Within the first few pages, Norris reveals a far less subtle understanding of Saudi Arabian culture through an opening scene involving a Bedouin street sweeper almost swept off a modern highway by a military convoy moving at high speeds through a dust storm. The twin messages that Saudi Arabia is only modern in the most facile sense, while primitive and barbaric underneath, and that nothing is ever quite what it seems are delivered so simplistically as to make most of the story predictable.

The reader is then introduced in succession to Prince Salman (Rushdie, anyone?), a progressive member of the Saudi household, Jack Warner (press agent hired to massage the media), and the pilots: Lieutenant Randi Cole (MIG-killer and female ‘naval aviator’), her Hispanic godfather, Captain Joe ‘Hoser’ Santana (U.S. Navy retired), Captain Steven Whitefoot (Native American Air Force pilot), Squadron Leader Simon Buckingham (English playboy, and Royal Air Force hotshot), Lieutenant Colonel Moshe Kohl (Israeli humanist, and most experienced of the bunch), and a handful of others including the cleverly named Russians Sergei and Mikhail.

The characters are as formulaic and stereotypical as their names would suggest. Though this is perhaps forgivable in the military fiction genre where the audience is likely to be unfamiliar with the various perspectives such cultures produce, none of them (with the possible exception of Whitefoot) experience any growth over the course of the almost 350 page book. In fact, character development is sacrificed in favor of exhaustingly detailed descriptions of the flight sequences.

Lieutenant Cole is introduced to the reader in a feat of fancy flying whereby she cheats death while determining the minimum speed with which she could launch her F/A-18E ‘Super Hornet’ from an aircraft carrier. In this sequence, as in the other aerial combat scenes, Bob Norris confirms for the reader that he can vividly re-create the most dicey moments in the some 500 hours of carrier flights he logged while a fighter pilot in the United States Navy.

Unfortunately, the plot seems mostly an afterthought. The basic premise is that these pilots (save Cole, who is excluded from the competition because she is a woman), and the countries, companies, and planes they represent, are competing in a high-stakes contest where the winner is to receive the contract to build a new fleet of fighter jets for the Saudi Arabian Air Force.

The disinterest on the part of the Saudis in the planes, their technical specifications and maintenance histories, never mind their suitability to the climate, suggests to even the most naive characters that something else is at work. In the course of the competition, several pilots are killed and injured (after heavy foreshadowing of their upcoming fates), and many more endangered by the ‘conspiracy’-- one that, while suitably twisted, is hardly cogent enough to leave the reader believing it merits the risks the Saudis are taking.

It is a shame that the Norris did not spare some of the meticulous explanations he reserved for the mechanics of fighter combat for other aspects of the service culture he depicts. Though Norris is writing what he knows in painting how the characters interact, throwaway references to ‘mustangs’ and ‘master chiefs,’ render these vignettes inaccessible to those not already familiar with the nuances of naval service.

In the end, Norris’ book is likely to appeal only to those enthusiasts of military fiction who are willing to forgive shallow characterization, clumsy plotting, and an amateurish writing style in pursuit of gripping, if painstakingly described, flight maneuvers reminiscent of Top Gun. While Fly-Off is not necessarily unfair to the Saudis, Norris lacks the perceptiveness and cultural insight required to add much to the average reader’s appreciation of the place.

--Thea Davis