cover image SEAL Team 666

SEAL Team 666

Weston Ochse. St. Martin’s/Dunne, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-250-00735-3

Sniper Jack Walker is plucked straight from Navy SEAL training and assigned to the United States’s only “supernatural unconventional-warfare special-mission unit”—otherwise known as SEAL Team 666. He’s been selected because of a childhood close encounter with a demon, and his new line of work puts him and his team up against an ancient Chinese demon stirring up trouble in modern-day Myanmar. Ochse’s background in military intelligence packs this hybrid of military SF and horror (already optioned by MGM) with insider detail and verisimilitude, but the characters and plotting are largely rote and lacking in depth, and Ochse’s literal demonization of Chinese and Arab villains—especially in the prologue, which depicts an Osama bin Laden–like character as a vicious supernatural creature—is a discomfiting and jingoistic throwback to pulp-era Orientalist horror. Agent: Robert Fleck, Professional Media Services. (Dec.)