Barrabas Run

Soldiers of Barrabas #1

by Jack Hild, Alan Bomack, Jack Canon

Book by Author unknown

Genres: War, Action

Paperback

First published August 1, 1983

About the author

"Jack Hild" is a pseudonym shared by multiple authors ghostwriting the Soldiers of Barrabas (SOBs) series of action-adventure novels. The most prolific of these authors were Robin Hardy and Alan Philipson.

Despite Hild's output being the work of several authors, the novelist Warren Murphy provided a cover endorsement saying "Jack Hild is simply the best and gutsiest action writer around today."

In backmatter to some of the SOBs books, the publishers Gold Eagle jokingly stated Hild's "whereabouts are unknown. No one associated with Gold Eagle Books has ever seen Jack, in person or in a photograph... If you should ever meet Jack Hild... let us know."

Reviews

[Mike MacDee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this expecting light trash reading and was surprised to get a really cool and well-written military thriller instead. You can feel the dankness of the jungle in every scene, and the recruitment of the team members is a pretty fun sequence: most of the characters are distinct, though a few of them are too generic to keep from mixing up. The action scenes are brief, but it's easy to tell what's going on and they don't go into "horror movie" territory with the violence like a lot of men's adventure fiction titles. It's light fun reading, and certainly nothing literary, but it kept me turning the page to see what happened next.

I could've probably done with fewer team members to make the protagonists more memorable and fleshed out. They're all antiheroes, but if one of them got injured I still found myself hoping he'd pull through. The villains could have used a LOT more characterization: they're basically throwaway characters consisting of a few name-drops, a couple sentences of page time, and a lackluster death. Heiss is the only one who's remotely memorable, but I did get a kick out of what happened to him in the end.

Still, if all of the SOBs books are written as well as this one, I wouldn't complain too much. Most adventure fiction is pretty disposable, but I kept this one to read again on a rainy day, and I recommend it to aspiring writers who favor the military thriller genre.

[Arizona Spartan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series first book is a bit clunky but is serviceable in how it lays out the main characters to kick off the series. In the beginning we get the origin of the main character Nile Barrabas and series regular the Fixer, Jessup who contracts the team for a shadowy politician.

The cover here is the reprint cover while the original sports a badly painted cover which is supposed to look like an aged photograph of the main character in water somewhere in Vietnam.

I loved the series as a teenager and twenty-something. It holds up action wise and the characters are built well enough to carry the story.

[Bill Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great early 80’s military thriller. Nile Barrabas, the last man out of Vietnam, a military legend is tasked with rescuing a great African leader to restore peace to his war-torn country. To do so he will need some of the most skilled soldiers he can find...and hire. Their regular military service is over but the irregular service has just started - they are now the Soldiers of Barrabas.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The literary equivalent of reading a J-C van Damme movie. Amusing for what it is.

[Dartharagorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the over all read enjoyable. The first half was kinda slow with the set up. But these team books usually are. It was your typical "Dirty Dozen" set up with your experts in certain areas. Was a fun read and looking forward to the next one.

[Jason Towers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Straightforward action tale that kicked off a long running series. Both drier and less trashy than later books in the series. Took me 40 years to find a copy.

[Paul Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best homage to Fredrick Forsyth's "The Dogs of War" you'll ever read. Seriously, it's good fun. The SOBs is my all-time favorite men's adventure series to come out of the 80s.