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Dark Rose

SAS and Irish Rangers now doing the big hostage raid and kicking the shit out of a much larger Libyan force with supreme elite training and technoporn megaguns. YEEEAHHHHH

(Two soldiers then die in a car crash on the way out in a blunt random reminder that Shit Happens)

Now with the hostages rescued, the Taoiseach and others are interned as they abruptly refuse cooperation - "punching the senior adviser in the face when he asked why. The Taoiseach who had played rugby for Ireland in his day knew how to punch." The Libyan heavy's reaction is even more jackboots, with heavier curfews and armed goons taking TVs and radios. Army officers interned now sent to a freezing gulag with no toilets and irregular food and a commandant who gets drunk & shoots people who piss him off - what about the Geneva Convention??? A Libyan translator: "The captain says this is not Geneva." Deprivation all round.

The Palestinians are also at odds with the Libyans, with an armed standoff at a checkpoint to get the Libyans to let a bus of children go*. And the buachailli have turned parts of the countryside and Cork into no-gos.

Meanwhile, an American film guy is helping ensure the volunteer forces on the border looks like the biggest pile of shabby shit to anyone watching, like a reverse of the infamous fake armies & tanks of WW2.

Very silly bit where we're meant to go GASP! Those mean tabloid journos sneering Maeve is a figurehead! That mean tabloid journo saying this needs more than just looking pretty and shouldn't someone more professional do this when the professionals and systems caused the problem!! Well, the tabloids are right, a random nineteen-year-old given a fake monarchy and made head of government-in-exile is obviously dumb and figureheady.

* I am interested in this very period bit, that the Palestinians can be powerful united and are the ones behind everything but the Libyans are the main heavies, nasty and brutish and crony-run, while the Palestinians are noble smarties despite the violence and feel awkward about the boot being on their foot. A very clear sense of sympathy for the cause, except then you don't have nasty baddies we can hate & shoot dead without qualm, so here comes the savage Libyans! (IIRC didn't Red Dawn have that, a sympathetic Cuban occupier who wasn't one of the dastardly Russkis?)
 
The staged coronation of the 19-year-old puppet queen, but never mind that, a RN destroyer just engaged three blockade-running Libyan ships that has secret Exocets to fire AND ALSO TRANSPORTING TANKS WHICH ALSO FIRED AT THE BOAT
"Take it with Sea Dart" - if I remember it correctly - would be the one line of dialogue I remember from that book.
 
Now with the hostages rescued, the Taoiseach and others are interned as they abruptly refuse cooperation - "punching the senior adviser in the face when he asked why. The Taoiseach who had played rugby for Ireland in his day knew how to punch." The Libyan heavy's reaction is even more jackboots, with heavier curfews and armed goons taking TVs and radios. Army officers interned now sent to a freezing gulag with no toilets and irregular food and a commandant who gets drunk & shoots people who piss him off - what about the Geneva Convention??? A Libyan translator: "The captain says this is not Geneva." Deprivation all round.
*Writes book about FARC occupying Switzerland and it turns out that it is Geneva and the captain mutters an apology and stops shooting people*
 
I'm almost afraid to ask how far into the book you are at this point.

73%.

And that's in its favour, because that far into a pretty long book in four days is a sign something's caught me.

"Take it with Sea Dart" - if I remember it correctly - would be the one line of dialogue I remember from that book.

You do!
 
Following a personal teary appeal by Queen Maeve and photos of the occupation, the entirety of the Paras sign up as volunteers and a few others besides.

(One bit that Lunnon-Wood doesn't seem to have intended is that the descriptions of troops and tanks and the early clashes on the streets of Ireland do feel a lot like descriptions and photos of then-recent-past-and-not-too-recent Northern Ireland, there's even an imposition of direct rule you could say, and the atrocities feel very much like how republicans talked about the Troubles. He was likely thinking of Bosnia in places, there's a photo of an internment camp that feels modelled on an infamous camp photo from that conflict, and he's definitely thinking of the Intifada, but the Troubles and the Irish Revolution being treated as seperate things completely not really worth a comparison except "it won't be like the revolution" is odd.)

Now here comes the RAF strike on the enemy in Dublin! NEEEOOOOWWWWN BRAKKABRAKKA!! High-tech high-risk precision strikes blowing shit up, just as we want to see. (And a nice stream of consciousness from a Tornado pilot as he scans for the enemy, including "shit I hate this stuff, never strafe an airfield unless you're sure it's only lightly defended, am I sure, am I shit") The SBS and Marine Recon are ashore in quietly prepping for a marine beachhead landing and special forces are 'painting' Libyan Northern Command for a pasting, while some Libyan targets are caught napping because they don't know their communications have been knocked out in Dublin.

