Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
If the rest of the book had been as interesting as this last quarter has been I might have been really enjoying the book by now. Things are happening, the main characters matter, and…there’s still the odd chapter system but two out of three and all. Gregory’s after Eyepatch, Op-Center finally has their act together, and hopefully that will help end this book on a high note. Goodness knows it hasn’t been for most of it.
- Chapter 71: Wednesday, 7:48 AM, the Diamond Mountains: 4 pages
- Chapter 72: Wednesday, 7:50 AM, the DMZ: 4 pages
- Chapter 73: Wednesday, 7:53 AM, Seoul: 3 1/2 pages
Let’s see what the real heroes of this book are up to.
Never mind, we’re starting with Rodgers. The strike team he shouldn’t be on and left a good man at home for lands near the mountains and are informed about the missiles pointing at Japan. I thought all three were pointing in different directions but according to this they’re all pointed at Japan. As I said last week, Korea has issues with Japan, or at least did at the time, so this could be a bit of payback. Eyepatch isn’t what you’d call stable. The team has to take the missiles out, which Rodgers is happy to do. I will give him credit for letting Squires take charge since this is his unit but the man is out of shape while again I remind you a perfectly good soldier who has actually trained with this unit was left at home for no good reason. I almost hope he does die here, but only if the mission is completed. I would still want said death to matter to the mission and not just because I don’t like him.
Unfortunately things don’t go well for Gregory in this chapter. He follows Eyepatch outside of the tunnels and into the North where he tries to stop him from sending the poison gas into the barracks, but he’s right by the wall and both sides start shooting at him. Was he killed? We’ll have to wait to see. I guess it’s too soon to stop Eyepatch yet. We still have over 40 pages left even with this odd chapter system.
Meanwhile, Hwan wakes up. Too bad the buy watching him is willing to lie about his wanting to protect lady-Kim because she saved his life, or at least omit that part when calling their boss. Hwan hopes she gets to her brother in Japan, a sort of thanks for saving his life and risking hers to help him prove this was a plot to start a war and not a North Korean attack. I hope she gets there too, but I’m an American in a different dimension so I’m not exactly tied to these events.
Not a lot of action in this set of chapter. We do get some thanks to Gregory and I hope he makes it through. Of course everybody knows this is a plot and hopefully someone will tell the North before the war starts. I’m going to assume Schneider at least doesn’t want to go to war whatever he thinks of the North. I don’t know what Laurence is thinking, or even if he’s thinking. Everyone else that isn’t part of the plot wants to start the war, although this Hongtrack guy seems willing to betray Hwan to up his own status at the bureau. It seems a bit late to add another jerk, but at least they aren’t all at Op-Center, which I don’t think is a comforting thought. We’ll see where this goes next week.
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