Invasion Downfall: A Global War Action Thriller

Not just the battle stuff but the characters are well-drawn as well. We are right there with the fleeing refugees and the displaced British PM. The writing is competent and enjoyable. This is a good writer. And this is a nice long book too, not some 90,000-word toss-off. But----No way could such a massive invasion be planned and staged without the West knowing about it. The West might not do anything about it but Europe would know it was coming. So, not good on that front.And....Britain today has very advanced American fighters which would take out disproportionate numbers of enemy aircraft, including the aircraft coming with the paratroops. The US, various European nations, and NATO space-based surveillance would pick up a fleet of heavy aircraft coming at the UK, the planes would take hours to get to the UK from the closest Caliphate nation.And... Brit subs have torpedoes and cruise missiles. The big civilian transport ships would be easy meat for the subs. The Caliphate could not hide such a large fleet, much less sail them into British ports and lay low until H-hour.And....Even the tea-drinking Brits would nuke the major cities of the Caliphate as soon as London went down. No worries about the French nukes falling into the hands of the Caliphate. The French subs would be at sea, the missiles would fire at Bagdad and the Force de Frape is long gone on the aircraft side.so, big problems with a believable scenario but very good writing. I think I'll read the next one and see how it goe.

D C Alden has written an awesome military thriller set a couple of decades in the future. The characters, both the heroes and villains, are solid and well-rounded. The scenes of epic battles are described in great detail.I have two comments: with the invasion, where was NATO in all this? Why wasn't Article 5 - mutual defense - not initiated? Or had NATO fallen by the wayside before this story took place?Second, I found it mildly amusing that we find several instances of roads being "dissected" rather than bisected. It might be of interest to future geologists to find strangely dissected roads. 😇This book is highly recommended if you enjoy military fiction. I fully intend to purchase other titles in this fascinating series.

This books covers the nightmare of every thinking person. The followers of Islam have stopper their internecine battles to form a unified Caliphate across North Africa and the Mideast. As the book opens, the Caliphate lashes out at Europe with a well-planned attack. Followers of Islam in the European communities arise to become terrorists and support their brothers in the invasion. A high price is paid for the willingness to accept large numbers of refugees. The terror arises from the fact that this story could very well be true. The narrative follows people on both sides as the invasion is carried into England. Top level officers of the Caliphate share the stage with people from England whose stories add detail and emotion to the plot. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom carries out a cat-and-mouse game with the General sworn to capture him. The battle action is covered well, and in a style that creates an emotional response. The frailties that make us human affect the participants on both sides, making the story more realistic. I'm afraid to read the next episode because I don't see how the forces of an irrational religion can be defeated.

I found the premise of the story to be quite believable and possibly a portent of our future. Any extremist group could carry this plan out. It would take many years buy look how long the Jewish, Christian, Muslim conflict has lasted so far. I am not a military expert so the weapons and actions seemed realistic enough to scare me. The people that were the center of the story were very sympathetic and I felt they responded in an appropriate manner. The British people have a pride and sense of honor that I was happy to see was not expected to disappear in the future. In other words, I liked the book and since there was not any hope for a "happy" ending, I was content with the hope for the future that was expressed.

SPOILERSThis book brought me back to the heady days of my youth reading Soviet WWIII invasion stories like Wingman, Survivalist, etc. A time when the bad guys were bad, cowardly backstabbers, the good guys were good, square jawed meat eaters, and a healthy dose of conservative derision at liberalism's penchant for acceptance was always at hand.Invasion, though putting Islam instead of Soviets as the enemy, shares many of the loveable tropes of the genre.The basic outline is a hegemonic Islamic Caliphate has risen in the Middle East and North Africa. Not even a scant explanation of how the leadership overthrew entrenched conservative regimes, overcame massive logistical, economic, and educational hurdles to such an effort. Basically, the authors opinion is that everyone in the area just rolls right along with this massive upheaval and everything gets sorted out in record time. Naturally the next logical move is to take over Europe. Why anyone wants to do so after explaining in the open pages that Europe is in a major depression is unclear. The British are marked as a source of potential resistance that worries the Caliphate, which only natural considering their long history as a target of foreign colonial avarice.The invasion begins after expertly maneuvering sleepers (hidden as immigrants and refugees, of course) expertly smuggle and coordinate a precision strike all over Europe using weapons and explosives while expertly avoiding any kind of notice by the targets governments. Of course all the people of the Caliphate seem to be expertly trained, and totally and expertly behind the cause. If my hyperbole hasn't shone through yet, it's only because I’ve hidden it expertly.The automaton-like portrayal of lockstep obedience to some theocratic ideal despite a massive, diverse empire with no sign of division, subversion, or resistance is a real nod to those old novels. The Caliphate operates like a single organism - they're like the New England Patriots starting line up if it were less duplicitous. Everything is explained very neatly as having to come together thanks to the Arab Spring as if this somehow explains the rise of a nation rivaling Rome at it's height or Alexander's empire.Moreover, the Caliphate has managed to dupe or cajole all manner of westerners into their employ, most of them presumably liberals who support asylum seekers, public assistance, and free college. We definitely know that many of them are socialists, and we all know hardcore socialists and hyperconservative theocracies have always been even faster friends than PC gamers and Consolers.The helpers include a horny Parliamentarian with the sense of a rock (by far the most immersive element of the story), an SAS CRW troopie on the Prime Minister's protective detail, presumably because the Ministry of Defence was doing their background checks on their Little Tikes My First Computer that day. Oh, and the French government rolls over before the first shot is even fired obviously.The invasion unfolds with the coordination of a halftime show (not that one where Bruce Springsteen slide crotch-first into the camera, the other ones) and the forces of the west flail around impotently in the face of specialist commandos, air traffic controllers, engineers, paratroopers, and baristas. Nary a police station, power plant, or water park and family fun center is spared their perfectly coordinated and undetected wrath.On a serious note, the writing is good, concise, and clear. The dialogue is much less stilted than you often see in this type of book, and is generally pretty decent. If you can't tell, the story is pretty over the top and very much a “Thanks, Obama!” approach of liberal blaming for everything. The author's knowledge of military equipment is middling, but not the worst. Overall, the book is an entertaining read and one I could give four stars if not for the laughable Islamophobia, right-wing fear, and generally absurd backstory written with utter seriousness.So if you thought Brexit was a half measure and Britain should have gone all the way and moved to the moon, this should be right up your alley though.