Seal Team 666 by Weston Ochse

The horror genre loves trends, hell just look at that shambling mess of zombie books out there.  Seal Team 666 is the latest book in this new trend of military horror novels.  You know the ones, covert military groups fighting some demonic threat to mankind.  You can never accuse these books as being high brow, however in the main they are entertaining.  When I read these books I always use, what in my opinion is the Grandfather of this sort of novel Necroscope III as the benchmark.  

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In Seal Team 666, promising Navy Seal Jack Walker is taken out of training and thrown right into the action with this group of tooled up Ghostbusters, and its not long before Walker finds himself at the centre of a supernatural conflict with the entire world at stake.  And that folks really is the bare bones of this books plot.  This in itself isn't a criticism of the book, it is a limitation of the genre, and one that has been apparent in every one of these sort of books that I have read. 

Now I'll be honest, these are the sort of books that I only ever read when I need a quick big dumb fix, a sort of amuse bouche, palate cleanser, something to clean the mind before tackling a more substantial book .  And in this way Seal Team 666 works well enough, the reader is rushed along from one big action piece to another, interspersed with almost computer game like cut scenes that serve to deliver some plot reveal or flesh out some revelation.  My biggest problem with the book is Weston's obsession with military terminology, he does things like this

NVG (NIGHT VISION GOGGLES)

all this did was throw me right out of the story.  It sounds like I really hated this book, which is not the case, it's a good time filler of a novel, nothing special, it won't set your world on fire, but it will entertain you well enough for a few hours.  There are some great ideas like the body suits made out of human skin, made by seamstress's how have been chained to the machines and have had their eyes and mouths sewn shut. 

And the homunculus that guards them is pure genius, however the book needs more of these elements to lift it up to greater heights. 

I think the biggest disappoint comes from the fact that as a writer I love Weston, his novels, Scarecrow Gods and Empire of Salt are  brilliant books.  Disappointing when compared to his back catalogue, but still worth a read.