Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: military

Showing posts with label military. Show all posts

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Lord Hornblower (Horatio Hornblower #5) 3Stars

Title: Lord Hornblower
Series: Horatio Hornblower #5
Author: Cecil Scott Forester
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 213
Words: 82K

Napoleon gets defeated and Hornblower and Lady Barbara are in France. Hornblower and Barbara split up and Hornblower falls in with the woman he fell in love with back when he was escaping France several years ago. Napoleon makes his comeback, lover lady dies and then Hornblower is rescued in the nick of time by Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.

Yeah, Hornblower is a scoundrel and a cad. I’d like to take a whip to him until he bleeds into unconsciousness. He excuses and justifies his unfaithfulness to Lady Barbara on the flimsiest of reasoning. It was despicable and I must say, the name “Hornblower” will forever be tainted in my mind from here on out. He is not a hero, he is not someone of character, he is not someone to emulate. He is scum and someone I would spit upon if I met him in the streets. If he were a character in the tv show “Black’s Books”, I’d cut him and totally ignore him.

It was a great story and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book. Which is why this still gets 3stars. But I will NEVER recommend this series to anyone and if I hear of anyone considering it, I will strive mightily to dissuade them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a series that “shouldn’t” be read, but there are better things to spend your precious time on. Like a 3000 piece puzzle of yours truly! Now, doesn’t that sound like a real treat? And if you put it together backwards, you get to hear my secret message that I wrote especially just to you. Wowzers, doesn’t that sound intriguing? It sure does!

So choose wisely. Will you read about a lousy loser who sleeps around or listen to my secret message extolling the life extending properties of Bookstooge’s Special BBQ Sauce™? It goes with everything from your best Sunday Suit to your Sabbath Songbook to melted goats or even whole soccer teams. You just can’t go wrong with Bookstooge’s Special BBQ Sauce™. It’s guaranteed! Unlike this book, which is definitely not.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

In 1814, Hornblower is delegated to deal with the Flame, a brig full of mutineers off the French coast, near the mouth of the Seine. It is a tricky situation because the mutineers' demands cannot be met, but they have threatened that if a Royal Navy force tries to force their hand, they will slip into a nearby French port.

Hornblower alters the appearance of his own vessel, the Porta Coeli, so it can masquerade as the mutinous vessel. As dusk falls, he follows a valuable blockade runner into port, pretending to be the Flame. Then, once the two vessels are moored, he captures it and takes it out to sea. He then pursues the Flame, which retreats to the French port. Believing the mutineers responsible, the French send four gunboats to take her. Hornblower manages to exploit the fighting to capture both the Flame and a gunboat.

Among the French prisoners is Lebrun, the young and ambitious assistant to the mayor of Le Havre. Lebrun asks to speak with Hornblower privately; he proposes to surrender Le Havre to the English fleet. Hornblower and Lebrun arrange a plan: Lebrun's role is to undermine those parties who would resist a British seizure of the city. Overcoming some tense moments with audacity, Hornblower is able to capture the city with a half battalion of Royal Marines and finds himself its military governor.

Hornblower finds his new duties different from that of commanding a naval vessel or squadron. He finds his role demanding, in part because he is such a demanding perfectionist. The Duke of Angoulême, one of the heirs to the Bourbon dynasty, is sent to assume control of the civil leadership.

Hornblower hears that Napoleon has been able to amass a strong force, to be transported by barge down the Seine to retake Le Havre. He sends a force, borne by half a dozen large ship's boats, to try to blow up the barges and ammunition. He puts his best friend, Captain William Bush, in command. The raid is a success and the French force is stopped, but an unexpected explosion kills most of the British, including Bush.

Hornblower is raised to the peerage, possibly in part to provide him with more dignity, gravitas, when dealing with the French heir's entourage, as well to reward him for his accomplishments.

During the following peace, Hornblower's wife Barbara accompanies her brother, the Duke of Wellington, to the Congress of Vienna, leaving Hornblower at loose ends. He decides to visit the Comte de Graçay, where he resumes his relationship with the Comte's widowed daughter-in-law, Marie. When Napoleon escapes from Elba and raises a new army, Hornblower, the Comte and Marie lead a guerrilla fight against the Imperial forces. They are eventually defeated, and Marie dies from a leg wound. Hornblower and the Comte are captured and condemned to death, but news of the Emperor's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo arrives just in time to save their lives.

All of My “Horatio Hornblower” Reviews

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Commodore Hornblower (Horatio Hornblower #4) 3Stars

Title: Commodore Hornblower
Series: Horatio Hornblower #4
Author: Cecil Scott Forester
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 251
Words: 97K

Hornblower is now married to Lady Barbara, is the lord of some estate and is on land with enough wealth to never need to work again. And he’s miserable as sin. So when the Admiralty gives him orders to go to sea again and wreak havoc on the French and try to cozy up to the Russians, Hornblower’s protestations ring particularly hollow. He also has a one time fling with some Russian duchess/countess/whatever. But it is so downplayed and not blatantly referred to that I wondered if it had actually happened. Quite the change from the previous books and how Forester handled Hornblower’s infidelities.

