Shadow Ops: Control Point is the debut novel of Myke Cole; a former soldier and government civilian that served something like three tours in Iraq. Ace, the publisher, decided to publish this book in mass market paperback (the small kind) only.
Control Point starts off at the beginning of a mission to take down a couple of kids that have manifested illegal magical talents and are destroying a public high school. The main character, Oscar Britton, is one of the men involved in this assault and is having second thoughts about using the full might of the military to take down two high school aged kids. The night after the mission he manifests an illegal magical talent himself and is forced to go on the run. But unfortunately, this guy is no Jason Bourne. He has no idea what he's doing and ends up killing several people before being caught by the military. He wakes up in a secret facility, where he is told that his crimes have been pardoned by the president under the condition that he will use his magic and become a mercenary under the orders of the government.
I can't tell you much more without giving it away, but I will tell you that he is taken to a magical world where little creatures the military calls goblins rule, and where the U.S. Army is fighting to take control. The problem is that goblins manifest magical skills twice as much as humans, and they are greater and more numerous than the Americans stationed there. The conflict of the novel focuses primarily on Britton's struggles and doubts about whether or not he should be a killing machine for the government.
The Good:
Oscar Britton is a very human character, and he is supported by several other well done characters. You can tell from the first page of the book that Myke Cole knows a thing or two from his long service in the military. The battle scenes are very well done, full of action but never to the point where you begin to get annoyed. He integrates magic into the combat scenes very well. The thing I really liked about the combat scenes is that people actually die. He doesn't just kill redshirts, he kills people you've come to know and even like. That's something you don't always see in a book like this. You can feel the friendship between Britton and his fellow teammates growing throughout the book, and the villains aren't blindly evil. They have reasons behind their motives, and sometimes those are very good reasons.
The Bad:
Oscar Britton was human, but sometimes he's TOO human. His flaws were easy to see, and sometimes they got annoying. I liked that he questioned the motives of his leaders instead of being a mindless soldier, but it got annoying sometimes that he questioned every order he got. He can't seem to get over the fact that his job in the Shadow Coven involves killing people under orders, even though before that he was in the military before that. Killing under orders is pretty much the main idea of the military, isn't it?
The thing that really irritated me is that the relationship between him and Theresa, an attractive woman with healing talents to boot, never really developed. It was just kind of there. Cole could have done a better job on that, I think.
Honestly, the doubts and unwillingness of Britton to kill under orders didn't bug me a ton. I can understand why he tried to avoid killing people. It's just that he questioned it SO MUCH.
Overall, it was a very well-done thrill ride. A book like this would make a very good military urban fantasy action movie. The pace was fast but not so fast that you couldn't keep up.
The Rating:
This book gets three and a half stars. It was good, but I felt that the negative elements dragged it down a little bit. All things considered, it was pretty good for a debut novel.
Before you go and read it, I have to warn you that the military men really talk like they're in the military. If you're younger than sixteen or seventeen, the language might be a little heavy.
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