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The Zone #1
Hard Target
Hard Target (The Zone) Mass Market Paperback – December 1, 1984 by J. Rouch (Author)
221 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 9, 2020
The Cold War has turned hot. World War III is upon us. But this time around, the art of war includes harsh tools like chemical and biological weapons and tactical nukes. Rather than let such things loose worldwide, NATO and the Warsaw Pact agree to limit the fighting to a large swath of West Germany called ‘The Zone’.
First published in 1980, almost ten years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, “Hard Target” is the first of ten books in “The Zone” series by British author James Rouch. The novel opens by dropping readers right in the middle of the action with a Soviet T-84 tank bearing down on a small group of what will become the main characters. Such small, tactical scenes are the norm throughout the novel, never widening up the scope of the action to really understand the greater strategies at work. Nor are we treated to much in the way of how or why the war began. Team leader, American Major Revell, together with British Sergeant Hyde, must somehow create a cohesive unit out of a bunch of misfit ‘Dirty Dozen’ style mavericks, each with their own unique and often bizarre and even unlikable personalities.
The plot involves one of many post-apocalyptic refugee enclaves located in The Zone where the Soviets have placed, against the rules of war, an elite tank salvage unit charged with refitting enough Soviet armor to enable a successful counter-attack in the coming months. Revell and his team must destroy it in order for NATO to be able to keep the Reds at bay. The story moves along nicely, and the final covert op sequence is a fun ride. While that mission does wrap up in this first book, most readers will want to turn to book two to find out what happens next to this motley crew.
First published in 1980, almost ten years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, “Hard Target” is the first of ten books in “The Zone” series by British author James Rouch. The novel opens by dropping readers right in the middle of the action with a Soviet T-84 tank bearing down on a small group of what will become the main characters. Such small, tactical scenes are the norm throughout the novel, never widening up the scope of the action to really understand the greater strategies at work. Nor are we treated to much in the way of how or why the war began. Team leader, American Major Revell, together with British Sergeant Hyde, must somehow create a cohesive unit out of a bunch of misfit ‘Dirty Dozen’ style mavericks, each with their own unique and often bizarre and even unlikable personalities.
The plot involves one of many post-apocalyptic refugee enclaves located in The Zone where the Soviets have placed, against the rules of war, an elite tank salvage unit charged with refitting enough Soviet armor to enable a successful counter-attack in the coming months. Revell and his team must destroy it in order for NATO to be able to keep the Reds at bay. The story moves along nicely, and the final covert op sequence is a fun ride. While that mission does wrap up in this first book, most readers will want to turn to book two to find out what happens next to this motley crew.
March 8, 2019
Interesting concept as an alternate history where the Cold War went hot. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons while still being small-footprint warfare, would this be the way a World War III would have gone at that time? The technology is interesting too, seeing what equipment has since become reality (sky-spies/drones) and what wasn't found fit for purpose (skimmer tanks).
In this book, the horrors of warfare are catalogued through the eyes of experienced soldiers, ones who detach themselves from it as needed to survive. This not only includes combat itself and it's immediate casualties, but the bleak nature of day-to-day life and the depressing nature of refugee camps - people unwanted by either side and with nowhere else to go.
If you're after pulpy, easy, action-packed reading this is probably a good book for you. If you want some alternate history/speculative military fiction this is probably up your alley too.
Some points removed for the way it treats women and it's weird racism.
In this book, the horrors of warfare are catalogued through the eyes of experienced soldiers, ones who detach themselves from it as needed to survive. This not only includes combat itself and it's immediate casualties, but the bleak nature of day-to-day life and the depressing nature of refugee camps - people unwanted by either side and with nowhere else to go.
If you're after pulpy, easy, action-packed reading this is probably a good book for you. If you want some alternate history/speculative military fiction this is probably up your alley too.
Some points removed for the way it treats women and it's weird racism.
May 18, 2015
I had never heard of The Zone series until I came across a description of it on the Wargame: AirLand Battle forums (no surprise!) where people were swapping their favorite Cold War fiction. Seeing how this was one of those books that has recently made the jump from out of print to e-book format, I decided to download the book and give this new (to me, anyway) series a spin.
One of the things that is clever about this series is the interesting twist Rouch puts on his yarn of World War III. Unlike other authors who approached the subject with a sober political scientist mentality, Rouch takes the idea of World War III in Europe down a kind of science fiction route. That is, he posits the wonderfully cynical (and believable) idea that in an effort to save the skins of the rest of Europe, NATO and the Warsaw Pact agree to limit the fighting to a large swath of West Germany. This area is known as "The Zone", a moniker that immediately conjures up memories of Stalker and Roadside Picnic's "Zones." And like those other zones of horror, Rouch's Zone is equally nightmarish: an area of continual combat, one blasted by gunpowder, nukes, and chemical and biological weaponry. What is more, like the Strugatsky brother's Zone, this one is a lifelong curse for any who enter it because even if a soldier manages to survive the combat, his inevitable contamination from the NBC environment is sure to truncate his life, as well as making him an outcast from society for evermore. Yeah, that is dark.
