Category: War Publisher: Ronald W. Hull
ISBN-10: 1591136423
Type: Fiction
Pages: 281
Copyright: Jan 10, 2005
ISBN-13: 9781591136422
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
What if the unthinkable, more devastating than 9/11, happened?
What if there was no evidence so no one ever found out who did it?
What if, the only way to fight such diabolical terrorism was entirely new?
These questions and others are addressed in Ron Hull's, War's End. In his third novel, Hull delves into a topic that has global implications. Filled with suspense and intrigue, he takes us into a scenario that, if it ever happened, would challenge the United States to its very core. His hero, Ali Rasheed, the son of an immigrant, becomes a spy like no other in the history of the world. Follow Ali on his journey into the unknown. Experience the real life of a mole. Find out what he finds out. The enemy isn't always what it seems.
War's End is not for the avid action fan. Ron Hull realizes that action for action's sake does not a good story make. Instead, War's End challenges the reader to think—not the way things are—but the way they could be, if war, as we know it, would come to an end.
"Ali was close enough now so that he could see that a crowd had gathered by a stage in the center of the buildings. The man talking on the loudspeaker was walking back and forth on the stage and waving his arms as he spoke. The crowd raised their arms in unison for almost every statement that he made. Someone was hanging, spread-eagled, behind him. Ali had to get a closer look. He squirmed out of his backpack and pulled out the binoculars he had picked up at a garage sale for two bucks. He panned over the crowd and stage until he got them focused, and then he zeroed in on the man hanging. “Oh my God!” Ali found himself muttering. It was Rob! "Rob was tied, spread-eagled, between two tall poles with ropes. He was naked and bloody. His head was on his chest like he had passed out. Ali fought the nausea that came from deep in his gut. He had to get out of there. He gathered up his backpack and slipped it on. He heard the man on the loudspeaker saying a prayer. By the time the prayer reached, “Amen,” Ali was two hundred yards from where he had been and running full tilt. His foot caught on a root and he felt himself slamming into the ground."
Professional Reviews
A Magnificent Story
This Tom Clancy(ish) story begins where 911 left off, with the United States still very vulnerable to terrorist attack. The unthinkable happens — Washington, D.C. is leveled in a nuclear blast, taking a large segment of the established Federal Government with it. Those individual officials lucky enough to escape the conflagration are thrown into turmoil, but soon establish lines of control and calm a terrified nation. The new president sets up a clandestine training program she calls Freedom’s Lancers. Its purpose is to develop a super secret cadre of young spies of the highest educational caliber with a mission to seep into the fabric of society in scores of countries across the globe. These highly dedicated undercover agents are to ferret out and report on illegal arms shipments and other activities of a detrimental nature to the free world. Where possible to do so without compromising their secret identity, they are to effect countermeasures. In addition to intense academic studies, their training includes every aspect of the most modern electronics, armaments, guerilla warfare techniques and martial arts.
The protagonist of the story, Ali Jaheed, is an immigrant with close ties to his family in Pakistan, which makes him a prime candidate for the Freedom’s Lancers program. His intellectual and physical profiles more than qualify him for the program and he is inducted at the age of seventeen for his college education followed by a twenty-year hitch with the Lancers. His career path will take him into lands untamed by western standards, lands that harbor the haunts and escape routes of Osama bin Laden and a large contingent of gun-running, dope dealing thugs, as well as ruggedly independent indigent peoples that scratch an honest living from these inhospitable lands. Into this cauldron Ali plunges with gusto and finds deep friendships and lethal enemies, some of which are one and the same. There are adventurous life threatening experiences at every turn — as well as romance in many delicious flavors.
Dr. Ronald Hull has created a magnificent story here, one that keeps you excited in your linear search for the next adventure to leap from the pages. One has to wonder how Dr. Hull could amass such detail and plot as he does from the confines of a wheel chair. The book reads as if Ron were himself present and reporting from the trails of Genghis Khan and Marco Polo, and even that of bin Laden. The answer has to be that he avails himself of prodigious research and a vivid imagination, not to mention an overload of tenacious energy. This is fiction with pizzazz.
I did find a couple of minor negatives. I believe the book would have been even more focused and compelling early on if the short chapters 2, 3 and 6 were excised. They showcase some of the author’s impressive command of military armament and demonstrate the dangers of post-blast operations in a radioactive area, but in my opinion they tend to dilute the main theme through exposition of a few characters, most of whom are ancillary at best. They delay getting to the heart of the real story with background not necessary for the plot. There were also a number of places that a rigorous line editing operation would have corrected and made smoother.
In my overall assessment of War’s End these are small irritations that will receive attention by the author before the second printing and will have little negative significance for your enjoyment of this great book. I highly recommend it for its thrilling action adventure motif and style. It should also appeal to those with a desire to explore the virtues of a different and perhaps more effective way to accomplish the security goals of freedom loving societies — security goals that hurling vast armies and armaments at will-o-the-wisp terrorists exercising their suicidal and hit-and-run tactics apparently don’t accomplish. Four stars for this book! It could be screenplay material!
On a scale not even the most jaded could envision happened to Washington, D.C, and surrounding territories one infamous, black day
when it was obliterated by a primitive, but very lethal nuclear bomb. “War’s End” is the novel which chronicles events in this horrible aftermath.
Ali Rasheed and Rob Johnson, are friends from their childhood. Rob has suddenly disappeared. His mother turns to Ali in a most unorthodox way to soothe her aching heart. Ali goes in search for his friend, eventually finding him in a backwater place called Razorback, Arkansas. What he sees so horrifies him he runs away, leaving his friend to his awful fate.
In the meantime what is left of the nation’s government a frantic reassembling is taking place. Those trapped inside a bunker-like container beneath the surface of the earth are miraculously rescued and are soon to be part of the unification of the government.