Now that Hornblower is in charge of a fleet (a small one, but a fleet nonetheless), the naval action is quite different. The focus isn’t on one ship and its particular actions, but on the various ships and this time we are treated to some bombers, which are light ships with big mortars. Very different than a cannonade between sailing ships. I appreciated the change in tactics that involved and even the type of naval action was a welcome change. I don’t want each book to be a naval clone of the previous one.

We also get a much more confidant Hornblower. He still has his doubts about himself, especially when one of his decisions leads to the death of a Lieutenant that was a favorite and was a stand-in pseudo-son but those doubts weren’t at his core anymore like they had been in previous books. I was glad to see that change. It felt like Hornblower was finally growing up, now that he was in his 40’s, sigh.

Even though I enjoyed this more than the previous book and Hornblower’s infidelities were down played, I’m forced to give this the same rating. Forced you say? That’s right, forced. The High Admiralty wrote me a letter and stated that if I rated this higher they would put me on half-pay for the rest of my life. Which with inflation and Bidenomics means I could buy one can of baked beans each week. So yes, I think the threat of being forced to live on one can of Bush’s Baked Beans each week qualifies as being forced. And if you disagree, well, that’s mutiny and I’ll hang your scurvy necks from the mast head as an example to the rest of you mutinous readers! Arrrgh, grrrr, belay the wind in the foremast, avast! And other such nautical’y sounding terms ;-)

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Having achieved fame and financial security, Captain Sir Horatio Hornblower has married Lady Barbara Leighton (née Wellesley) and is preparing to settle down to unaccustomed life as the squire of Smallbridge in Kent. He still yearns to serve at sea and accepts with alacrity when the Admiralty appoints him a commodore, puts him in command of a squadron and sends him on a diplomatic and military mission to the Baltic. His primary aim is to bring Russia into the war against Napoleon.

Hornblower is shown dealing with the problems of squadron command, and using naval mortars (carried on special ships known as bomb vessels) to destroy a French privateer. This leads to the French invasion of Swedish Pomerania. Later his squadron calls at Kronstadt, where he meets with Russian officials, including Tsar Alexander I, who is favourably impressed by Hornblower and his squadron. Hornblower narrowly averts a major diplomatic incident when his secretary and interpreter (a Finnish refugee assigned to him by the Admiralty) attempts to assassinate the Tsar at a court function.

After Russia enters the war, Hornblower's squadron takes an important role in the defence of Riga, which is besieged by French forces. The bomb vessels again take an important role, and so do amphibious operations under the protection of the squadron.

At the end of the novel, the French and Prussian troops abandon the siege and retreat. Hornblower accompanies the pursuing Russian forces until they meet the Prussian army, which has halted to form a rearguard. Hornblower meets with the Prussian general - Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg and persuades him to change sides.

At this point it becomes clear to the accompanying Brown that Hornblower is gravely ill, apparently with typhus. In some editions of the novel the story ends here with the hallucinating Hornblower imagining himself being greeted in Hampton Court by Lady Barbara and his infant son. C.S. Forester however provided an additional chapter in which the convalescent Hornblower returns safely to Smallbridge in time for Christmas.

All of My “Horatio Hornblower” Reviews

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Flying Colors (Horatio Hornblower #3) 3Stars

Title: Flying Colors
Series: Horatio Hornblower #3
Author: Cecil Scott Forester
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 186
Words: 71K

Hornblower was captured by the Frenchies in the previous book. He is then being taken to Paris to face a sham trial so Bonaparte can execute him and claim that the British are doing the dirty against him, po’ innocent little Boney. Hornblower and 2 others escape, hang out at a rich French lord’s house for the winter and then steal a ship and sail off and get rescued.

This was a good adventure story but Hornblower’s actions on two accounts set my teeth on edge. He carries on a torrid love affair with a french widow while hiding out for the winter, even while he knows his wife is back in Englad giving birth to their child. It was not a one time thing, nor did he regret it as a bad thing, but simply as something that could complicate his life. He was not faithful to his wife. Pure and simple. Then we find out his wife died in childbirth and so his mind immediately turns to Lady Barbara. With his new money and promotion, she is no longer out of reach. His wife hasn’t been dead for more than a month or three, he just finds out about it and in less than a week he’s thinking about another woman. Those are not the actions or thoughts of a man I would want to emulate or to encourage anyone else to emulate.

