Tech Satan

C.A.D.S. #5

by John Sievert

The soldiers of C.A.D.S. find their high-tech weapons of little use against the mysterious killer-plague that has spread across the new U.S. government headquarters at White Sands, New Mexico

286 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1988

About the author

A pseudonym of Ryder Syvertsen

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fifth book of a twelve-volume post-apocalyptic men's adventure series published from 1985 - '91. All of the books were published under the pseudonym John Sievert. The first one was written by Jan Stacy in collaboration with Ryder Syvertsen. Numbers two through eight were written by Syvertsen alone, and the final four were written by David Alexander. The title of this is Tech Satan, though that only appears on the cover, not the title page or anyplace else inside. It's set in the near future (2000), the Russians have hit the Eastern half of the U.S. with nuclear bombs, and their invasion force is occupying much of the country. The last line of defense is Colonel Dean Sturgis and his cadre of C.A.D.S., which stands for Computerized Attack/Defense System, as we're told quite frequently. The C.A.D.S. are suits of weaponized armor that turn the wearers into super soldiers, but their numbers are low. Society disintegrates rapidly, and the C.A.D.S. troopers have to fight mad bands of rampaging rapists nearly as often as they oppose the godless commies. The book is unapologetically patriotic, as one might expect from the days of Reagan's second term, and has several over-the-top but amusing bits of black humor interspersed with some rather gritty violent scenes, though it was somewhat tamer than many of Zebra's other such series. In this one, the President and his high command have dropped out of contact from their secret headquarters in White Sands, New Mexico. Sturgis and his troopers take off across country from their secret base in the Okefenokee Swamp in Florida to investigate. It gets weird; one of the Russians brainwashes Robin, Dean's long-lost wife, into being his sex slave, we find out that the arch-traitor from the previous book, Pinky Ellis, didn't really die and is in fact responsible for the White Sands problem, Sister Anetra returns with her druggy cult, Dean has continuing relations with a Dr. Decamp as well as Morgana Pinter... Hell Tanner would love it. It's a good survivalist-type adventure of the time, starting to get a little rough around the edges and more than a little soap-opera-ishy, but still an entertaining diversion.

[Mitch Coppoletti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly bad writing, but engaging enough to hold my interest. I read it during short breaks a work as a diversion, and I wasn't looking for anything deep during those times, so this was just the ticket.

The premise is an elite force of American soldiers clad in powered-armor suits wage post-nuclear war with Russia.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average apocalyptic adventure story. This one has the rebels using really cool computerized armor to fight with. Recommended