Able One- The Finale!

"To read is to fly; it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the the fruits of many inquiries."
- A C Grayling, Financial Review (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)

So I buckled down a read this thing like crazy for the past week in my spare time between waking up at 6 a.m. and getting to X-Scream Halloween (the haunted house I help work on building over the summer) at 9 a.m. to begin the hard labor. Okay so it's not that bad, but I did hunker down and read the book this week and it was worth every moment. If you have read my first post, you will know that the book I had read and enjoyed last was Ben Bova's "The Leviathans of Jupiter", so it should come as no surprise to you that "Able One" (another of Bova's beautiful works) was another intense and amazing book. But I'm catching myself rambling, so I'm going to get on with my review of the rest of the book.

We left off with the Emergency Action team meeting in the Pentagon and Jamil arguing with the Generals (General Schieb and General Higgins) that there is a large possibility that one of the two missiles on the launch pads in North Korea could be aimed at San Francisco. Right where the president is headed for what is supposed to be a live speech, broadcasted across the country. As we know though, that won't happen thanks to the rogue DRPK army faction that had sent a nuke into orbit and knocked out most of the satellites.

So in order to try to defend America and test out the new ABL-1, the order is sent for the ABL-1 to head for North Korea. The crew has a general reaction of 'I-- buh-- Aah fine!' so they head in that general direction.

Down in the laser housing, while the plane is in the air, after some small talk and a little bit of character development, Harry finds out that the ranging assembly had been taken out of it's housing.

Before I go any further, I just wanted to tell you that from right here, I had predicted who had stolen the ranging assembly.

From here, it tells you the story of Harry. He was one of the nerds in school, paying a tough guy by doing his homework to protect him from the other bullies around school. He graduated and eventually went to work for Anson Aerospace Corporation. There he was selected as part of the small team to build a high powered laser, capable of shooting down missiles while in the 'boost' phase.

The development team was eventually visited by General Higgins to show him that the laser was fully operational, but that night, a speck of oil was leaked into the lasing cavity and the entire thing exploded, killing their boss, Pete. Months later, Harry and his soon to be ex were invited by Victor Anson to a party where Anson secretly informed Harry that he would be the new boss-man and he was to travel everywhere the plane went.

From here, you learn over the next few chapters that Colonel Christopher had an affair with General Schieb, Harry is in the middle of the divorce with his wife, Harry's team is semi-resenting him because of him accusing one of them trying to sabotage the laser (while they still knew it was a test run, though. Harry made it clear that nobody on the plane would try to blow it up), and that there is a LOT of tension in a tiny space! Harry eventually finds the ranging assembly though, but keeps it hidden and an eye on the lavatory to see if whoever did the deep would co to wipe it down at some point during the flight.

Now to the real action. The president (along with Harry's almost-ex and two daughters) is on the ground in San Francisco despite two advisements by his staff that landing in San Fran would not be a very advisable idea, and ABL-1 is flying exactly 20 miles off of the cost of North Korea. The ever-cautious DPRK sends two fighters out to escort the ABL-1 to land in North Korea. Keeping radio silence, they coast along (the coast) until they see one of the missiles launch. Moments later, the laser takes out one of the missiles, and one of the ATA missiles takes out one of the planes left engines!

They regain control and are barely able to take out the second missile before the plane stalls, then level back out and follow the DPRK planes. For the moment. Once behind one of the planes, they fire the laser at the engines, causing the fighter pilot to eject and the other fighter to follow him. The ABL-1 then proceeds to turn tail and get back to Japan as fast as possible.

After the fight, and on the return trip to Japan, Harry confronts his long-time friend, Monk. He accuses Monk of removing the ranging assembly, being paid by a competitor of Anson Aerospace Corp., and killing their boss Pete. Monk tries to scare Harry into forgetting about it, but Colonel Christopher comes by at the right time and takes Monk down in a brief fight.

The  story concludes with Harry and the Colonel on the verge of a relationship, Monk in custody, and Anson about ready to profit from the tons of Satellites out of comission in orbit.

This is the super abbreviated version, but it honestly was an amazing book, and worth every penny if you buy it!

Now for the assignment part of this.

The authors intent was varying obviously, but mainly Bova tried to keep you on the edge of your mental seat, always ready to fall into the action! The organization was spatial and the book divided up by Major heading (like 'Engagement' for the last part)- then Location (pentagon, ABL-1 cockpit, San Francisco...).

I hope you enjoyed reading my little Blog and I'll probably start posting again once I have found a new book to read! Take care people!

Able One- Part Two

"The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade."
- Anthony Trollope

All right, I know it has only been hours since my last post, but this one might be a bit longer, have more detail, and is needed to do my assignment for my FLVS class. On a side note, I think I will continue with this after my class is over like I'm doing it now. No great detail, just summary and my feelings on it. All right, lets roll!

Fun stuff in this installment! We start off this segment of the show with Lieutenant Sharmon and Colonel Christopher (apparently the Colonel is a woman, so the name threw me off for a bit) talking about the lack of a GPS. Sharmon tells the Colonel that he can navigate the plane, it would just be more reassuring with the GPS to back him up. The Colonel and Lieutenant then go around the corner and speak privately, Colonel Christopher asking Sharmon to call her Colonel instead of ma'am, and Sharmon telling her that his friends call him Jon. The Colonel reassures Jon that this flight is only a test run, nothing serious, and he has nothing to worry about.

A few moments later, the Colonel finds herself talking to Major Kaufman who informs her that there is no metsat (civilian satelites) operational in orbit, but the milsats (military satellites are fine). She takes this info with a grain of salt and continues to the flight line.

Another character, Harry (who had moved to California to get away from the snow and unrelenting weather of northern states), finds himself on the flight line next to the 747-400F trying to make a cell phone call to his superior. Unfortunately, the cell service is still down, so he just entered the plane. What else could he do?

This is an example of a Boeing 747-400F

At the Pentagon, General Higgins (the same general from before) is quickly trying to recall Air Force One from it's path to San Francisco out of fear that there might be a nuclear attack on the city. As this happens, Jamil and others in the room are forumlating theories as to who exactly is behind the outages and possible attack on America. Muslim Jihadists? Chinese who are angry at the U.S. for the world-wide recession? Eventually, they decide that until they can get eyes in either country again, they won't have a clue.

On Air Force One, the president's Chief of Staff, Norman Foster, delivered the request to the President, who didn't much like what he heard. He tells Foster that he won't turn around for four reasons. One, if he turns back, he looks like a coward. Two, he has faith in the missile defense systems in place on the west coast. Three, he's going out there to calm people down about the sudden outages of our satelites. And four, because he says so. With that, the conversation ends and Foster exits the room, thinking that he really doesn't want to be anywhere near San Francisco tonight.

Back in the Pentagon, the sae group from before is discussing the different forms of defense they can use, and what they're going to use it against. One member points out that we can try to hit it white it's in midcourse (coasting) phase with our two subs on their way to Japanese waters. Another points out that we have the missile defense systems in Alaska and California. But General Schieb adds one more possibility for attack during the boost phase, the Airborne Laser or ABL-1. The ABL-1 is able to shoot down missiles using a laser beam to pierce through the aluminum hull and blow up the fuselage. The General tells them to let the ABL-1 team know that they're headed for North Korea.

The ABL-1 (also pronounced Able One) is the source of the name of this novel.

Again, loved it and wish I had the time to read more of it. I did notice that this time I think the author's intent was more towards suspense for the President story, but revving up the pace for the upcoming missile chase over North Korea.