Pulled from the navy SEAL training program, just weeks before completion, Cadet Jack Walker is transferred to a specialist unit, the SEAL team 666. Thrown instantly into the supernatural fight between good and evil, Walker struggles at first to find his feet as the team are sent on missions almost back to back. As they fight their way across the world it becomes clear that this upsurge in demonic activity is down to one very powerful person, powerful enough to even beat SEAL team 666...

SEAL Team 666 is a horror/military novel by American author Weston Ochse.

Oddly enough, I didn’t think that I would enjoy this novel as much as I did. I’m generally not one for military macho porn, preferring science fiction flying spaceship porn, if nothing else it’s much more phallic.

Ochse never lets the reader take a breath, apart from a quick opening chapter Walker and the reader are thrown right into the action, which rarely lets up and yet he has paced the book so well that it never feels like you’re stuck on some insane rollercoaster, providing thrills for the sake of thrills.

That’s not to say that many of the characters in the book have much depth. Walker is provided with a reasonable background necessary to explain his subsequent role in the team, but the others are little more than foils to advance the plot and provide cannon fodder.

The dialogue has the scent of something realistic, given Ochse’s own military career, we’ll take it that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to the use of military jargon and the fetishist descriptions of military hardware. There is certainly an amount in the book to please any avid reader of military thrillers, but not so much that it would dissuade a military novice from reading and enjoying the book.

The book is told mainly from Walker's point of view, with a few short chapters from the main antagonist. Structurally the book is fairly straight forward and the reader has a pretty good idea how the story will play out after the first third of the novel.

The books strength is in the growing sense of family which is built up amongst the SEAL team; it is this aspect, rather than the almost peripheral horror aspect of the book, which makes it worth reading.

Osche has also been rather clever in the relative weight he has given each element. The horror aspect is enough to satisfy one audience, while bringing in the military buffs as well, as such, this is a well-crafted mainstream novel - the unremitting cinematic action alone should please many a reader.

Ultimately, the book should appeal to a large demographic.

7

Charles Packer