My personal favorite part of Backshot was Daly's mission to help the army. It brought back warm fuzzies of one particular training mission I had with 4th LAR as it was my first actual reconnaissance patrol that I lead with only a six man element, in Australia. Twas lots and lots of fun. I like working in small groups like that as opposed to larger squad or platoon sized elements.
I loved the book too. And how messy it was (did I see a slam dunk parallel..lol). Daly and Dean are my two favorite characters of the StarFist uni thusly.
On a personal note, it might be my misogynistic, elitist man-ways but I wasn't too fond of Dwan. She was a good character for the book but, if she were are real wm and I had to work with her in real life, I'd kick her in the teeth. Again good character for the book to evoke that kind of emotion from me, it's just a personal thing.
Just finished Backshot and really enjoyed it. Bella was good character, actually liked the way you made her able to be "Human" instead of just being a hard arse. You let shultz open a tad two in flashfire by letting him get with the new chef at barb's, no one is a robot, it makes the charcaters easier to believe.
You had me worried the FR team on the Patch might not make it back to the AstroGhost. I would have to go back and draw out all the zigs and zags they took to avoid the searchs, but seemed longer than the 300 km's they said it was!
I know others seemed to be let down when Lavager got waxed, but I figured two things, One: you werent to going to go to all the trouble of writing out the sniper team, and not let them score, and Two: You wrote Lavager with a tad to much "Idealist" qualities, those people always seem to get whacked by the fanatics, so I fully expected him to get killed. On the other hand was a very cool character and enjoyed him as well.
Im starting Point Blank tonight and that will bring me up to firestorm, I thought I had it, but hadnt realized it wasnt a paperback, so have to order it, couple days.
As for Amazon reviews......BAH..... I have to agree with Finucane opinions are like @#!$#! everyone has one.
Great book, great addition to the series, look forward to more.