The adventure side of things though, were great. The dash down the river in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, was great. You can feel them freezing to death or almost drowning. And the court martial at the end, even though you know he’s going to be acquitted and proclaimed a hero, there’s that little niggling doubt that maybe the Admiralty will do something really dumb and make an example him. Forester can write, that’s for sure. I just wish he’d made a better hero. While Hornblower isn’t a wastrel like Sharpe, he’s really edging towards that line.

I wanted someone better.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

At the end of the previous novel, A Ship of the Line, after attacking and severely damaging a superior French squadron with HMS Sutherland, Hornblower had to surrender his ship to the French. He and his surviving crew are imprisoned in the French-occupied Spanish fortress of Rosas on the Mediterranean Sea. From the walls of Rosas, Hornblower witnesses an English raid leading to the final destruction of the French ships he immobilised.

Soon afterwards, Hornblower is told that he is to be sent to Paris to be tried as a pirate for his previous actions, including the capture of a battery and some coastal vessels using a ruse of war. Hornblower, his first lieutenant, Bush, who is still recovering from the loss of a foot in the fighting, and his coxswain, Brown, are taken away in a carriage by an Imperial aide-de-camp.

The carriage becomes stuck in a snowstorm on a minor road close to the river Loire, and part of the escort leaves to get help from Nevers, the next town. Hornblower and Brown overpower the remaining guards and steal a small boat on the river. Taking Bush with them, they set out downstream, but the river is in spate, and the boat eventually capsizes in some rapids. Hornblower and Brown carry Bush towards the nearest building, which happens to be the Chateau de Graçay. The Comte de Graçay, a member of the old French nobility who has lost three sons in Napoleon's wars, and his widowed daughter-in-law Marie, welcome them and protect them from the authorities, who eventually abandon the search thinking them drowned.

The party spends the winter as guests of the Comte and prepare for an escape in late spring. During these months, Bush recovers and learns to walk with a wooden leg. Hornblower, Bush and Brown build a new boat to continue their voyage downstream. Meanwhile, Hornblower and Marie have a short but intense love affair.

Springtime comes and the river is in perfect condition for travel. Disguised as a fishing party, the escapees make their way to the port city of Nantes. There, they change their disguise to that of high-ranking Dutch customs officers in French service, using uniforms made for them by Marie and the staff of the Chateau. They manage to recapture the cutter Witch of Endor, taken as a French prize the year before. Manning it with a prison work gang, they take the ship out of the harbour and rendezvous with the British blockading fleet.

Here, Hornblower learns that his wife Maria had died in childbed; his son, Richard, survived and was adopted by his friend Lady Barbara, widow of Admiral Leighton and sister of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.

Returning to Portsmouth, Hornblower, in common with any other captain who has lost his ship, faces a court martial for the loss of the Sutherland. However, he is 'most honourably' acquitted by the court and finds himself a celebrity for his exploits in the Mediterranean and his daring escape from France. He is received by the Prince Regent (the later King George IV), who makes him a knight of the Order of the Bath and a Colonel of Marines (a sinecure providing worthy officers with extra income). Together with the money from prizes taken while he was captain of the Sutherland and from his recapture of the Witch of Endor, he is finally financially secure and free to court and marry Lady Barbara.

All of My “Horatio Hornblower” Reviews

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

A Ship of the Line (Horatio Hornblower #2) 3.5Stars

Title: A Ship of the Line
Series: Horatio Hornblower #2
Author: Cecil Scott Forester
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 217
Words: 85K

While this receives the same rating as the previous book, I enjoyed myself much more because I was prepared for Hornblower to be a real human character and not a idealized paragon like I was expecting in the first book.

In this novel Lady Barbara is now married to an Admiral and Hornblower’s wife is pregnant. Hornblower loves his wife and does his duty by her, but he doesn’t respect her and I found that sad. She is who she is and while she’s not elegant, she loves him and does everything she can to support him. I don’t think Hornblower realizes how much of a blessing a wife like that is. Of course, the culture of money at the time didn’t care about that kind of wife, so the attitude would have trickled down without him even realizing it. Just goes to show that we can be affected by the culture around us without us even trying.

There was some good naval action and Hornblower’s fight against the Frenchies and their fiendishly devilish Freedom Fries was a good reminder to all Patriots the world over that yes, they are Freedom Fries and NOT French Fries. So don’t forget it. But seriously, there were several scenes where Hornblower is calculating angles and percentages in his head, in regards to the maneuvering of his ship, and as a land surveyor it quite impressed me. Practice can only do so much and then talent kicks it up that extra notch. It’s like adding a little BAAAM with your spice weasel, as Chef Elzar would say.

Even though this ended on a cliffhanger, with Hornblower surrendering to some Frenchies, I didn’t feel the need to rush out and immediately read the next book. It was more like something to look forward to, seeing how Hornblower would handle captivity. I’m kind of excited to read the next book when it rolls around. That’s always a good way to end a book.