Hard Target's plot will, of course, unfold within this nightmarish reality, particularly around one of the many post-apocalyptic refugee enclaves situated in The Zone where the Soviets are suspected of having placed, against the rules of war, an elite tank salvage unit, one tasked with refitting enough Soviet armor to enable a successful counter-attack in coming months. Simply, it must be destroyed if NATO is to be able to keep the Reds from winning a large swath of The Zone.
Tasked with this mission is a joint American - British strike force specially created just for the assignment. As you might have guessed, it is your basic Dirty Dozen set-up as this unit seems to have managed to get the strangest men possible. The leader of the unit is an American, Major Revell, a competent officer who gets all the worst jobs imaginable because he knows how to put his nose to the grindstone and get the work done no matter what. Oh, and he is also a letch who can't help but to keep imagining himself having sex with every woman he comes across. There is also the horribly disfigured but eminently capable British Sergeant Hyde, a man who keeps fighting because...that is all he is good for anymore; he has become as much a weapon of war as his rifle. Then there are the lesser characters, like the American Corporal Dooley, who has a gutter mouth, two big fists, and a lot of guts. Or the British sniper Clarence, a man who had lost his entire family to the war and, as a result, has become a stone cold killer out of a sense of revenge. You get the idea by now, I'm sure.
This motley crew, which initially has a lot of friction because of the differing nationalities, has to learn to work together to cross The Zone's many military dangers and infiltrate the refugee camp without being detected (NATO troops are no more allowed in refugee camps than Pact soldiers). Then, of course, they need to actually locate the hidden Soviet repair facility...and find a way of destroying it without getting killed in the process.
What results is a classic covert op, one that even manages to enlist some East German deserters who are looking for a means of escape from the camp. As you might have guessed, when the camp is finally located, the sneaking stops and the fireworks begin! It is in combat where Rouch really shows a deft hand by creating believably brutal scenes of combat where anything can happen, and any character is vulnerable to death's hand. Good stuff!
So What's Not to Like?
Hemingway once remarked that the best way to create memorable characters is to have them speak as a real person would - e.g., a sailor character who swears as much as a real sailor. Unfortunately, Rouch has taken this advice to heart a bit too much. The motley soldiers in this yarn are quite the bunch of repulsive individuals, both in word and deed. I understand that Rouch is trying to portray believably gritty and, at times, beastly soldiers, but I have my limits. Vulgarities, copious sexual references, racism, flatulence(!) and more served to make the characters more loathsome than believable for me, something that limited my desire to cheer these guys on. What is more, seeing how much time Rouch spent developing the characters in vulgar ways, it is telling that with the exception of the few characters I mentioned above, the rest came across as faceless extras. We need more personality and less vulgarity, Rouch!
The other issue is one of price versus length. This book, the first in the series, is priced reasonably at $2.99, but the rest shoot up to $9.99! Now, I might be able to swallow this price point if these were 300-500 page epics, but the truth is that most of The Zone titles are little more than novellas, running in at around 160 pages or less. $10 for a short e-book novella is crazy, especially when used paperbacks are still available for far less than that. I would consider continuing with this series BUT for that issue.
Final Thoughts
All in all, Hard Target (The Zone) was a fun, breezy and, yes, brutal and vulgar look at World War III from the point of view of the grunts who have to fight it. In many ways, it reminded me of David Drake's Hammer Slammer's sci-fi series. As a gamer, I would recommend it as suitable reading material after a session of Wargame: ALB or Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm. However, if you are looking for a WWIII read and haven't tried some of the classics of that period, there are better books with which to feed your Red Menace imagination.
One of the things that is clever about this series is the interesting twist Rouch puts on his yarn of World War III. Unlike other authors who approached the subject with a sober political scientist mentality, Rouch takes the idea of World War III in Europe down a kind of science fiction route. That is, he posits the wonderfully cynical (and believable) idea that in an effort to save the skins of the rest of Europe, NATO and the Warsaw Pact agree to limit the fighting to a large swath of West Germany. This area is known as "The Zone", a moniker that immediately conjures up memories of Stalker and Roadside Picnic's "Zones." And like those other zones of horror, Rouch's Zone is equally nightmarish: an area of continual combat, one blasted by gunpowder, nukes, and chemical and biological weaponry. What is more, like the Strugatsky brother's Zone, this one is a lifelong curse for any who enter it because even if a soldier manages to survive the combat, his inevitable contamination from the NBC environment is sure to truncate his life, as well as making him an outcast from society for evermore. Yeah, that is dark.
