Quincy

Polar Bear Predator

Reviewed: 07-06-18

One hundred and thirty four men are trapped on doomed ships in arctic pack ice 1000 miles away from civilization on the doomed Franklin's expedition, is that dramatic enough material ?

Not in Dan Simmons fictionalised account of the lost expedition it turns out that they were picked off my a supernatural entity which has more in common with the Predator in the Schwarzenegger film than the polar bear.

The story has some serious pacing problems and at the end of the book you feel like you have endured a season or two on the ice with the repetitive storyline. The story could have been at least 5 hours shorter and the narrative would have been better served.

It's not a bad book and the narration is actually quite good, having not seen the TV adaptation I was hoping that the story would be more down to earth.

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A great book let down by a poor narrator

Reviewed: 24-02-18

Any additional comments?

I have been waiting for many years for this book to appear as an audiobook and when it finally happens the narrator seems bored and emotionless. Its a real shame as the story is strong. The constant mis pronunciation Ramius is very annoying !

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25 people found this helpful

A good read

Reviewed: 20-03-17

Any additional comments?

A very good book, this is the first book that I have read by Forsyth but it wont be the last

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Very good if rushed account

Reviewed: 20-03-17

Any additional comments?

I can only agree with the other reviews of this audio book that the author would have been better served making this work into two or three volumes. Important battles are covered but not in any great depth.

That is not to say that this is not a good book and I look forward to reading it again

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Outstanding Audiobook

Reviewed: 20-03-17

Any additional comments?

This is a great audio book being narrated by someone who loves Conan Doyle's work. It could hardly be improved on.

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1 person found this helpful

A very good historical account

Reviewed: 19-03-17

What other book might you compare Victory at Villers-Bretonneux to, and why?

The book almost feels like a continuation of Paul Ham's excellent "Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth" as the story picks up more or less after the battle in 1917. Reading Ham's book before this one provides you more perspective about the state of the BEF in France in 1918.

Any additional comments?

The book was overall a very was well researched and written history of the Anzac participation helping to stop the German Spring Offensive in 1918.

At points the book felt a little nationalistic in its accounts of the Anzac's, in that they were by far the best troops on the Western Front, that their presence inspired locals to unpack their belongings and stay in their homes because they knew the Aussies would never break.

Overall a good account of the final German offensive of 1918

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1 person found this helpful

An excellent vision of WW3

Reviewed: 18-10-16

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This is a really great audiobook, and one of Tom Clancy's best works. The characters are well written and the battles realistic and tense. The narration is really excellent and helps bring the story to life.

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A book that fails to deliver

Reviewed: 31-03-16

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I could not recommend this book

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The ending was rather silly, but in keeping with the image of an invincible CSM Tanner that we are presented all through the book.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

This was not the narrators finest hour I am afraid

Any additional comments?

Tanner, the unluckiest solider in the British Army finds himself in the middle of the Battle for Crete.

After retreating in France and Norway Tanner’s mood is not conducive to making friends and allies but getting into a bar fight with a powerful Cretan partisan leader might be considered silly. It’s difficult to take Tanner seriously though because the narrators Wilshire accent makes Tanner sound like an angry and dispirited Postman Pat.

Well CSM Tanner does it again managing to be discredited and misunderstood by Officers and other allies. While being the only capable soldier on the island, he has to deal with them as well as the Germans. If it sounds similar to the last two Tanner books, its because it is.

The book is basically a repeat of the last one; we have the German Fallschirmjäger Officer as the generic nasty German in the place of the SS officer, the Cretan Partisan in the place of CSM Blackstaff and the new Lieutenant in the role of bumbling idiot who has it in for him.

The new Lieutenant even knows Tanner from Wilshire, the same tired stick that we had in the second book.

Why Tanner fighting with the Germans is not the primary purpose of these books I don’t know. The story would be much stronger if the focus was on fighting the Germans rather than petty bickering with his Lieutenant and the Cretans

The main problem in this book is that nearly all the characters in this book are two dimensional and the story shallow. We have the same plot in a different book with Tanner's sidekick gleefully finding loads of Nobel’s Gelignite and the battles are all generic and could have taken place anywhere

In reviews the Jack Tanner Books are sometimes referred to as Richard Sharpe in WW2 but Tanner lacks the depth of Cornwall’s Sharpe. Postman Tanner does not deliver in this book I am afraid

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3 people found this helpful

An excellent book

Reviewed: 31-03-16

Where does Armageddon rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The book is a very well written account of the last few months of the Third Reich from the events just before Operation Market Garden in the autumn 1944 to its eventual collapse in May 1945.

Shame its not slightly longer because I enjoyed listening to it so much

Have you listened to any of John Sessions’s other performances? How does this one compare?

First time I have listened to a book narrated by John Sessions but he does a great job here

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2 people found this helpful

A detailed conspiracy theory

Reviewed: 17-03-16

What about Richard Ferrone’s performance did you like?

It was well done, however the constant mispronunciation of Submariner is irritating

Any additional comments?

ED Offley offers a detailed conspiracy theory that the USS Scorpion (SSN - 589) was sunk by a torpedo fired by a Soviet Submarine during a secret mission in May 1968.

The author provides some convincing evidence that the submarine was sent on an intelligence gathering mission after a successful patrol in the Mediterranean when the US Navy discovered a group of Soviet Surface ships and a submarine operating near the Canary Islands when the Scorpion was on its way home.

The theory is that the Soviet submarine reacted aggressively to the presence of the Scorpion and in retaliation for the Loss of the K129 in March 1968 (which they might have believed was lost due to a collision with the USS Swordfish) in the Pacific and proceeded to sink the submarine.

It is suggested that Soviets might of known that the Scorpion was sent to spy on their operation because of they had compromised the US Navy’s secret communication network. It’s argued that the North Korean’s captured the USS Pueblo in January 1968 under orders from the Russian’s to obtain it’s secret communication gear to make best use of the data and cryptographic keys flowing in from the Walker spy ring (which started operating in 1967) allowing them to ambush the submarine.

Offley claims that the US Navy knew almost immediately about the loss of the Scorpion and the fact that it was sunk by the Soviet Union due to the then Top Secret SOSUS listening posts in the Atlantic and launched a limited search operation before the Navy publically admitted it was overdue to return to its home port.

The reason why the US Navy did not publicise the sinking of the Scorpion was down to the fact that they were worried that the incident could lead to WW3 especially since tensions were already high due to America’s increasing involvement in South Vietnam and the loss of the K129. If the Americans were responsible for the loss of the K129 then they may have accepted the loss of the Scorpion and covered up the events leading up to its loss.

The account of the reasons for the loss of Scorpion is not very convincing, the evidence is circumstantial and lacks any kind of primary evidence. I find it difficult to believe that the Soviet navy ordered the sinking of the submarine or that a rogue commander of the Soviet sub acted without authorisation and care of the consequences and fired the torpedo. It would have been an open secret in the Soviet Navy which would have almost certainly have leaked out after the fall of the Soviet Union.

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1 person found this helpful