A review in the Buffalo "Beast" of Dolan's novel/memoir "Pleasant Hell" stated that "a faithful "eXile" reader have to be as dense as young John Dolan not to realize you're reading about the birth of 'Gary Brecher' – nome" [sic "de guerre of the famed 'War Nerd'." In the memoir, Dolan writes of obsessively studying military history and Jane's manuals while binging on junk food in the basement of a UC Berkeley library building in the mid-seventies. In one War Nerd column, Brecher writes, "I used to spend every free hour, back before there was an internet, going over those big heavy reference books in the library: Jane's Tanks, Jane's Missile Systems, Jane's Combat Vehicles."