On America's newest combat base, U.S. Air Force aerial warfare expert Major General Patrick McLanahan and his crew of daring engineers are devising the air combat unit of the future. Air Battle Force can launch concentrated, stealthy, precision-guided firepower to any spot on the globe within hours. And soon, McLanahan and his warriors will have their first target: Taliban fighters who are planning to invade the neighboring oil-rich Republic of Turkmenistan. Now, it's up to McLanahan and a handful of American commandos half a world away, aided by an untested and unproven force of robotic warplanes, to win a war in which everyone - even "friendly" forces at home - want them to fail.
Major General Patrick McLanahan and General Rebecca Furness join forces with computer-savvy Colonel Daren Mace to command Air Battle Force, a wing of computer-controlled B-1 bombers, called Vampires, and their backup B-52s. All kinds of computer-controlled missiles, ships, and equipment, as well as soldiers fitted out in exo-skeletons called "tin men," join forces to control a runaway group of Taliban fighters attempting to conquer Turkmenistan. Dufris reads every word, every military part, and every action with exacting precision. He changes inflection and phrasing when switching among U.S. soldiers, Taliban and Turkmenistan fighters, and Russians. There's little actual gore and lots of military strategizing and seat-of-your-pants flying, and Dufris's narration never gets in the way of the action. M.B.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
Dale Brown is the author of more than a dozen New York Times bestsellers, starting with Flight of the Old Dog in 1987, and most recently Air Battle Force and Plan of Attack, both available as Sound Library® audiobooks. A former U.S. Air Force captain, he can often be found flying his own plane in the skies over Nevada.