Now comes "the most powerful Celtic invasion in history". This includes an air force of a whopping 118 jets, with the Libyans tricked by the early border psyops into putting two Soviet-tactic armoured divisions in County Monaghan and can be struck in one go, and they are. (The Libyans having worse training than the British is akin to the Guatemalans in Long Reach, but feels flimsier here as there, it was an overconfident much-larger force who think they're in for an easy ride and here it's fucking around in Britain's back garden, and the narrator notes how this bottling up means the commander can't have "passed even the first elementary class of tactics". Surely, the Libyan Army wasn't so daft as to bunch up all their army for easy bombardment by the much larger air force next door)

Lunnon-Wood describes the artillery bombardment as "Dantean terror" and experienced soldiers wincing in empathy for the enemy, which is a description he's used before and a reaction by troops he's done before. The acknowledgements in his books mention talking to actual soldiers to get the army-life-and-actions parts authentic, and this feels like something he's picked up from them.

A good logistical note with the technoporn as the fancy planes keep having to get rushed up with overworked ground crew and pilots. This isn't just We Have The Cool Shit, someone's going to keep it up.

A broadcast from Queen Maeve about "Irish, Celtic, and Clansman" and "armies of a Free Celtic Ireland" does make me wonder: what about Irish citizens who aren't ethnically Celtic? Are they a bit worried about some of the resistance and govt-in-exile rhetoric and worrying a Free Celtic Ireland isn't going to be a friendly place later? Can't be that much fun if you're Arabic Irish or, for that matter, Asian or even Spanish during the events of this book either, "it's one of THEM!", "My dad's from Delhi and you know it, you twat."
 
"if any doubted her right to be queen, they were wrong," thought Lt.Gen. Stewart who could see me reading.

D-Day-But-Smaller-And-In-Ireland is going ahead, the Libyans not opposing yet, but first action is on a road patrol. "He had hoped his non-coms and men wouldn't notice when it happened. His father had warned him. Afterwards your hands shake." Then, a few sentence later, the officer sees a Libyan body, "its face shot away. Suddenly he didn't care anymore. Didn't care who saw his hand shake. He felt sick. His father never warned him about that."

The US Marines are taking Ballycotton Bay to trick the enemy there's a landing there too, led conveniently by a general whose mum's "people" came from there. Meanwhile, a Para company plotting to take advantage of the fact enemy armour has to use the very-open-to-bombers-and-Milan-teams R181 motorway because if they go off-road, they'll sink in boggy ground; a smart bit of dodging the technoporn trends for a fight scene, as a radio isn't working and a Milan rocket doesn't hit a tank properly so it can still fire for a bit, and the officer on the ground is caught out when more tanks show up from another angle he wasn't checking, forcing a retreat under fire and wounded (the first setback so far of the operation and the first soldier to die), though Lynx choppers vape the tanks a minute later.

Now the resistance is confirmed to be rising up and hitting targets "as far away as Kerry", but that doesn't get much detail and the main is on one encounter where a tactically astute Libyan patrol wipes out a small rebel group.

Canny detail that the Palestinian fighters are well rehearsed in facing air supremacy and widely dispersed to avoid being easy targets. Also a bit that Celt Force in some places has less freedom of action because the enemy are holing up in places on a govt-in-exile list of Don't Bomb This Important Landmark.

The Black Watch just found the Defence Force officer internment camp, where everyone's emaciated from starvation rations. ("a walking skeleton, a skeleton wearing a captain's bars on his filthy coat, tried to return his salute, but was too weak to manage") This is also the long-term payoff to an earlier bit of a Scottish rugby player and an Irish rugby player in a cup match who are both soldiers, as they meet again here. ("You don't recognise me, do you?") A blunt bit that everyone knows an Irish soldier shot the guards in the back deliberately and everyone's agreeing to believe he 'made a mistake' & not check the bodies. This scene a bit undermined that the rugby playing officer wants to go back into action and is told after 24 hours rest-and-food, he'll be in the Queen Maeve's Own spearhead group, and unless this is a fib to placate him then how the fuck can that work if they're that ill?

