Techno-Thrillers discussion

One November BOTM theme is SOMETHING NEW theme—a book published within the last 5 years. All nominations were by Steve for this one. The poll had a single winner, though all 5 nominees got votes.

Aggressor by F.X. Holden (2023)


You ask me ... this 5-book Aggressor series is the best reading in the genre today. As a whole, I honestly believe this series is better than Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, ... which I thought was Clancy's best work. This book is #1 of 5 in the series. Please post and tell us what you think.

Publisher's Summary
It is April 1 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan. The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the Chinese blockade to deliver it? AGGRESSOR is the first novel in a new series that looks at the conflict that could spark the next World War, through the eyes of soldiers, sailors, civilians and aviators on all sides. Featuring technologies that are on the drawing board today and could be fielded in the near future, AGGRESSOR is the page turning military technothriller you have been waiting for!

The story revolves around China (People's Republic of China, PRC, Mainland China, Communist China, or Red China) trying to take Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC, or Free China). Seems relevant to brush up on the geography.

Taiwan Regional Map


What I didn't realize is how many small islands there are, aside from just the big main island (Formosa), and some of them are right up off the coast of the Chinese mainland in a few different areas, which quite a dispersion. The 9-Dash line (Red China’s claim of territorial waters) might have always seemed like quite an overreach, ... but the more you learn ... it's interesting. Mainland China's claims are further beyond the pale than imaginable.

Taiwan islands are shown below in blue.


While the blue above is easier to see, these names are more challenging in English. So the map below uses names that are a little more easily digestible phonetically in English.


Much further to the west and south from Formosa, are the Pratas and Taiping islands, also many decades ago (before the civil war) ceded to the ROC, and continuously controlled by Taiwan (ROC) this whole time.

Aggressor is authored under pen name of FX Holden. It doesn't take much effort to find that FX Holden is evidently Australian author Tim Slee, pictured below. He is said to be a former Australian journalist and a former intelligence officer--which presents as an accounting for his writing skills and military knowledge.



I find this series to be ... phenomenal, and I find the publication timeline noteworthy:
#1 Aggressor (Apr 1, 2023)
#2 Beachhead (Jun 16, 2023)
#3 Swarm (Dec 1, 2023)
#4 Midnight (Mar 28, 2024)
#5 Fulcrum (Aug 30, 2024)

I think that timeline begs the question: How on Earth does any one person put out something this good, this fast? Idle speculation to follow.

I suppose you could say the guy's a journalist, and of course he can write. Journalists put out stories virtually every day. I'd note that it seems his journalism background was while he was very young ... maybe even as a teenager ... not really sure ... reporting for something like a stock--as in cattle--newsletter or journal, and that was a short stint ... maybe a year long (I'm going from distant memory here). He does seems to have a degree in communications and his work for a major pharmaceutical company seems to be his principal career. Sure, they put out marketing and what have you, but I'm not seeing Stephen King type of background ... the write a ton of fiction or die trying sort of thing.

I've heard someone suggest he must use AI or ChatGPT. Let's go back to the this good part of the question and note that this guy knows his stuff. I don’t think ChatGPT knows this stuff or is able to think so on the mark about the future. He's got all the toys in that toybox ... all the planes, all the boats, all the missiles, ... and tanks, and drones, and AI, and satellites, and missile defense systems. He has a history of working in a politician's office ... not clear what he was doing ... but I don't see a career steeped deeply in all things military.

Sure, Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman who liked to read Jane's, and one of Clancy's books was like 2 or 3 of these smaller books, but Clancy didn't put out this much material either. It was pretty on point, but Red Storm Rising where he went bananas ... that was co-written by Larry Bond who was equally geeked out on all things military. Clancy's other books didn't go full blitz on every weapon system under the sun like Red Storm Rising.

The Aggressor series does cover the whole enchilada. This begs the question, is FX Holden really a multi-person pen name? This happens. The Expanse is written by a pen name ... which is really two people. The Relic was actually written by two people. Even then, ... the coverage, knowledge, and production, ... it strikes me as a stretch to see one guy write all that. I think you could get 10 guys in a room and have that knowledge ... but guys with that sort of knowledge usually know that one thing, they're super invested in it as both hobby and career, and most guys in that kind of career are consumers of knowledge, not producers. They usually can't write to save their lives. They couldn't keep the attention of each other, let alone non-experts, even with the non-fiction part of it, nor could they put together a compelling fictional thriller, and ... get it right. And, it isn't just these 5 books. FX Holden put out a couple other book series.

So, I'm wondering, who all really is FX Holden? I'm thinking F-X is often shorthand for the next generation fighter. Before we heard F-22 ... we didn't know what it was going to be called, … whether it was going to be F-22 or F-23. So, F-X is another way of saying the future has yet to be chosen, for the F-? … the next gen F-X plane. These books are after all set 15 years in the future. I'm thinking that focus on next generation aircraft ... this Black Widow ... is the thinking behind FX in FX Holden. I don't think there was ever any intention to pose as Frank Xavier Holden or something like that. How many middle names are an X? So what about the name Holden? I think FX (as in next gen fighter) was the initial thought ... and then there is an old car called an FX Holden. Isn’t that a coincidence? The FX Holden was the first GM car produced entirely in Australia. Holden was the name of the chairman of GM-Holden, an Australia subsidiary of GM. Holden, as in the first Australian designed and built car, just seems like a nice Australian completion of the FX pen name.

My guess is that FX Holden is a whole team of career Australian intelligence folks involved here and multiple pure writers, not one guy who has a high level career in pharmaceutical communications as a day job and just whips out 5 home run books in just over a year during his free time. Who knows? If it really is just Tim Slee … then, … holy sh@&%* this guy is good!

The Aggressor features a Black Widow fighter jet, which is likely inspired by the YF-23.



The YF-23 competed with the YF-22 to become the next Advanced Tactical Fighter platform for the U.S. Air Force in the late 80s and early 90s. The F-22 won that competition for being more agile, but the YF-23 was stealthier, and faster. One of the YF-23 prototypes was named "Spider" based on its color, a combination of two grays. At one point a red hourglass was painted on the underside of the plane, allegedly to help ground grew to avoid walking into a section of the air scoop as they evidently had been. This lead to it being referred to as a black widow. Northrop Grumman management eventually learned of this and had the red marking removed, but the name stuck.