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org

Hornblower has recently returned to England from the Pacific in the frigate HMS Lydia, having gained widespread fame (but no financial stability) as a result of sinking the superior ship Natividad in battle. As a reward for his exploits, he is given command of a seventy-four ship of the line, HMS Sutherland, once the Dutch ship Eendracht,[a] and which is, in Hornblower's estimation, "the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List".

He is assigned to serve under Rear Admiral Leighton, Lady Barbara Wellesley's new husband. Throughout, Hornblower is torn between his love for Lady Barbara and his sense of duty and loyalty to his frumpy wife, Maria. His feelings for Maria are complicated by the previous loss of both of his children to smallpox.

Hornblower's first orders are to escort a convoy of East Indiamen off the Spanish coast. He successfully fights off simultaneous attack on the convoy by two fast, manoeuvrable privateer luggers. Since he has been forced to sail with an understrength crew, and had to make do with "lubbers, sheepstealers, and bigamists", he breaks Admiralty regulations and presses twenty sailors from each Indiaman just before they part company. With his ship now at full complement, Hornblower wreaks havoc on the French-occupied Spanish coast. He captures a French brig, the Amelie, by surprise, storms a French fort and takes several more vessels in its harbour as prizes, repeatedly fires upon several thousand Italian soldiers marching along a coastal road, and saves his Admiral's ship from certain ruin by towing it away from a French battery during a severe storm.

When Hornblower encounters a squadron of four French ships of the line that have broken through the English blockade of Toulon, he attacks them despite the odds of four to one, and manages to disable or heavily damage all of them. However, with many of his crew killed or wounded, including Bush, who loses a leg, and his ship dismasted, he is then forced to strike his colours and surrender. This novel ends as a cliffhanger.

All of My “Horatio Hornblower” Reviews

Thursday, November 16, 2023

The Devil’s Hand (Terminal List #4) 3Stars

Title: The Devil’s Hand
Series: Terminal List #4
Author: Jack Carr
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 466
Words: 138K

James Reece takes on embedded terrorists, a manufactured super plague and a senator who wants him dead. He overcomes all and saves the day. What a surprise! I was totally shocked.

While I had nothing in particular against this book, or even this series, I am just not THAT into fiction written by or about special forces. Too detailed and specs out the wazoo that don’t mean a thing to me as a casual reader. I’ve given this series four books and that’s enough of my time.

I didn’t particularly care about the story and nothing about Reece makes me want to stay along for the ride. He’s no longer terminal, he’s past losing his wife and daughter and he’s moved on. Now he’s just a special forces guy. And I like Mitch Rapp better, even the version written by Kyle Mills. So adios Reece, time for the door to hit you where the Good Lord split you.

★★★☆☆

From OfficialJackCarr.com

follows former Navy SEAL James Reece as he is entrusted with a top-secret CIA mission of retribution twenty years in the making.

It’s been twenty years since 9/11. Two decades since the United States was attacked on home soil and embarked on twenty years of war. The enemy has been patient, learning, and adapting. And the enemy is ready to strike again.

A new president offers hope to a country weary of conflict. He’s a young, popular, self-made visionary…but he’s also a man with a secret.

Halfway across the globe a regional superpower struggles with sanctions imposed by the Great Satan and her European allies, a country whose ancient religion spawned a group of ruthless assassins. Faced with internal dissent and extrajudicial targeted killings by the United States and Israel, the Supreme Leader puts a plan in motion to defeat the most powerful nation on earth.

Meanwhile, in a classified facility five stories underground, a young PhD student has gained access to a level of bioweapons known only to a select number of officials. A second-generation agent, he has been assigned a mission that will bring his adopted homeland to its knees.

All of My “Terminal List” Reviews

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Beat to Quarters (Horatio Hornblower #1) 3.5Stars

Title: Beat to Quarters
Series: Horatio Hornblower #1
Author: Cecil Scott Forester
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 204
Words: 76K

I have heard about the Horatio Hornblower series my entire life. Some friends of mine were big naval buffs and loved all the history of this series. That was enough, even back in highschool, to turn my interest away from it. Then I read some of the Seafort Saga, which was touted as “Hornblower in Space”. Seafort was an antihero who everything turned bad for. He rescues a space princess. She dies horribly and he’s sued by her brothers and his wife divorces him over it. That’s just a made up example, but that’s how Seafort went. There were no happy endings. So that turned me off of Hornblower yet again.