A local woman at Athlone just told the Black Watch mid-battle: "Well, well, the English! [they didn't like that part] You took your time getting here, now then. You're all very welcome, but stay too long this time!" before going on to give them tactical info about which building the PLO are holed up in. And the PLO are a harder fight than the Libyans and we cut to see the POV of the Palestinian commander and how a wounded fighter is a brave soldier, and the Palestinians are angry the Libyans have abandoned them (and go "the British Army are mad scary bastards").
 
Logistic issues start, trucks aren't where they're supposed to be so Celt Force nick some from a Pickfords depot; we also get a gag where we hear about the SAS's custom vehicles right before one has an accident & now they have to walk. Libyans are surrendering in large groups and no-fly/no-fire zones set up so they can wait there, because - I do like this bit of planning - the British Army won't accept them, they have to surrender to the Irish or Celt Force, who are officially volunteers for Maeve, so it's publicly the Irish winning. At the UN, the British ambassador is calling this a civil war to follow on the 'internal Irish affair' line, and Britain has NO INVOLVEMENT AT ALL "other than a few advisers... who have taken leave of absence." (" "Shit! You talk shit!" the Libyan launched in angrily") The Russians have been bribed to the Western side.

Now all Libyan tanks are gone. Not sure how much can be left of the fighting if the British & Americans volunteers for Queen Maeve's Free Celtic Space Marines have air, sea, and land-armour supremacy.

And indeed, the Libyans are "rolled over" each time - "they didn't want to be there" - but the Palestinians hold ground, forcing the use of Mega-Technoporn. Resistance and random pissed-off civilians are lashing out. But wait! Near the end, as forces close in on Mullingar, a Libyan brigadier with tactical nouse and digging in! (Libyan heavy General Saad is hoping this and his force in Dublin can hold out long enough to force a discussion, "suddenly he was very keen to discuss things") But the overwhelming firepower boxes the Mullingar force in, breaks them up, and knocks them out. Eventually they win by dropping a classified fuel-air bomb in a field as a Give Up gesture.

Now the enemy forces in Dublin have moved their command to the General Post Office.

Maeve's Own just slaughtered a much larger Libyan force through sheer Celtness. Meanwhile, Libyans raid an entire street for hostages and the Palestinians are pretty sure they should just give up & go home if they can stood Saad. Celt Force's commander agrees to discuss terms at Trinity Gate and deliberately shows up in Dublin with pipers in full blare as a Fuck You. Saad plans to force terms with thousands of hostages at Lansdowne Road stadium but the Palestinians & Libyan dissenters sell out his plan to get it over with, and a joint SAS-PLO force knocks the guards out.

Then the RAF bombs the post office, which if the govt-in-exile was saying "don't trash a monastery" earlier I can't believe this one happened. And at last, the Irish flag is raised over the Dail. Well, the new Maeve one. Except in the epilogue, Maeve's going to hand power back and step down??? Well that was pointless then.

Minor comedy from the year 2021 as, cos the Old Order Failed Ireland, our main SAS man muses "the old parties of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, and Labour had failed the people. It was time for a change". Which at the time probably means the Progressive Democrats are to come storming in (or Democratic Left but probably the PDs), but these days would mean he just hoped Sinn Fein win.

And that was... a very strange book.
 
@Charles EP M. that reminds me of the ending to the novel The Leader when the protagonist has captured Leader Oswald Mosley in the Downing Street bunker, and in the epilogue they discuss free elections and there's the ironic ending of 'and he was happy to leave the fate of Britain in the capable hands of politicians like Neville Chamberlain'

"Now that Ireland is free from the Libyan-Palestinian Axis, we look to brave leaders like Gerry Adams to show us the way"
 
I'm wondering if the whole barely-disguised technically-just-volunteers-we-swear "Celt Force" was a pandering "CELTICS YEAH!" element or a quarter-hearted attempt at "drama" because an overt counterattack would have an (even more) incredibly obvious outcome.
Honestly from the way it's described by @Charles EP M. I'd guess that was the original point and the bare disguise thing was come up with as a way of handwaving it actually working
 
It feels very pandering but I'm not sure who it's pandering to. There's a brand of celtic romanticism in this that seems very particular to Lunnon-Wood, who is not AFAIK Celtic. It's like back in the day when Sonic and Pokemon fanfics would have Japanese honouriffics because they're from Japan and in Japan they say that and Japan's cool you guys.

This was very, very different to Long Reach even though it shares so many similarities
 
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