If you have more than eight players, stop play and invade Belguim

Hi,

So in reading up about post-colonial war in Africa, I started with a fiction book: The Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth. If the author sounds familiar, he wrote Day of the Jackal and The Odessa Files. This book, not surprisingly is all about dirty little wars in Africa.

In this case, a mining company discovers a huge reserve of Platinum in the tiny African nation of Zangaro. The head of the company sits on the discovery and attempts to figure out how to turn it to his advantage. He hits upon the idea of hiring a small team of mercenaries and having them topple the government to install his own puppet regime.

The bulk of the book is all about the preparations for the coup. Cat Shannon, the mercenary selected to handle the job, has 100 days to put together all the gear and equipment for a small strike force to attack the presidential palace. Meanwhile, the head of the mining company is putting together some shell companies to hold the claim after the coup goes through.

It's hard to say that this is an exciting book in an action/adventure way. It's not even super tense. But it's very interesting in the methodical planning, preparation and execution of the coup and it certainly had no real trouble holding my interest as each new facet and wrinkle came up.

The other thing that really stuck out was how different the world was in the mid-70's. The characters are flying all over Europe and sending registered letters around to conduct their business. In today's world, most of the financial business would've been handled via email or cell phone calls or faxes. The information gap was really striking.

Overall, I really liked the book, but it was about a topic that I'm interested in right now. I'm not going to tell you to rush out and find it, but it's certainly nice if you want some mercenar-military fiction.

later
Tom

If you have more than eight players, stop play and invade Belguim

Hi,

So in reading up about post-colonial war in Africa, I started with a fiction book: The Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth. If the author sounds familiar, he wrote Day of the Jackal and The Odessa Files. This book, not surprisingly is all about dirty little wars in Africa.

In this case, a mining company discovers a huge reserve of Platinum in the tiny African nation of Zangaro. The head of the company sits on the discovery and attempts to figure out how to turn it to his advantage. He hits upon the idea of hiring a small team of mercenaries and having them topple the government to install his own puppet regime.

The bulk of the book is all about the preparations for the coup. Cat Shannon, the mercenary selected to handle the job, has 100 days to put together all the gear and equipment for a small strike force to attack the presidential palace. Meanwhile, the head of the mining company is putting together some shell companies to hold the claim after the coup goes through.

It's hard to say that this is an exciting book in an action/adventure way. It's not even super tense. But it's very interesting in the methodical planning, preparation and execution of the coup and it certainly had no real trouble holding my interest as each new facet and wrinkle came up.

The other thing that really stuck out was how different the world was in the mid-70's. The characters are flying all over Europe and sending registered letters around to conduct their business. In today's world, most of the financial business would've been handled via email or cell phone calls or faxes. The information gap was really striking.

Overall, I really liked the book, but it was about a topic that I'm interested in right now. I'm not going to tell you to rush out and find it, but it's certainly nice if you want some mercenar-military fiction.

later
Tom