But here I am, 30 years later. My tastes have changed, broadened, narrowed and expanded. While readers/reviewers like Mogsy can churn through the latest pile of new releases like a voracious horde of pirahannas, I am finding myself going the opposite direction. I don’t WANT the new books. Give me those old books! I used to think that meant the 1980’s. But with Riders introducing me to the Shadow and the fantastic luck I tend to have with those, well, the 1930’s started looking good. Throw in the original Conan stories by Howard, also in the ‘30’s and yeah, backwards in time seemed the way to go. And Hornblower was published in ‘37. So I gathered unto myself the collection of 12 novels, even if the last one wasn’t completed due to the author dying. Hmmm, sounds kind of like Sunset at Blandings, the final Blandings Castle novel.

Hornblower is a competent but totally self-conscious and utterly class aware kind of character. I had a hard time relating but just had to accept it. He had a bad experience trying to be friendly with an officer below him one time and the lesson he took from it was to be silent, enigmatic and uncommunicative with anybody on the ship. This makes him lonely and miserable. But all he can think about is how talking to his officers might somehow bring dishonor on him. It was utter balderdash. But it made Hornblower a real character. He HAD character.

I’ve also heard how wonderful these are for homeschoolers and middle graders. That’s balderdash too. Hornblower is a married man but almost gets involved with a noblewoman who forced her way on the ship to get a ride home. Before he cuts things off for good, Forester tells how Hornblower has a train of thought that “ended in rapine and murder”. It was much darker than I was ever expecting. It wasn’t bad, but it was adult in its theme and was not at all appropriate for middle graders. We’ll see where Forester sends Hornblower in future books in that regards.

Finally, I am reading these in publication order and not in internal chronological order. While there can be benefits to reading books in chronological order, I have found that reading them as the author wrote them allows for a fuller journey in regards to how a series matures. Instead of skipping all over the place in terms of skill and even style, you simply walk along the path and experience the change as it happens. It’s not always obvious and many times might have zero bearing on one’s enjoyment of a particular author (Dickens for example), but for it sets my mind at ease knowing I’m reading the story the way author thought it. With this paragraph I am closing in on the 600 word mark for this section of the review. That’s too long so I shall end this now.

Except.

That cover. Is that awesome or what? Gaaaaahhhh! I shall commit seppuku with a dull spoon for dishonoring myself, my family and my cow for being so wordy. I just went to 639 words; make that spoon rusty!

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org

June 1808 Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Lydia, with secret orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca) and supply a local landowner, Don Julian Alvarado ("descendant" of Pedro de Alvarado by a fictional marriage to a daughter of Moctezuma), with muskets and powder. Don Julian is ready to revolt against the Spanish. Upon meeting Don Julian, Hornblower discovers that he is a megalomaniac who calls himself "El Supremo" (which Forester translates as "the Almighty"), views himself as a deity, and has been killing those who he regards as "unenlightened" because they do not recognise El Supremo's divine status. El Supremo claims to be a descendant of Moctezuma, the holy god-made-man of the Aztecs, and also of Pedro de Alvarado, one of the Spanish invaders of Mexico.

While Hornblower replenishes his supplies the 50-gun Spanish ship Natividad is sighted off the coast. Unwilling to risk fighting the much more powerful ship in a sea battle, Hornblower hides nearby until it anchors and then captures it in a surprise nighttime boarding. El Supremo demands that it be turned over to him so that he may have a navy. After hiding the captured Spanish officers to save them from being murdered by El Supremo, Hornblower, needing his ally's cooperation, has no choice but to accede.

After offloading war supplies for El Supremo, Hornblower sails south. Off the coast of Panama he encounters a Spanish lugger, from which an envoy arrives to inform him of a new alliance between Spain and England against Napoleon.

When Hornblower visits Panama City to meet with the Spanish Viceroy, the Englishwoman Lady Barbara Wellesley, a (fictional) sister of Marquess Wellesley and Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington), comes aboard. The packet ship she was on in the Caribbean had been captured some time before. Freed by Spain's changing sides, and fleeing a yellow fever epidemic ashore, she requests passage back to England. Hornblower reluctantly takes Lady Barbara and her maid Hebe aboard, warning her that he must first hunt and destroy the Natividad before El Supremo can capture a Spanish ship carrying funds crucial to the Spanish war effort from Manila to Acapulco.

In the subsequent battle Hornblower uses masterful tactics to sink the Natividad, though the Lydia herself is heavily damaged. Limping back to Panama to effect repairs, Hornblower is informed that, now that there is no further threat from the Natividad, he is not welcome in any Spanish American port. He manages to find a natural harbour on the island of Coiba, where he refits.

After completing repairs, Hornblower encounters the haughty Spanish envoy once again on the same lugger. He is invited aboard the lugger and finds El Supremo chained to the deck on his way to execution.

