Cover of book two, Trial by Fire
The Guardians is a sixteen book series mostly written by Victor Milan (under the pen name Richard Austin)note set After the End of a devastating nuclear war in the USA in the 1980s. Four elite soldiers, one from each branch of the US military were selected to be "The Guardians", an elite Special Forces team answerable only to the President. After the war, they were charged with getting the President to safety then starting the rebuilding of the country by seeking out the elements of the top secret "Blueprint for Renewal" plan.A good overview of the series can be found here
. Beware spoilers!
Books in the series
- The Guardians (1985)
- Trial by Fire (1985)
- Thunder of Hell (1985)
- Night of the Phoenix (1985)
- Armageddon Run (1986)
- War Zone (1986)
- Brute Force (1987)
- Desolation Road (1987)
- Vengeance Day (1987)
- Freedom Fight (1987)
- Valley of the Gods (1988)
- The Plague Years (1988)
- Devil's Deal (1989)
- Death from Above (1990)
- Snake Eyes (1990)
- Death Charge (1991)
The Guardians
- William McKay - US Marine and Special Forces leader of The Guardians. The Big Guy and The Hero - enjoys kicking ass and taking names and the company of the ladies. Said to look a lot like Jim McMahon though not quite as pretty. Big enough to pack an M60 full dress machine gun as a personal weapon.
- Casey Wilson - Ace Pilot from the US Air Force, Badass Driver and Friendly Sniper. The most laid back and loose of The Guardians.
- Sam Sloan - US Navy Commander and survivor of an Exocet missile attack on his ship. A Southern Gentleman, nevertheless is still capable of beating a man to death with his bare hands.
- Tom Rogers - The Stoic and The Medic of The Guardians and US Army Special Forces veteran. Quiet and unassuming he nevertheless is one of the few people even McKay would be loath to take on.
This work provides examples of:
- Acrofatic: "The Cowboy", another former Special Forces operative, is noted to look like "the Pillsbury Doughboy stuffed into combat fatigues" but is just as dangerous and skilled as any of The Guardians.
- After the End: The USA has been devastated by a nuclear exchange early in The '90s, causing society to break down and anarchy to reign.
- Always Someone Better: "The Cowboy" to McKay. During their epic face off, McKay was losing the fight and came very close to having his back broken - if he hadn't managed to reach his combat knife and stab "The Cowboy" then he would have died.
- And This Is for...: McKay gives a bunch of these to "The Cowboy" as he's finishing him off at the end of their fight.
- Berserk Button:
- Calling Rogers a member of the "Special Services". The correct term is "Special Forces", "Special Services" refers to soldiers who fill certain specialised support roles - as Rogers puts it, "barbers and bandsmen".
- For Wilson, finding out members of the local FSE garrison had raped a woman he'd been romantically involved with. During a later infiltration of their base, Wilson cold bloodedly shoots dead a soldier who might been going for a weapon, killing his bunkmate above him in the process without hesitation.
- Big Bad: Chairman Maximov, head of the FSE (Federated States of Europe).
- Coast Guard: The Guardians fight alongside some members of this branch and a bunch of civilian sailors against some particularly nasty Ruthless Modern Pirates.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Played with. The Guardians (and McKay in particular) try and avoid getting embroiled in local conflicts, but often find themselves getting dragged into them as a condition of someone or a group cooperating with them so The Guardians can successfully complete their mission.
- Cool Car: The Guardians roll in an upgraded V-450note , version of the Cadillac Gage Commando armored car, called a "Super Commando".
- Disney Villain Death: McKay manages to kick "The Cowboy" off the bluff they are fighting on at the climax of their fight.
- The Dreaded: "The Cowboy" is one of the few people in the world who can make The Guardians pause, causing even The Stoic Tom Rogers lose his cool when he finds out he's in the vicinity. He lives up to his reputation, raping a woman to death for kicks and nearly killing McKay in a hand to hand fight.
- Enemy Mine: The President of the USA and Chairman Maximov temporarily join forces against a former FSE military officer who's threatening both of them with devastating biological weapons unless they declare him leader of the world.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Both McKay and Rogers are members of their branches respective Special Forces at the start of the series. Wilson and Sloan don't technically qualify, but Wilson is a rare single mission ace, having shot down five enemy planes in a single engagement and Sloan successfully took command of a ship and ensured it's survival after the entire officer command complement were killed by a missile strike.
- Failed Future Forecast: The books were written in The '80s and set early in The '90s. It's just possible for the events of the books to have started just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- Groin Attack: McKay does this twice to "The Cowboy" during their fight. The first is ineffective but the second works, literally kicking him hard enough to make his feet leave the ground.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: McKay manages to stab "The Cowboy" with his combat knife during the fight, turning the tables and then manages to kick the handle of the knife to drive it so far into his body it could no longer be seen.
- Improvised Weapon: "The Cowboy" smashes McKay's M60 out of his hands with a large rock, forcing him into a hand to hand fight.
