Dragon's Fury - World War against America and the West

It get even silly now. I'm in the chapter where a joint Chinese-Indian-Indonesian coalition has invaded Australia and is now pushing the allies to a 150 km radius between Sydney and Melbourne. The radius is what represents the last of free Australia. I'm amazed how logistics is not even considered here, considering Australia in the middle is barren desert. And where is the wildlife?

I’d say that the late Ermey, like other actors, was simply doing a job in order to get paid. Money is money and a role, even if be utterly silly, gives that cash that spends just as well as a Shakespearean role; Michael Caine once commented:

“First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent…(On Jaws: The Revenge) 1987)] I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.“

What sells me on that notion is that he had worked with the director before on 1989’s The Siege of Firebase Gloria. It seems most likely to be “take any role for money” + “I’ve worked with this chap before and like him” rather than “I believe in this role, script and picture above anything else”.

Secondly, the background history on Breckenridge is all correct, but do you really believe that, based on the synopsis of the film, the reputation of the director and a critical rating of 10/100, they got that deep into the process of historical allusion? It isn’t impossible, but dashed unlikely.

As said, laughable. Darwin to Alice is 1500km (more than Berlin to Smolensk) with a highway and a single track railway. Most of that is through undeveloped desert and wilderness with no support or easy access to supplies. It is almost another 1500km to Adelaide.

Perth to Adelaide is 2700km, again through empty country.

This isn’t a good example of a technothriller, but rather one of the worst. It isn’t just the technical inaccuracy, but the story, the structure, language, characters, themes, dialogue, style, tone, cartoonish enemies and lack of tension; in other words, every element of a novel.

And of course America saves the day.

Throwing the Indians into the mix is what bemuses me. You know, the nation that has a bit of a problem and several wars with their Muslim neighbour and being a long term strategic rival of Red China to boot.

It is almost as if he is copying the idea from somewhere…

Let’s see:
- Unified Arab and Iranian bad guys who are handwaved together
- Evil Red China taking over the world because…Of Course!
- India coming along for the ride and seeming, for some reason, to want to take over Australia

Yep, if is just Tom Clancy’s cluster vomit salad from Executive Orders/The Bear and the Dragon, which is where he indulged in his worst tendencies. All that Dragon’s Fury is missing is a resurgent Imperial Japan.

I toughed you would add Invasion, the Eric L. Harry novel, detailing an invasion of the United States by China.