Hornblower sets sail for England. On the long voyage home he and Lady Barbara become strongly attracted to each other. She makes the first overt advances and they embrace passionately, but Barbara's maid Hebe walking in on them brings Hornblower to the realisation that a ship's captain must not indulge in sexual dalliance with a passenger. He tells Barbara, truthfully, that he is married. After her rejection Barbara avoids him as best she can. The Lydia arrives at Saint Helena soon afterwards and Lady Barbara transfers to a more spacious ship.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Savage Son (Terminal List #3) 3Stars

Title: Savage Son
Series: Terminal List #3
Author: Jack Carr
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 464
Words: 134K

This was a love letter to the short story “The Most Dangerous Game”. Carr starts his introduction talking about it in fact. He mentions that the idea came to him first, but he needed Reece to get to that point and so he had to write the first two books. If you liked TMDG, you’ll like this story.

Much like Carr’s previous books though, he takes a while to get to where he’s going. Reece faces down a large group of russian mobsters in some mid-western state out in the middle of no-where and it was awesome. But Carr felt like he had to set things up like a SEAL operative. Too much detail to things that don’t matter in a novel. This would have been a fantastic 350 page novel. I probably would have given it 4 stars. But there was simply too much setup.

I found the fight against the mobsters in the US to be the better fight, as the one in Russia on the deserted ice island where the Crazy Guy was hunting Reece and his buddy Raife turned out to be rather anti-climactic. Carr should have taken a page from TMDG and tried for a three day fight and flight narrative instead of a six hour in and out escape narrative.

Overall, I was pleased with this read and am satisfied with how it turned out. While I still have one more book to read, Jack Carr is doing a much better job with James Reece than “Dalton Fury” did with his Delta Force series. That might sound like faint praise, but praise is praise and Carr should be thankful.

★★★☆☆

From OfficialJackCarr.com

Deep in the wilds of the Russian Far East, a woman is on the run, pursued by a man harboring secrets, a man intent on killing her.

A traitorous CIA officer has found refuge with the Russian Mafia with designs on ensuring a certain former Navy SEAL sniper is put in the ground.

Half a world away, James Reece is recovering from brain surgery in the Montana wilderness of his youth, learning to live again, putting his life back together with the help of investigative journalist Katie Buranek and his longtime friend and SEAL teammate Raife Hastings.

For reasons both personal and professional, the Russian intelligence-mafia consortium has their sights set on removing a player from the board before he can return to the battlefield, targeting Reece on U.S. soil.

With an unknown entity inside the U.S. government compromised by Russian intelligence, Reece is forced to recruit a team of former commandos to bring his unique brand of vengeance to the Russian Mafia on their home turf, turning the hunters into the hunted.

All of My “Terminal List” Reviews

Friday, August 25, 2023

True Believer (Terminal List #2) 3Stars

Title: True Believer
Series: Terminal List #2
Author: Jack Carr
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 512
Words: 154K

While the Terminal List was a revenge story about a special forces military man, this was just a military story about a military special forces man. It was also 25% longer. Mainly because we get the extended edition of James Reece sailing the ocean running away from Da Man and then becoming a guide and conservation hunter who traps poachers with his expert military knowledge. While all of that is going on the author weaves all the backstory of the badguys and their dastardly deeds so when Reece gets approached to join the CIA to take down said bad guys, we are fully up to date on just how dastardly and badguy’y they really are. It felt bloated to me. Necessary but bloated.

We get all the “Brand X” name dropping I expect from books written by special forces guys. I know I talk about it, but I simply don’t understand. Does the general populace care? Or are you writing for other special forces guys? Because that seems like a very small market. And my polling shows that 100% of the general reading populace (namely, myself) doesn’t care if you use a spiderco folding knife XT-305 or if you just write that the character used a folding knife. I can kind of understand when it comes to the gun-side of things, but even then, dial the fanboy back a notch, ok? I don’t need to know that your Jannhauser 3000KtY rocket propelled grenade launcher uses the side rail system with the Bugaboo xts targeting system with the modified Cobra trigger upgrade to reduce the pull to two pounds. Just tell me Side Character Y blew up the russian oligarch with the Jannhauser 3000 rpg and we’re all good. Or a rocket launcher, or whatever. Joe Public (the anonymous pseudonym of that great master we all know and adore, ie, me) doesn’t care.

I know I’ve complained a lot. But you can still enjoy a good military book and have complaints like this. The above are the reasons this doesn’t get higher than the 3star rating. It doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the story or the action or the pow pow, bam bam, slice slice. It just means I won’t be rating this higher.

I plan to continue this series and I suspect all the above issues will be in the next books as well, so I’m not expecting this series to suddenly “get better”. It is what it is and I’m ok with reading a series that is 3stars for a couple of months. It does make me wonder about going back and trying the tv show again. Just don’t know if I can get past that awful grey tone overlay. It really bugged me.

★★★☆☆

From OfficialJackCarr.com

SOMEWHERE A TRUE BELIEVER IS TRAINING TO KILL YOU.

