Sense of War

Zine
Title:	A Sense of War
Publisher:	Knightwriter Press
Editor:
Author(s):	Lee
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	2000
Series?:	yes
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	The Sentinel/Rat Patrol
Language:	English
External Links:
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A Sense of War is a series of The Sentinel/Rat Patrol novels by Lee.

Issue 1

A Sense of War 1 was published in 2000 and contains 100 pages.

cover of issue #1

Summary from the distributor: "When Sam Troy's Rat Patrol is 'gifted' with two new men, Sentinel & Guide, to evaluate and train, he doesn't have a clue that those men will prove to be so special, that Ellison will have a chance to save the lives of the Rat Patrol - and Hans Dietrich - before the end of their first mission."

Reactions and Reviews: Issue 1

I am not familiar with The Rat Patrol, but since I'm rather fond of WWII novels, and I'm not averse to Parallel Universe stories putting Jim and Blair into a different setting, I plunged into this happily and wasn't lost. This was pretty good. This is a What-If story, taking the premise of "What if Jim and Blair had been born long enough ago that they were involved in WWII?" It doesn't go into the backstory much; the author is more interested in the interaction between the characters in The Rat Patrol and Jim and Blair. Not being familiar with the Rat Patrol (like, I've seen one episode) I couldn't really tell if the Rat Patrol characters were in character, but I was neither lost nor bored, which certainly seems to me that the author was handling them well enough. I like crossovers where the author isn't spending all her time explaining things; just show it like it is, and have the characters react. There were some good uses of Jim's senses, though Blair didn't get to shine a lot. The problem with having so many characters, it's hard to give everyone equal time. One could argue that this was more a Rat Patrol story than a Sentinel story, simply by sheer weight of numbers, but one thing I like about crossovers is getting to see Our Heros from someone else's point of view, which this one certainly had.

Issue 2

cover of issue #2

Sense of War 2 was published in 2000 and contains 68 pages. It has the subtitle, "Desert Heat" and is a sequel to the previous issue.

From the publisher: "Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg are about to accept their second mission with the Rat Patrol. Neither of them would have suspected that before it was all over they would, yet again, be guests of the infamous Hauptmann Dietrich or that their presence might well be the only thing that would save Troy's life."

Reactions and Reviews: Issue 2

This continues the story begun in A Sense Of War (best read that one first) and goes further with it. Interesting Developments Ensue (but I can't say more for fear of spoilers). I liked the characterisation here, where a few characters have to think about what really matters to them, and make some hard choices. Mind, the ones doing the soul-searching weren't Jim or Blair -- again, not everyone manages to get the spotlight (though it was cool watching Blair and Moffit go ga-ga over the ruins they found...) Again, probably more Rat Patrol than Sentinel, but, again, I still enjoyed it despite not being a Rat Patrol fan.