Falklands 2 (ePub)

Argentina's Back And This Time It's DifferentFact is said to be stranger than fiction and well may be the case if the highly readable contents of this first effort techothriller by Australian Aviation's founder and (then) Managing Editor hold true.

What is fact is that the present government of Argentina has in place a publicly stated edict to reclaim the long disputed Falkland Islands. Also fact is that it is now common knowledge that in the region there exists oil and gas reserves potentially equivalent to that of the North Sea. Also fact is that over recent years the UK has been fairly content to relegate these distant islands to the backburner in military preparedness terms compared with the threat that they could well ultimately face. Even the majority of men and women in uniform nowadays were merely youngsters when the 1982 battle for the Falklands took the world by surprise. To most Britons nowadays it is merely a moment of history.

You put all this together with a reinvigorated, rearmed Argentina that is capable and able to apply the lessons of the disastrous '82 campaign to a second attempt and, well, the outcome could be entirely different. And this is the scenario for Falklands 2 which is appropriately subtitled - Argentina's back, and this time it's different. And that you had better believe!

The rest of course is fiction though the careful use of the latest high tech systems and the utilisation of the SAS, the RNs nuclear hunter killer submarines and the various aircraft themselves tend to make the reader feel that they are witnessing something that in effect is a treatise of the stark reality of modern warfare in the dying days of the twentieth century. Certainly a good read for those who enjoy a well researched technothriller that encompasses the most fascinating aspects of the three services and doesn't always have the heroes winning.

Falklands 2 comes complete with a plethora of maps and is timely considering the situation as it exists today. Readers and fans of technothrillers could well find it a pleasant change from the endless train of 'us' versus Chinese renegades and demented villains of the Middle East.

Falklands 2 was originally produced as a paperback of 612 pages in 1997 and is now available in ebook form.