HE DOESN’T CARE HOW HARD IT IS. HE ONLY KNOWS THAT HE WINS OR HE DIES. HE ONLY KNOWS THE CAUSE.

When a bomb goes off during a holiday fair in London, the body count is horrific and the nation’s market goes into a tailspin. This, it turns out, is just the beginning of a series of coordinated and murderous attacks against the whole of the Western world. As the scope of the mayhem grows ever wider, pulling in country after country, the United States goes on the offensive. Who is pulling the strings? What is their motive? And most important of all, how can the attacks be stopped before bloodshed and economic freefall bring America and her allies to their knees?

There is just one man who stands a chance of answering these questions. Former Navy SEAL James Reece is the only and crucial connection to a shadowy former Iraqi commando who could provide leads the CIA desperately needs. Reece might be America’s last hope. Unfortunately, he is also America’s most-wanted domestic terrorist. To rein him in, a bargain is struck and Reece becomes the reluctant tool of the United States government, traveling the globe to target terrorist lead- ers and unraveling a geopolitical conspiracy involving a traitorous CIA officer and a sinister assassination plot with worldwide repercussions. There is always another true believer out there willing to kill for his cause. James Reece will be there to stop him.

All of My “Terminal List” Reviews

Sunday, July 30, 2023

The Terminal List (Terminal List #1) 3Stars

Title: The Terminal List
Series: Terminal List #1
Author: Jack Carr
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 406
Words: 123K

This reminded me a LOT of Dalton Fury’s Delta Team series, in that it was very military detail oriented. It was also like a huge product placement ad. Any specific gear that Reece used, we knew the exact blabbbity blab detail and the brand. He didn’t just drink from a camelback, he drank from the XJ-33R-V2 Camelback. When Reece wore sunglasses, he wore the Bookstooge 3000 Avionic sunglasses. I know it wasn’t product placement, it was a mark of authenticity from one professional to another, as Carr is a former SEAL. But it felt like product placement.

I actually started to watch the tv show first, as it was a Prime Original and so Amazon was shoving down everyone’s throat. I think I made it through 2-3 episodes before I gave up because of the grey color overlay they used. One scene was in the middle of the day in California (when it should be bright and colors popping out like anything) and I felt like I was watching something from Twilight just before it was going to rain. There was no need for that directorial choice so I quit the show. In the show you don’t know if there is a conspiracy against Reece if he’s genuinely cracked up. There is no such issue in the book. The prologue shows Reece taking out one of the guys who gave him a brain tumor, killed his team mates and had his family killed. I was glad that tension wasn’t there like it was in the tv show.

Like I said at the beginning, this reminded me of Delta Team. And that’s why this only got 3 stars. Reece’s family dies horribly and the author brings in a potential love interest plus several other hot chicks. Now while I’ve never been a SEAL, nor has Mrs B ever been mowed down in a blaze of machine gun fire, I have to admit that I don’t think I’d be thinking about hot chicks just weeks after it happened. But that’s just me. Thankfully, it’s all just potential. Because I suspect it would be handled like Dalton Fury handled romance, which is to say badly.

Overall, I enjoyed this but it was a book written by a military man who hadn’t quite mastered the literary side of things yet. A very good debut effort. Reece survives the tumor so there is another book. I’ll read it and see what I think.

★★☆☆☆

From OfficialJackCarr.com

THIS IS A STORY OF REVENGE

A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team in this ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller.

On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government.

Now, with no family and free from the military’s command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he’s learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Strange Company (Strange Company #1) 2Stars

Title: Strange Company
Series: Strange Company #1
Author: Nick Cole
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 419
Words: 150K

~huff~ Well then. When I was reading the Forgotten Ruin series, I wondered which author to blame for the style it was written in, Jason Anspach or Nick Cole. This book answered that in spades. It fell squarely on Nick Cole’s shoulders. It was all his fault and this book was completely his fault, as he was sole author here.

Let me be clear. This was not badly written. It was not poorly executed. But it was written in a style that I detest and in a manner that I’ll only read over my own dead body from here on out. Much like Solzhenitsyn’s Experiment, this was my own Literary Experiment in Masochism. It was a complete success. Or failure, if you’re a normal person.

And that cover? I love that cover. A lot! If the book had been even 1/10th as awesome, well, it would have been awesome. Pooh.

This was some SF space version of Forgotten Ruin. We have our narrator who tells us everything except that cool action’y stuff we want to read about. Do you want to know the big secret lie that the nigh immortal rulers of the galaxy have been hiding and is about to be divulged to Strange Company? Too bad. You get the story of why a kid joined Strange Company. Who promptly dies on the next page. Now is that awesome or what? And can I get a “please repeat that gung-ho military as many times as possible please” while I’m at it? I can? Fantastic. Nothing is more awesome than a catch phrase used ad nauseum.

