHERS. a MUST READ FOR ALL.

Yes, definitely similar to the Dogs of War by Frederick Forsythe, and also to the film Wild Geese (Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris etc). For those reasons I mark it down as it rather lacked an original flavour and the ending was somewhat predictable. The storyline parallels the fall of Idi Amin of Uganda in 1979 (the story seems to have taken place around 1977 however)with a brutal dictator being overthrown by mercenaries. Casca's friend Gus comes along once again for one last mission. Good action and plenty of thrills but not original enough to be a classic.

This one sort of reminded me of 'The dogs of war' by Fred Forsythe (sp?). I liked the way the story manages to move quickly while still being descriptive enough to give the reader an idea of what it is like in some of those messed up African countries. Gus is in this one too, which can only be a plus in my book.

After spending 10 years in collecting the entire series of Casca books I was very eager to read about The Mongol which was the last but one I collected. Being something of a history nut I knew a fair bit about the history of Genghis Khan and found little in Barry Sadler's story that didn't sound true. I was however a little disappointed in the way the story seemed to tail off and die. It was as though Sadler got a point in the story and thought 'gee, better finish this quick as its getting a bit long'. That aside the story told well the formative part of Genghis' rise to power - I particularly liked Casca's "Conan the Barbarian" role as the chained beast at the beginning. I was a bit puzzled at the character of Qubilai - surely he was Genghis' grandson and never saw Genghis alive? No matter, the story was well written and was typical Sadler, action, adventure and mayhem. Sadler will be missed.

In this story Casca wanders to the Mongolian plains in the late 1100's to meet up with a young tribesman who will someday be known as Ghengis Kahn, leader of all Mongols. He takes this young kid and teaches him the skills that only someone with over a thousand years of experience could, how to fight, lead men, and wage war.

The Khan character was well developed. I actually did some research on Ghengis Kahn after I got done reading this book and found Sadlers research pretty sound. He did change some of the names of the key historical figures though, but I couldn't figure out what the reason for that was.

It is too bad we can't ask him. I'm sure he'd have a good reason behind it.

I've read (and re-read many times) the entire Cascaseries. Mr. Dengali made a valiant effort to continue the series, butfailed to grasp the character. The book was verbose to the extreme, filled with grammatical errors and errors of usage. The editor is at fault for this failing. "Taught" instead of "taut?" Please.

Perhaps had the editor been familiar with the storyline of the series, Casca would have drowned after the pirate episode. Which not only would have let us bypass several pages, but would have been true to the character.

A hard read, a story drawn beyond a viable length, and an indistinct setting, combined to make this book less than I had hoped for.

But Paul, don't give up! Re-read the originals, cut down on the flowery prose and take another crack at it! I'd love to see another one.

I seem to rememeber a mention of Machiavelli...

This is a long overdue restart of a really promising action-adventure series that ended with the authors untimely death. It is certainly not the series at it's height; lacking the clarity and imagination of Casca's sojourn among the Aztecs for example. It is, however, a reasonable start and I for one will buy (at least) the next few to give the author(s?) some time to work his way into the character. I get the feeling that the current author got the sense of the series from a "Bible" prepared by the publishers, rather than from reading the series itself. There is misplaced constant emphasis, for example on scarring, that gets a bit "old" quickly. There is also little reference to his past military skills and the battle scenes are done quickly as though the author really wanted to write a love story rather than an action adventure. I don't get the feeling that the author feels comfortable with details of swordplay, tactics (or fighting in general) that Sadler, the original author, had down cold. For example, here Casca is in a position to introduce new tactics to a primitive people and just stands there waiting to get back to his orgy at the hut. The real details are relative to the romance which is not the thrust of the series. One suspects that the author was expecting a cover with someone who couldn't believe it's not butter.

In essence, I always wondered if they would restart this series, and I will certainly support it (for a couple more books at least ) in hopes of it getting some writing that captures the sense of actual combat and the excitement and wonder of the earlier entries. Worth trying, but for a long term thing it needs mucho work.

The Eternal Mercenary has returned. Casca doomed by Jesus to an endless life as Soldier travels through time and places which we mortals will never see nor experience. In this new episode Casca returns from the deep of the atlantic ocean and again is content to do what he knows best, fight against man's evil doing. Barry Sadler who created this book series died in 1989. His experience as a Vietnam Soldier (Special Forces, Green Beret) and his mercenary work in South America gave Barry Sadler the edge and knowledge. His masterful story telling woven of History, Adventure and Military Traditions makes this book series worth to collect. There are 22 novels by Barry Sadler. Now Casca has returned saving an african tribe of total extinction. Paul Dengelegi did good, he interlinks History with Adventure and Military Tradition with the Pain and Sorrow of War. If you have read the 22 novels you will enjoy this one. If not than it is time to get them and find out who CASCA is.

Its the late 50s and Casca and Gus (his pal from WW2) team up with a hardened band of mercs to rescue a couple of American civilians from the clutches of Tuareg tribesmen. A gripping tale but sometimes the plot slips and you have to backtrack to check out that you didn't miss something. This is something of a cross between the Dirty Dozen and the Wild Geese. Certainly worth a read for the escapist military adventure fan out there.

I found Casca: Soldier of Fortune to be missing the usual suspense and mystery of previous (chronologically) episodes of the immortal character. In large part, the more contemporary setting of the Vietnam era/Indochinese region was too recent in history to provide an adequately romantic vision of life and war. Casca (a.k.a. Casey Romain) plays a less pivotal role with narator time being more equally split among his cohorts in the jungle. It took me over half of the book to really sink into the plot. I couldn't identify with the supporting cast. A short book, such as Barry Sadler composes, does not lend itself to this kind of schism. If you really like modern war stories, this might still be your cup of tea...or coffee. But I much prefer the medieval or ancient adventures of our eternally cursed legionnaire that delve more deeply into his psyche. This work is too divergent from the original feel of Sadler's authorship.

Too bad Barry Sadler is dead.. I don't think he would approve of the way Casca is rewritten....

worst casca book ever written. casca is mainly a side bar in the book was so bored did not even finish book . as a fan who is hungry for the next casca book i would starve before buying one written by dengelegi. please get a new author.

If you liked Barry Sadler's Casca books, it is difficult to imagine how you could like this one. Every time Casca would have done X, the imposter in this book did Y. It was like being given something that looks like an apple, but when bitten tastes like burnt liver.

This the last book in the CASCA series is a letdown. Haveing read the other 19, I expected much more.

The thing about writing a series of historically related books is to keep a timeline as accurately as possible. In this instance the writer who took Barry Sadler's original notes (Sadler did not complete this one) made a real mess of it. The incidents in this overdone novel relate to the 1967 Six-Day War but chronologically in the Casca series it occurs AFTER 1970 (I think Sadler was going to write about the Yom Kippur War). Also this book tends to be one mad assault on an Arab fortress after another and it gets boring. The only relief is a brief lull in Jerusalem when Casca does a bit of reminiscing. Otherwise its really a waste of the readers time unless you like a Steve Spielberg-style all-action Rambo all-out war from page 1 to the finish. YAWN.

There are two other Casca books written after this one. I really didn't care for this one as much as most of the others. Most of the story is somehow lacking in personality or any sort of imagination. I would reccomend not reading this one (or number 21 for that matter) until you have checked out the other ones in the series. Number 22 was pretty good ,if I remember correctly, as well.