Ali, instead if being able to grieve for his friend Rob, who he is certain is dead, he and his father are contacted by the Department of State requesting a meeting with both of them. In that meeting Ali is asked to join a very elite, top secret unit by the name of Freedom Lancers. After two years of rigorous and difficult training he is posted, secretly, in Pakistan, a spy in one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
As events unfold Ali falls in love with a beautiful woman by the name of Dina, and she with him. She has also been trained in the field of espionage like Rob They are separated by events beyond their control.
“War’s End” is a riveting, fantastic look at a war fought in an unusual way. And as Ali goes about his dangerous business his lifelong friend, Rob, has chosen a far different course in his life. I can’t say enough for this book. Engrossing comes to mind.
“War’s End” eloquently narrates a well thought out and realistic means of preventing war knitted into a thoroughly enjoyable novel. Dr. Ronald Hull’s expressive style smoothly spans a volatile period of two decades in an unprecedented world. I suspect that many readers will become as endeared as I did to the book’s starring paragon, Ali. I noticed numerous grammar errors and typos, which normally spoils a book for me; however, this tale is so well written otherwise, so thoroughly researched, and so plausible that I mentally brushed those minute distractions aside and sped forward to discover the outcomes. The writer verbalizes adventures through scenes among the Pashtun tribe in the Hindu Kush region of Pakistan so well that I feel as though I was there with my AK-47 ready.
This is my kind of novel, which is woven with edgy adventure, suspense, and a touching love story, too! Well done!
I never even got to this page last time I was here. It's amazing how you fired out these Three novels in so a short span and with each one your writing has grown in power and boldness of plot. I may give up novel writing altogether after reading yours--I envisioned a thriller plot like this for my "The Golden Flute" but frankly in 15 years failed to bring it off. I'll have to read this one too now! Now you've given me more reading to do! Stop writing incredibly adventuresome, exciting themed novels. But thank God, I hope you have a positive conclusion for all of us at the end of your adventures similar to K.E. Your incredibly prolific. You deserve major publication!
The book proceeding on what is accessible from the excerpt and the extensive review appears to be a very well-crafted story of great significance but I have not yet been able to get the book (on top of it all I'm on a very tight budget at the moment due to projects that do not immediately generate funds but are significant in a different way). I'd like to see the entire book and have about 2 months time to read it, for I would like to comment on it as a whole.
(P.S.: You mentioned the "Howling Monkey" in a former message. I haven't been able to localise the text on the Den.)
With best wishes for good health and success
Mahdi
War’s End — Ronald W. Hull (Book Review)
ISBN: 1-5913-642-3 Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
6”x9” Perfect Bound, 281 pages
This Tom Clancy(ish) story begins where 911 left off, with the United States still very vulnerable to terrorist attack. The unthinkable happens — Washington, D.C. is leveled in a nuclear blast, taking a large segment of the established Federal Government with it. Those individual officials lucky enough to escape the conflagration are thrown into turmoil, but soon establish lines of control and calm a terrified nation. The new president sets up a clandestine training program she calls Freedom’s Lancers. Its purpose is to develop a super secret cadre of young spies of the highest educational caliber with a mission to seep into the fabric of society in scores of countries across the globe. These highly dedicated undercover agents are to ferret out and report on illegal arms shipments and other activities of a detrimental nature to the free world. Where possible to do so without compromising their secret identity, they are to effect countermeasures. In addition to intense academic studies, their training includes every aspect of the most modern electronics, armaments, guerilla warfare techniques and martial arts.
The protagonist of the story, Ali Jaheed, is an immigrant with close ties to his family in Pakistan, which makes him a prime candidate for the Freedom’s Lancers program. His intellectual and physical profiles more than qualify him for the program and he is inducted at the age of seventeen for his college education followed by a twenty-year hitch with the Lancers. His career path will take him into lands untamed by western standards, lands that harbor the haunts and escape routes of Osama bin Laden and a large contingent of gun-running, dope dealing thugs, as well as ruggedly independent indigent peoples that scratch an honest living from these inhospitable lands. Into this cauldron Ali plunges with gusto and finds deep friendships and lethal enemies, some of which are one and the same. There are adventurous life threatening experiences at every turn — as well as romance in many delicious flavors.
Dr. Ronald Hull has created a magnificent story here, one that keeps you excited in your linear search for the next adventure to leap from the pages. One has to wonder how Dr. Hull could amass such detail and plot as he does from the confines of a wheel chair. The book reads as if Ron were himself present and reporting from the trails of Genghis Khan and Marco Polo, and even that of bin Laden. The answer has to be that he avails himself of prodigious research and a vivid imagination, not to mention an overload of tenacious energy. This is fiction with pizzazz.
I did find a couple of minor negatives. I believe the book would have been even more focused and compelling early on if the short chapters 2, 3 and 6 were excised. They showcase some of the author’s impressive command of military armament and demonstrate the dangers of post-blast operations in a radioactive area, but in my opinion they tend to dilute the main theme through exposition of a few characters, most of whom are ancillary at best. They delay getting to the heart of the real story with background not necessary for the plot. There were also a number of places that a rigorous line editing operation would have corrected and made smoother.
In my overall assessment of War’s End these are small irritations that will receive attention by the author before the second printing and will have little negative significance for your enjoyment of this great book. I highly recommend it for its thrilling action adventure motif and style. It should also appeal to those with a desire to explore the virtues of a different and perhaps more effective way to accomplish the security goals of freedom loving societies — security goals that hurling vast armies and armaments at will-o-the-wisp terrorists exercising their suicidal and hit-and-run tactics apparently don’t accomplish. Four stars for this book! It could be screenplay material!
