Phantom Force

Another title I just struggled through where I had to check a few times to see if it was in fact written by another author with a fixation of Japanese weapons. If you just like action scenes in these titles and don't care about any plot or story line you may actually enjoy this title but for me it was one long bore. I don't like ghosts and spirits and other mystical nonsense so I guess my opinion of this title nose dived when this sort of stuff was included but again if that is your sort of thing you may enjoy this title more than I did. Long and drawn out it just seemed to go on and on with much of the same. Not for me to recommend for your reading here look elsewhere in the series.

Strangely enough this is one of 15 Mack Bolan books that were translated from English to Icelandic and while I was reading the book, I kind of got the feeling that some of the plot was lost in translation and more effort put into the action translation since this book has a huge potential but for some reason the plot wasn´t very solid or made interesting enough. I wanted to see more of that Unseen Power brutality, mentality, the masterminding thoughts and the background of the organization and their way of power The key issue of the book is in reality what was Kuro´s motive for his attacks against Jaico?? What was he going to use the information he gathered from organization? This was never really addressed in any shape or form yet this is the plot of the book. Perhaps the translation over to Icelandic kind of lost this part initially??? Yukiku was a nice psycho feeling to her and it would have made the character of the book more interested if her dark bitch side would have been explored in the book as she was controlling Kuro behind the scene in her seductive manner. In this book Bolan is viewed as an inhuman fighting machine walking through trials of fire against master warriors of the Unseen Powers but with other books in mind this is kind of unrealistic and even more unrealistic is that Bolan seems to be able to use and handle a few Japanese weapons as well as any Japanese weapons masters. This is an “OK” entertainment but there is nothing memorable about it. If you want constant action then this is a good book to read but if you want to a plot that is visible and characters who have some depth and are not shallow and have some characteristics and not just a name, then stay away from this book. (Iceland – 2007)

I enjoyed this book, it was a sleek fast paced adventure that was a quick and action packed read. Bolan has a rather different battle than usual in this novel. He has been challenged by a Japanese religious sect called Unseen Power, and they have a strict code of war that makes their enemy fight a series of their best warriors, called champions. In a nutshell the plot was a contrived idea to display Bolan fighting in Japan one on one in some scenes using martial arts weapons and moves. But nevertheless the author wrote this around a very well written and exciting adventure with great action scenes and intelligent storytelling. The ending was a little rushed, but still it wasn't bad. This is a very different type of Bolan book in some ways, mainly with the way Bolan fought against some of the villains, so if you prefer more of the standard Executioner assaults, you might not like it as much, but I thought Phantom Force provided enough entertainment to rate it an 8.

Never quite sure what the purpos of the Kuro's plan was with JAICO. What was Kuro going to do with the information gathered? Never clearly spelled out. The acton scenes were fantastic. The hand to hand combat especially. Of course this is also the major problem of the novel. Mack faced experts in martial arts who knew exactly how to fight with their individual weapons ie hands, bo, or sword. Yet Mack who is not an expert in martial arts was victorious each and every time with no major problem. I like Pendleton's Mack a lot more and how most writers have him as a man who is exceptional at soldiering but still human. This novel pushed credibility too much. On the good side Kuro and especially Yukiku were such fun characters. There was almost a homage to martial art movies to this novel. Yukiku was such a fun psycho-bitch. On the other hand the vision mumbo-jumbo was annoying. The action scenes were well written but pushed credibility. Mack is not invincible like Rainey has him. Kuro and Yukiku were fun characters. At best a 5.

A so-so entry nothing more.

Not a great book. Started to be a yawner, but i managed to get through it.