This has confirmed to me that Jason Anspach is the storyteller behind the Galaxy’s Edge duo and that Nick Cole is whatever he is. It also has shown me that if I start a new series by them and I don’t like the first book, that series will never change and I will never end up liking it. That’s not a bad thing to learn.

There is a second book, but I would rather cut my own throat with a rusty spoon, scoop out my esophagus with said spoon and then eat it than read that second book. Nick Cole gets no more chances from me.

★★☆☆☆

From the Publisher

Stack bodies, get paid, get to the ship.

“If you can survive Reaper Platoon in the Strange, then Ghost or Dog Platoons will get you for their own. Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”

Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops - even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle - will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.

For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon - operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.

This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them - and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration

All of My “Nick Cole” Reviews

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Book of Joe (Forgotten Ruin #5) ★✬☆☆☆

Title: Book of Joe
Series: Forgotten Ruin #5
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 211
Words: 75K

This is a book ALL about Talker and how he survived and helped Joe.

What. The. Feth.

I am now done with this series. Don’t care how cool the story is, because it is always in the background and I hate Talker. I hate him for hogging the book. I hate him for whining about how he’s not good enough to be a “real” Rangeroo. I hate him for writing about coffee instead of what’s going on. I hate him for describing a ruin for 2 pages while a massive battle gets 3 paragraphs.

So I am done.

Nick Cole has a duology that I’m going to try out next. I need a cool down from Team Anspach/Cole.

★✬☆☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews

Monday, February 27, 2023

Lay the Hate (Forgotten Ruin #4) ★★★☆☆

Title: Lay the Hate
Series: Forgotten Ruin #4
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 209
Words: 76K

The Ranger-Roos are off on a big bad mission to kill somebody. Only, they get side tracked and kill somebody else and the stupid narrator, Talker, who is like the most important person to the group for his linguistics skills, jumps into a dimensional vortex/rift thingy to save another ranger so he pretty much is dead.

Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more blathering idiot going on about coffee or blabbing about wanting to be a real Ranger-Roo. I actually did a fist pump when it was revealed that he was dead. It was very carthartic for me.

Of course, we’ll have to see if the next narrator is any better. I have a bad feeling Anspach and Cole (the authors) are just going to use some other nitwit to journal instead of, you know, actually writing an exciting adventure novel. Aaaaaand I just went on Amazon to see how many books were in this series and wouldn’t you know, one of the later books has Talker as the narrator again. Tarnation!

★★★☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews

Friday, January 20, 2023

Violence of Action (Forgotten Ruin #3) ★★★☆☆

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Title: Violence of Action
Series: Forgotten Ruin #3
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 249
Words: 85K

Hey, would you look at that? There’s an actual story in this book! AND. I only counted 2 instances of Anspach and Cole (the authors) rimming the rangers. Talk about a relief.

So the rangers have to take down Smog the evil green dragon who is in an alliance with other evil powers that menace the kingdom of men. They take him out and rescue a bunch of captive elves and find the King of the Elves, who Last of Autumn is betrothed to. So no more googly eyes for the narrator at his elven lady love. Awww, so sad. Honestly, I was expecting her to die a horrible death, so at least this way she stays alive. Hard core military types are married to the Service and a wife comes in a distant second. Very few relationships can survive that.

This was the kind of story I was waiting for since the very beginning. Special Forces setting themselves an objective and then killing everything that stands in the way of them accomplishing that objective. I am definitely going to keep reading the series now but I simply can’t recommend it to anyone else. The first 2 books just destroy any chance of that. I’ve never been in this situation before, where the first couple of books are absolutely terrible and then improve dramatically. Usually I’m done with a series before that point (or it never does improve, which is what usually ends up happening).

I also can’t recommend starting here because then you’d be lost. Why is the Ranger Captain a were-tiger? Who is Last of Autumn and why is it so shattering to the narrator that they rescue her betrothed? Who is this evil Vampire SEAL? All of the big points get covered, so in that regards you could start here, but all those little things like what I mention, well, good luck. I guess this is for super-hard-core Anspach & Cole fans OR super duper military types who like annoying narrators. I’m glad I stuck through to this point but it pretty much ate up all the goodwill A&C have built up with me. They don’t get any more chances from me.

After the main story is a small “prequel” story that starts to introduce why everything in the Ruin is so Dungeons and Dragons. Long and short, a crazy genius woman, whose only good memories were of a summer when she got to play some D&D with other normal kids, goes off the rails completely and uses nanotech to start changing the world. It was complete “scyenze” but it sounded cool and was good enough for me. And since this is pure fiction and not “A Message From They Who Know Better Than Poor Plebian Me” masquerading as a story, I have no problem with said scyenze being used.

★★★☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews