Chinese Ultimatum

by Edward McGhee, Robin Moore, Edward McGhee~Robin Moore

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0523009747
• ISBN13: 9780523009742
• Release Date: September 1976
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Yup -- Dated Thriller But Still With Its Moments

The previous reviewer was spot on. I will just flesh out the plot. It is in a time of American decline and it is postulated that our NATO commitment is down to a corps or so and everyone else accordingly as Russian attention gets diverted east to China. The Russians and Chinese go at it along the Amur River in Siberia. The Germans launch a reunification coup, ousting NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Russians cut a deal with them, splitting Poland up while a bloody stalemate ensues in Siberia. The Russians win some early battles but find themselves bogged down in a war of attrition against a billion plus Chinese. The Israelis run wild in the Mideast, securing a Phoenician type empire from Tripoli to Damascus! Yes, folks, it's a pretty alternate universe. But it reads cool and what-ifs should always be presented in this entertaining a fashion!

The Chinese Ultimatun: An Old-Fashioned Guy Thriller

It is rare that any novel unabashedly makes clear the politically incorrect writing style that sees the world solely from the male point of view. Edward McGhee and Robin Moore in THE CHINESE ULTIMATUM tell of a world of tough-talking military men bashing their fists on a huge oaken table as they bark their orders to properly subservient lessers. Battles are described in all their gore just as if the reader were right there getting drenched in a carmine blanket. And women exist solely as eye candy for powerful men. The plot is surprisingly intricate. A pre-unified Germany stages a coup, routing the Russian soldiers from a post-Nazi Germany so that Germany stands again as one nation. The Russian Premier, Kharkov, is foaming angry, and to complicate matters, he learns that the only reason the Germans had the nerve to unite their country was a secret deal that the Germans made with the Chinese. The German act was to be only the preliminary surprise assault by the Chinese against Russia. Kharkov feels that he has no choice but to launch a pre-emptive strike. He places the venerable Marshal Korzybski in charge of the attack. Korzybski was a graduate of the cordite and bullet school of war, an education bloodily learned at Stalingrad and Moscow. His plan is simple: a good defense means a better offense. He is quite willing to shed as many casualties as necessary to smash the Chinese threat for ever. His reckless attitude worries Kharkov, who correctly recognizes that the Chinese can afford monstrous losses that the Russians cannot. Ultimately, he is forced to replace Korzybski with a more conservative general. The war between the two countries is inconclusive, and by the novel's end an uneasy bloody status quo is reached. The charm of the novel is distinctly masculine. The battle scenes are replete with guns shooting, shells landing, and individual soldiers on both sides performing heroically. The switch in scene from one sector of battle to another recreates the confusion that must reign on such a battlefield. What McGhee and Moore make abundantly clear is that modern war involves masses of troops smashing into each other in a manner not unlike the Crusaders bullying their way through massed Moslem ranks of the tenth century. Men die by the scores of thousands in such warfare. The lesson that McGhee and Moore teach us is that war is bloody and chaotic, and if any modern leader of any country forgets that, then reading THE CHINESE ULTIMATUM may prevent in real life what was only described in print.