Friday, January 16, 2015

Nightstalkers (Area 51: The Nighstalkers series)

Bob Mayer
47North, 2012 (my copy was gracefully provided by 47North for review)
Size: Average (my paperback copy has 311 pages)
Theme: Military sci-fi
Narrative: third-person
Main character: The nightstalkers team
Recommended minimum age: Teenager
Would purchase as a gift to any sci-fi reader: YES



The Nightstalkers are a covert special-ops team, operating from near Area 51, and dealing with extremely dangerous threats to the nation, particularly nuclear, chemical, biological, and alien threats. And, as their leader would put it, ‘things that go bump in the night’. With extremely high clearance for intel, access to absolutely all equipment and weaponry in existence, and discretion on the level of force required to get the job done, this small team recruits only the most exceptional individuals. In this book we follow them on a couple of missions related to a strange phenomenon: strange man-made rifts which are thought to bridge between our world and either a parallel dimension or an alien world. These rifts represent a significant threat and are not easily dealt with…

The plot is well defined, and characters are interesting and well explored. The pace is quite nice, and there are no useless plot fillers; every page contributes to the overall story. Bob Mayer is the author of the Area 51 series, a great series I have read a few years ago. The ‘Nightstalkers’ series follows the same style he imprinted onto the Area 51 books.

This is excellent military sci-fi. There is just enough detail on the military aspect to make you feel you are part of a real covert-ops team, yet not abusive to the point where it seems like you are reading a tech-spec. Yet, it is the action adventure side of the story which grabs you and does not let go. I went through the whole book very quickly and immediately started reading the sequel. I highly recommend it to all sci-fi fans.

Related work:
This is the first book of a new series, and at the time of this review, books 2 and 3 are already available.


*** Spoiler Alert ***
(Warning: the following text contains information that may hamper/ruin how much you enjoy the book):

As the story progresses, we find that rifts and the fireflies appear to have intent behind them. And after cleaning up the invasion at the Senators Club, the Nighstalkers target the Physics Research Building at the University of North Carolina, where a rogue agent under the influence of a firefly is attempting to open a gigantic portal to bring something over. With the help of the graduate student Ivar, they manage to close down the rift just in time to prevent the worst, and the world survives another day.

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