- Jumping the Shark: The final two books were written by a different (unnamed) author to Milan - one veers wildly into James Bond super-villain territory and the other just doesn't make sense. Snake Eyes has a plot with an LSD addled cult leader threatening the world with massive earthquakes caused by explosives placed in fault lines - earlier books had shown advanced technology but it was believable extrapolation based on current science. Death Charge has one of The Guardians turned invisible after an experiment goes awry, massive
Character Derailment for a major character, a somehow miraculously intact Hawaii that escaped the war unscathed, and idiot balls being flung around like confetti. Small wonder the series ended here. - Know When to Fold 'Em: McKay is scouting out a possible base of operations for The Guardians to use, only to find it's occupied by a particularly vicious and heavily armed (including anti-tank weaponry) gang, hundreds strong, who'd recently burned a young boy to death for trying to sneak into the compound and had his charred body on display as a warning. While McKay is tempted to call up Mobile One and blow away a few dozen assholes with it's .50 machine gun and grenade launcher, he knows it won't actually achieve anything useful and the risk of getting themselves killed and/or Mobile One destroyed is not worth it.
- Leave Him to Me!: After discovering the body of the woman "The Cowboy" had raped to death, McKay tells the other Guardians that when they catch up to The Liberators, "The Cowboy" is his. The other Guardians don't object.
- Missing Backblast: Subverted - a character uses a claymore mine strapped to his chest to stop an onrushing streetful of people but the backblast kills him too.
- N-Word Privileges: Military version. If you've served alongside someone in active combat, you are allowed to rag on them and insult them, otherwise they'll get pissed.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: "The Cowboy" is only ever called by this name, but everyone in the Special Forces community knows who he is.
- No-Sell: McKay faces off against "The Cowboy" in a hand to hand fight and his first move is to kick him in the balls. This barely makes "The Cowboy" blink.
- The Psycho Rangers: "The Liberators", evil counterparts to The Guardians, oppose them in a few books before The Guardians eventually kill them.
- Ruthless Modern Pirates: The Guardians go up against a bunch of these in one book to secure the help of a particular group of survivalist sailors.
- Shoot Out the Lock: Defied. When asked by a teenager if he was going to shoot out the lock on a locked door, McKay replies that it's a "great way to collect a bullet in the nuts, kid, and probably wouldn't open the door." He then proceeds to use a crowbar instead.
- Stout Strength: "The Cowboy" might be fat but is stronger than even McKay, who finds he cannot break his grip during their fight.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- McKay struggles to keep his pace up on a dismounted operation after spending several weeks mostly travelling in the Guardian's armoured car, noting to himself that it's hard to keep your fitness levels high when you spend most of the day just sitting on your ass.
- After a particularly gruelling mission, The Guardians spend a couple of days literally just sleeping, only waking up to eat and relieve themselves, as they recover from their ordeal.
- Going up against a modern tank in an armored car is borderline suicidal. The Guardians' Super Commando armored car is destroyed and Casey is almost killed.
- Standard Kevlar body armor won't stop assault rifle rounds as one character finds out to his cost.
- The reason The Guardians use an armored car, rather than a full dress Main Battle Tank, is that tracked vehicles are a "bitch to maintain in the field" as McKay bluntly puts it, drink fuel like it's going out of fashion, require serious logistical backup to be effective that's just not available and are just impractical and overpowered for the types of missions The Guardians undertake. Armored cars are also much faster on road and The Guardians often have to travel long distances to get to their next assignment.
- Using an M60 full dress machine gun as a personal weapon is borderline Awesome, but Impractical. In one sequence McKay is trying to quickly switch targets and as he tries to haul the M60's mass around to bear internally debates whether it would be quicker to just drop the gun and pull his sidearm instead.
- The Guardians ally with other former units of the US Military on occasion. These always suffer far more casualties as they simply aren't trained or experienced enough to handle themselves as well as The Guardians do in the type of high intensity missions they undertake.
- Truce Zone: The "Rubble Mart" - the centre of trade in a ruined city where rival gang members who'd normally cheerfully kill each other tolerate each other's presence. The last time trouble broke out, the mart was shut down until the perpetrator's bodies were delivered to it. Even After the End, trade is an absolute necessity for survival.
- Yanks with Tanks: Each Guardian is drawn from a separate branch of the US military - McKay is a US Marine, Wilson is US Airforce pilot, Sloan is a US Navy commander and Rogers is a US Army soldier.
- While You Were in Diapers: McKay has a disagreement with another character and is riled up enough to call him a "traitor" out of earshot (or so he thinks). Said character tells McKay after they manage to resolve the dispute that he served as a Marine in The Korean War, before McKay was even born, and lost the lower half of one leg to a bullet wound and frostbite at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir and McKay should think twice before slinging the word "traitor" around. McKay is suitably abashed.
- Worthy Opponent:
- Ivan Vesensky, former KGB operative and right hand to Maximov. Even though they are opponents and have tried to kill each other on occasion, both he and The Guardians have a lot of respect for each other's skills, abilities and tenacity.
- Subverted with "The Cowboy" who is loathed by both McKay and Rogers as a cruel and depraved monster.
