Barry Sadler (1) (1940–1989)

It would be easy to put off Barry Sadler’s character CASCA as dime store fluff. But that is not the case. Cursed by Christ as he is dying upon the cross CASCA is damned to walk the earth until the return of the Messiah. The pain, misery and agony our character endures in the first book alone is enough for us to feel pity for him. Sadler hit a home run with this character, his somewhat decent knowledge of history, cause and effect and the events that shaped the world over the last two show more thousand years are strong. CASCA’s suffering tears at your heart strings. Yeah the language is kind of off pace and at times the story seems rushed, but at less than two hundred pages Sadler gets a lot done. It would be awesome to see these stories on the screen. Violent, sexist and at times culturally intolerant, these stories would be attacked by the modern woke crowds. But they are relative to the times and attitudes. Good stories, a quick read with insight into ourselves. CASCA as a character is not above himself. The author instills in him the importance of self-awareness and higher understanding of a force much larger than ourselves. Though CASCA may be resistant to these deeper feelings he has...he is not beyond letting them shape him. show less

This is the fourth in the Casca series, though it's only the second Casca book I have read. Beyond a very loose narrative frame at the beginning and the end of the book, it is not closely connected with its immediate predecessor in the series.

Casca is the Roman centurion who stabbed Jesus as He was being crucified and was therefore cursed to live forever, or at least until the Second Coming. As a soldier by training and inclination, Casca then spends the next couple thousand years traveling show more around and participating in variety of battles throughout history. Not a bad premise.

Casca finds himself as a sergeant in the Wehrmacht commanding a panzer on the Eastern Front. He's not a Nazi, he just likes battle and fears the long-term Russian threat, so Casca's not a bad guy, right? He participates various battles in the Kursk campaign; the tank combat sequences are not bad but not highly detailed, so readers looking for lots of "tank porn" may be disappointed. Casca and his crew end up fighting as infantrymen as often as they do in a tank. When the Eastern Front collapses, Casca meets a Jewish woman who is a prisoner of the SS. She alerts Casca to the Holocaust, he rescues her, and spends the last six months of so of the war assassinating SS men and rescuing Jewish prisoners. He is eventually captured and taken to Himmler, who is one of the leaders of the Christian cult/sect hunting Casca throughout history. As it turns out, they hate Jews as well and set up WWII for the purpose of eliminating as many Jews as possible. Casca ends up being taken to HItler's bunker and participating in the fall of Berlin.

Some decent characterization of the various villains and the wriing was noticably better than the third book in the series. If you like straight-up military history fiction with a few strange elements thrown in, this is a pretty good book.

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers show less

In volume two of Barry Sadler's CASCA we find our hero reeling from the emotional fallout of his first two hundred years of the curse placed upon him by Christ during the crucifixion. CASCA has found himself living with and befriended by early Germanic Norsemen. His adventures take to the brutal and mysterious land of the Aztecs where his unfortunate condition puts him in an awkward yet beneficial standing with the ancient culture. As good, but not better than the first book it is well show more written and historically firm. We find CASCA getting uneasily comfortable with his curse and coming to terms that he can use it for good if not positive means. The Author's description of the Aztecs are very colorful and jumps off the page. The descriptions and graphic depictions of rape and ancient hand to hand warfare are brutal and unrelenting. When the band of Vikings set out upon the sea you can taste the salt and feel the chill to the point of sea sickness. Very well done. A good, quick read that is easy to absorb and get you seated for the third volume. show less

Reading through this series it is clear that much of it may have been rewritten, changed or used leftovers from Sadler’s typewriter. This is not all bad but sometimes you get the sense you are reading the same thing in a different tense. In CASCA the Persian we see our hero slithering through the desert, dying of thirst, starving etc., etc. I won’t put this all on the author’s shoulders. I am sure the editors were a pain in the rear. CASCA has made his way to PERSIA with a message from show more an Emperor in the East. Of course he finds himself making friends, enemies and those flies in ointment called The Brotherhood of the Lamb. We know CASCA is going to suffer but what we do not know is, will his threshold for immortality finally be reached? Will the Messiah take pity on him and give him the release he so desperately desires? It is doubtful. show less