Hard Target's plot will, of course, unfold within this nightmarish reality, particularly around one of the many post-apocalyptic refugee enclaves situated in The Zone where the Soviets are suspected of having placed, against the rules of war, an elite tank salvage unit, one tasked with refitting enough Soviet armor to enable a successful counter-attack in coming months. Simply, it must be destroyed if NATO is to be able to keep the Reds from winning a large swath of The Zone.
Tasked with this mission is a joint American - British strike force specially created just for the assignment. As you might have guessed, it is your basic Dirty Dozen set-up as this unit seems to have managed to get the strangest men possible. The leader of the unit is an American, Major Revell, a competent officer who gets all the worst jobs imaginable because he knows how to put his nose to the grindstone and get the work done no matter what. Oh, and he is also a letch who can't help but to keep imagining himself having sex with every woman he comes across. There is also the horribly disfigured but eminently capable British Sergeant Hyde, a man who keeps fighting because...that is all he is good for anymore; he has become as much a weapon of war as his rifle. Then there are the lesser characters, like the American Corporal Dooley, who has a gutter mouth, two big fists, and a lot of guts. Or the British sniper Clarence, a man who had lost his entire family to the war and, as a result, has become a stone cold killer out of a sense of revenge. You get the idea by now, I'm sure.
This motley crew, which initially has a lot of friction because of the differing nationalities, has to learn to work together to cross The Zone's many military dangers and infiltrate the refugee camp without being detected (NATO troops are no more allowed in refugee camps than Pact soldiers). Then, of course, they need to actually locate the hidden Soviet repair facility...and find a way of destroying it without getting killed in the process.
What results is a classic covert op, one that even manages to enlist some East German deserters who are looking for a means of escape from the camp. As you might have guessed, when the camp is finally located, the sneaking stops and the fireworks begin! It is in combat where Rouch really shows a deft hand by creating believably brutal scenes of combat where anything can happen, and any character is vulnerable to death's hand. Good stuff!
So What's Not to Like?
Hemingway once remarked that the best way to create memorable characters is to have them speak as a real person would - e.g., a sailor character who swears as much as a real sailor. Unfortunately, Rouch has taken this advice to heart a bit too much. The motley soldiers in this yarn are quite the bunch of repulsive individuals, both in word and deed. I understand that Rouch is trying to portray believably gritty and, at times, beastly soldiers, but I have my limits. Vulgarities, copious sexual references, racism, flatulence(!) and more served to make the characters more loathsome than believable for me, something that limited my desire to cheer these guys on. What is more, seeing how much time Rouch spent developing the characters in vulgar ways, it is telling that with the exception of the few characters I mentioned above, the rest came across as faceless extras. We need more personality and less vulgarity, Rouch!
The other issue is one of price versus length. This book, the first in the series, is priced reasonably at $2.99, but the rest shoot up to $9.99! Now, I might be able to swallow this price point if these were 300-500 page epics, but the truth is that most of The Zone titles are little more than novellas, running in at around 160 pages or less. $10 for a short e-book novella is crazy, especially when used paperbacks are still available for far less than that. I would consider continuing with this series BUT for that issue.
Final Thoughts
All in all, Hard Target (The Zone) was a fun, breezy and, yes, brutal and vulgar look at World War III from the point of view of the grunts who have to fight it. In many ways, it reminded me of David Drake's Hammer Slammer's sci-fi series. As a gamer, I would recommend it as suitable reading material after a session of Wargame: ALB or Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm. However, if you are looking for a WWIII read and haven't tried some of the classics of that period, there are better books with which to feed your Red Menace imagination.
May 18, 2025
What started our as a speculative fiction/action adventure series based in the not-too-distant future, in a war torn no man's land called "The Zone," after the collapse of communism and the end of the cold war, The Zone has been referred to as an "alternate history" series. I read these books in the 80s, so I tend to remember them as the former rather than the latter. That said, "Hard Target" was so grimy, I'm still picking dirt out of my teeth. The body count in this first book is high, so don't get attached to anyone. The characters aren't exactly well fleshed out, but you don't need that, especially in a book series, where there's time to flesh characters out as you go. Assuming they live long enough. Great first book from a great series.
October 6, 2019
Not great but still entertaining.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
December 3, 2025
Great nostalgic read!
Read this when it first came out and just finished reading it again. Brilliant, loved the story and vacant wait to get back into reading the others!
Read this when it first came out and just finished reading it again. Brilliant, loved the story and vacant wait to get back into reading the others!
January 19, 2015
Not a bad first entry into this futuristic Cold War series. An interesting cast of characters, although cliche'd at times. It ends kind of abruptly, as if the author didn't really know how to end it. I would have prefered a "winding down" chapter at the end rather than "They made it back, and the Commander congratulated them."
February 11, 2012
I persevered because it was only a short book, but... promising premise, let down by confused prose, and some rather unpleasant racism. One minor character is repeatedly referred to as 'the black'.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews