Today I was watching "Star Wars Tech" on the History Channel.  They were examining different technologies in Star Wars and parallelling them with today's.  Following the show, was the "Legacy of Star Wars" which looked at the philosophies in the series.

I just thought to myself:  "It's just a movie."  It slipped, didn't even know it was there.  I guess now I will have to turn in my Nerd membership card.  Oops.

But really, come on.  Star Wars was great, it was fun, it defined our childhood.  I might even go as far as suggesting it got alot of us into SciFi in a big way.  But let's not try to put more into it than just entertainment.  Brace yourself:  George Lucas is NOT a visionary.  He was just a great moviemaker.  Well, until the last 3 movies, anyway.

I am reading through the remaining books from Dale Brown that I have missed.  He is not as good an author as Tom Clancy was in his prime, but is far better than any other techo-political thriller author I have ever read.  Shadows of Steel is book 9 of his Old Dog series (I believe all his books are from the Old Dog series).

SoS takes place in the Middle East, ironically, dealing with Iran.  Ironically as Iran is being a bit of a problem now 10 years later.  When, Sky Masters, Inc, loses a stealth UAV in the Persian Gulf, a new Iranian carrier of the old Soviet fleet traces the signal to a recovery ship belonging to the company.  The ship flees, but it sunk by the Iranians.  Several friends of Patrick McLanahan are captured and imprisoned in Iran.  An enhanced B-2 and a V-22 make important appearances in the story along with the usual mix of high-technology and dream weapons that we can only hope are real.

Brown again mixes a good story with awesome, if a bit ambitious, technology to make a very enjoyable, if not real deep, read.  Again, if you haven't read previous works, you may be a bit lost in places.  I enjoyed this one enough to move right into the next in the series Fatal Terrain.