Ian Slater, 30 Years After

We mentioned author Ian Slater a few days ago and think it would be useful to delve into his World War III books. 

These are at once interesting and maddingly frustrating. The former because Slater's Third World War isn't as formulaic as his contemporaries, the latter because as the war goes on, it becomes more and more implausible.  

Spoilers ahead.

Slater's WWIII ends with a limited nuclear exchange. This is started because his Mary-Sue General, Douglas Southhall Freeman (what's up with that?) uses tactical nukes on his own authority in Korea. As we recall Seatlle and Detroit get nuked. Slater cleverly has Japanese auto execs being horrified because the American Big Three automakers will rebuild and surpass Japanese auto technology. 

General Freeman was fun, when we were 18. But we suspect he'd annoy us now. He's basically Slater's homage to Patton, George C. Scott's Patton. That's not a good thing.* Freeman turns things around in the foundering Korean theatre with a raid on Pyongyang, which was interesting. [And influential, no?-Ed] Quite right. A beleaguered president then sends Freeman to Europe to rescue the situation there. 

We'll give Freeman credit for spreading the war to the Aleutians [Once again, influential -Ed]. Yep. But this leads to a rather absurd scenario where in volume four of Slater's series, Siberia secedes from a defeated USSR and continues the war. After a really stupid battle around the Diomedes, the US sends an army deep into the hinterland. Another absurdity. Imagine the logistics involved. There are references at the end of the third book to NATO forces actually invading the Soviet Union. [You did-Ed] Yeah but on the periphery. [Crimea is the periphery?-Ed] Point taken. But we just don't think VII Corpe rolling into Ukraine is a workable idea.

We'll also say this for the man. Thirty years after having read Slater's World War III books, we remember a lot of the characters, especially a trio of siblings in various American service branches. Though not their names. There was the Marine guy, the navy sub guy on honeymoon with his limey wife. Oh, and the nurse sister. Heh, anyone else remember what the nurse got in trouble for? [What are you, 18?-Ed] No but we were then, and that scene always stuck with us. Hello nurse!

*That wasn't the real Patton. Not hardly.