WCHBlok

Excellent

Revisado: 07-27-24

Well-written and well-narrated. I flew through this and really enjoyed it, particularly the look into the Japanese decision-makers and the dynamics there.

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Very Good

Revisado: 06-23-23

Very good and detailed account of Operation Barbarossa. I agree with the author’s view that the operation was pretty much doomed from the start. It’s pretty detailed and academic, so wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not a big military history nerd.

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Excellent

Revisado: 06-23-23

Very good. Fast paced and to the point. Gives a good perspective on what it was like to serve in an intelligence/recon role in the US Army during WWI. Started this after reading about John Lewis Barkley’s exploits in To Conquer Hell (about the Meuse-Argonne Offensive). It’s incredible what he went through and the initiative and proficiency he showed multiple times during the war, not just during his Medal of Honor action.

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Very Good

Revisado: 06-17-23

I really enjoyed this and flew through it. Great story about some incredibly brave young men.

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Great Book

Revisado: 04-05-23

Great detail and explanation of the lead-up to and the events of October 3rd and 4th as well as the aftermath and lessons learned. I thought it was well-written and with the amount of time that’s passed the author was able to talk to more now-retired participants and build a more accurate and complete picture than Bowden did. I wish there was a way to see any maps and images from the book.

My only complaints are about the narrator. I found his Gen Garrison and Somali accents to be bad and distracting and his normal voice generally grating. Also found the fact that he didn’t take the tiny amount of time it would’ve taken to learn how to correctly pronounce basic military acronyms that are frequently used throughout the book such as JOC and NODs really annoying.

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Excellent

Revisado: 12-11-22

I really enjoyed this. I knew very little about the Six Day War or the IDF in general, but I found this fascinating.

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Very Good

Revisado: 02-03-22

I really enjoyed this, way more than I thought I would. Similar to the author (and many of the other reviewers), I spent a chunk of my life in Kosovo. I was there a few years later than him, shortly after they had officially declared their independence. I was a human intelligence collector for the US Army and conducted source operations, allowing me to see A LOT of the country and develop relationships with both Serbs and Albanians all over. I had been through and in some cases spent a lot of time in the areas mentioned.

The author does a really good job of describing the country, it’s people, it’s awful recent history and the frustrating problems that endure there. I wish I had been able to read this before going. It illustrates the various problems with corruption, organized crime, etc. The book also illustrates that the conflict there was not a black & white good guys vs bad guys situation like a lot of people (including the locals of course) want to see it and I found this refreshing.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Kosovo and wants to get a feel for what it is/was like there. The writing is good. I flew through this thing and didn’t want it to end. I like the fact that the author did the narration, it meant he had a good idea of how to pronounce names and acronyms and didn’t butcher them like most hired narrators tend to. I will say that he was pretty monotonous, but I will definitely take that over the narrators who try too hard and do annoying accents.

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Good book, awful narrator

Revisado: 01-27-22

After reading Not a Good Day To Die over a decade ago and Relentless Strike more recently (both great books by by Sean Naylor) I have an immense amount of respect for Pete Blaber and his leadership style. I’m not alone in thinking Operation Anaconda would’ve been a disaster without Pete Blaber. I really enjoyed his description of his experiences in Delta and especially his retelling of Operation Anaconda and the AFO missions that were such a key part of it. However, I did find some of the “lessons”, particularly early on in the book, to get a bit on the cheesy side at times.

I was curious what he’d have to say about former JSOC commander Dell Dailey. I don’t think he ever actually called him out by name, but he definitely didn’t hide is frustration with the “commanding general” and his ego driven leadership style. I think Dailey’s command of JSOC was abysmal and it’s incredibly frustrating to think of what could’ve been if more competent leaders were in place that early on in the GWOT.

I was a bit disappointed that the book ended somewhat abruptly with the conclusion of the very good section on Operation Anaconda. I was hoping for similar depth on later operations, specifically the desert mobility mission in 2003.

Now for the bad part: I really can’t stand this narrator. I find his voice obnoxious, his accents and impressions are terrible and detract from the book. Also, if you’re going to narrate a book for a living, the least you can do is make sure you’re pronouncing things correctly. The JOC isn’t pronounced the “Jay Oh See” you clownjob, it’s pronounced “the Jock”. Similarly, TOC, JDAM and JSOC are some other common acronyms he butchered. Not sure where he got that pronunciation of Khost from, but I’ve never heard it before. And the accents, holy crap they were awful. I dislike it when narrators do accents period but this guy really took it to a new level of absolute garbage. I struggled through his narration because I was really interested in the subject.

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Pretty okay

Revisado: 01-12-22

I enjoyed it for the most part, but I really wasn’t a fan of the narrator. I really dislike when narrators do impressions and accents even when they’re good at them, which this guy definitely was not. I found it distracting and it really took away from the narration of the book. Here I am listening to a fairly dry historical non-fiction book, I don’t need impressions to add “pizazz”. His Canadian, American, French, and German accents sucked. Even his Scottish accents were garbage and the guy is British so you’d expect him to be able to pull that off. I dislike it when narrators do good impressions, but when they’re this bad it’s a struggle to get through the book at times.

As for the book itself, it was a good overview of aviation in the First World War, something I didn’t have a lot of specific knowledge of. Definitely Anglo-centric, which is understandable with a British author who probably relied primarily on English-language sources. I did find him unnecessarily snarky when talking about the British at times, maybe it was just the narrator and my growing disdain for his performance but it did start to irritate me. I’m American and not an Anglophile by any means but I’m pretty certain the British didn’t hold a monopoly on terrible decisions, attitudes or culture during the war or the period leading up to or immediately following it. It almost seemed like the author felt free to criticize his own forebears but thought it was out of order to be equally critical of others. Again, maybe that was just a source problem, but my impression by the end was that it was a weird sort of self-flagellation. I appreciated the info on aviation during the war, but I was happy to be done with the book once it was over so I didn’t have to listen to the snark and the bad impressions.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

I liked it

Revisado: 12-22-21

This was great. I’m an American with limited prior understanding of the Troubles (other than the basic gist) and no real connection to or particular fondness for any of the parties involved. I found this very entertaining, easy to follow and I think the narrator has a great voice and did a good job.

The one thing that got old was the number of times the author responded to critics and explained the actions taken by SAS or Det operators in specific “contacts”. Maybe others will find that useful but to me it was unnecessary and redundant. I already understood and agreed with the use of force in those situations based on the initial telling of events. I didn’t need a rehashing of those decisions and an explanation of why they were right. In my opinion, if people are already sympathetic to the IRA no amount of explanation is going to change their minds. There’s always a conspiracy they can use to explain it away anyway. Other than that minor quibble, it was awesome!

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas