Cybertech Killing Zone

C.A.D.S. #8

by John Sievert

Sievert, J.

222 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1989

About the author

A pseudonym of Ryder Syvertsen

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the eighth book of a twelve-volume post-apocalyptic men's adventure series published from 1985 - '91 by Zebra. 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. It's set in the near future (around the turn of the millennium), the Russians have hit the Eastern half of the U.S. with nuclear bombs, and their invasion force is sweeping across 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, Syvertsen's last, things get crazy. The C.A.D.S. make their way back to the White Sands base only to find the Russians have attacked with biological weapons and are preparing to drop a nuke. They and the survivors head for a new base they handily discovered in the last book but meet a band of cannibals who used to be a movie making team, so they have gallons and gallons of glue lying around and they spray that on the C.A.D.S. and capture them. What was that? Why do cannibal movie makers need glue? Aren't the suits a bit more reliable than that? Luckily, one of the guys escapes from the veal-fattening-pens they've been put in and happens across a former NBA star who's leading a National Guard squad who come to rescue them. They continue towards the new base and happen across a friendly Indian tribe who's joined forces with a messenger from the East Coast, Jerry Jeff Jeeters, who was outed as a spy in South Carolina but warns them that the nefarious traitor Pinky Ellis has taken over the area they're headed for and joined forces with cult-leader Annetra and they've proclaimed themselves Emperor and Empress of North America. Pinky and Anetra capture the C.A.D.S. (again? They're not so good at this fighting thing or what?) just as the Russians attack again. Most everybody seems to escape, except Anetra, whom Pinky kills because she was too interested in having sex instead of escaping. We don't know if Pinky escaped or not. At the end, Robin, Dean Sturgus' wife and object of his many searches and rescues, is found by a lonely prospector near her freeze-dried coffin but with no memory and wasn't she dead in the last book? This was one of the weirdest entries in the series, which was overall a good survivalist/military-type adventure of the time.

[Paul Berner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vignettes Killing Zone

Very good read. This is Book #8. That's all good the kindle reads on this author. Hopefully they can get the last 4 books on kindle very soon.

[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