cover image Good Sticks

Good Sticks

Sherman F. Morgan. Pendragon, $0 (364pp) ISBN 978-0-944792-02-5

Set in the post-Vietnam era of the late 1970s and early '80s, this first novel about two friends from Army helicopter school who follow separate careers in the Coast Guard and the Air Force, fails as either techno-thriller or military procedural, and in its exploration of character as well. Morgan, a former Army pilot, provides only a vague sense of the institutional environments in which his pilots function; lengthy descriptions of the techniques of operating a helicopter confuse rather than enlighten or excite. There is poignancy in the plot, which revolves around one friend's need to establish his innocence concerning the wartime loss of a helicopter before he dies of cancer. But on the whole neither the characters nor their dialogue are convincing enough to generate readers' interest. (May)