Military Books

1500, 2000, 3000, 5000, 7000!!! refugees in the company and under the command of our Marine duo, Haft and Spinner. Our band reachs Dartmutter to find it smashed and sacked by the Jokapcul armies.

They are forced further along the coast in search of a port to find passage back to Frangeria. Along the way the refugees runnig from the evil armies keep coming and joining the company.

They run the coast and reach the low desert and come upon the secrative desert men. At the same time they discover that the Jokapcul armies have landed on the coast. Haft and Spinner are joined by a fellow Marine who is a Sergeant, named Rammer. The problems of how to handle a troop of this size, train men to fight, escape the foes they are stuck between, and reach a port the can get passage back to Frangeria.

The problems mount, the enemies are engaged, the demontech is employed, another fine book in this series, leaves you satisfied, yet desperatly wanting the tale to continue and revealed.

The Lord Gunny says" DEL RAY WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!! This is the finest of the three tomes, giving history to my Marines travels! and ya pull the plug over a mild lack of gold pieces!! ARRGH!!!!! I order you to reinstate the histories and allow our Marine Duo to continue!!!"

To all readers of this series, the more you reccomend thes books the more they sell and the better chance DeL Ray will tap Dave Sherman and get him a deal to finish the series.

I have been waiting for years for more in this series! To to find out the publisher zapped it is a major dissappointment! Note to Mr. Sherman: find a new publisher!! Give us more Haft and Spinner! I think this series is just as good as the much ballyhooed HALO series! Haft and Spinner are like Spartans without the armour! Note to Publisher: there are a lot of Demontech fans out here!

I love this series. I bought all three books at once and read them all in one sitting, only stopping long enough to take bathroom breaks. I am most interested in finding out more about the demons. They don't really seem to be bound to help unless they like you or they think helping you might be fun.

This is a great quick read series of books. The characters are well developed and you root for them throughout. Unfortunately the series has been cancelled by the Del Rey publishing firm. Every fan of the Starfist series should give this series a try and hopefully if enough buy all three, as I did, the series will resume. Fans of SciFi/Fantasy military epics will thoroughly enjoy Sherman's work. I long for the day to read more of the adventures of Haft and Spinner, two marines who prove that great training and tradition can turn ordinary men into heros.

Spinner and Haft are still one the run from the invaders and still looking for a safe pot in which they can seek passage back to their home islands but that goal is looking more and more remote because their entourage keeps growing. Refugees keep joining their caravan and the occasional fighting man shows up from time to time as well. That's a good thing because they need all the fighters they can get with the bad guys in pursuit.

Having a couple of marine privates become feudal lords is not without its difficulties. This is especially true when their sergeant, long presumed dead, turns up. He naturally feels that the privates are still "his men" (they are) but the 7000+ camp followers and men at arms have other ideas on the matter..

The series seems no closer to reaching a resolution than after the last book but it is still a series of interest.

The first book was excellent; this one was OUTSTANDING! Telep continues on the storyline he started in the first story and improves upon it by adding more characters, more action, and more bad guys. If you're into Descent, get into this book! You won't be dissapointed.

I am amazed. Most writers that make sequels to books end up completley ruining the second book and basically destroying any chanses the series has for a 3rd book. I expected the same when I read this one. I was completley wrong. This book is even better then the first! I was really able to connect with the main charachters better in this one yet it still had all the action a book needs to keep its reader from falling asleep. Definatley buy this one! It's worth it!

Descent: Stealing Thunder the very good book . You must have it! Who love game series DESCENT, founded in this book all what want. The best design of this book give pleasure when get it in hands. Well, I'm happy have this book!

It's been almost two years since I bought this book, I've finally taken the time to write a review. All there really is to say is that this book is great. The first one was great, this one is great, and the third is great as well. Buy them all, read them all. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Author Peter Telep made me more of a Descent Fan. By reading the Descent: Stealing Thunder I got more involved with the characters and the story line. Peter gives clear understanding in the world of Descent.

OUTSTANDING Great Read FOR ALL MARINES BRINGS BACK MEMORIES FOR ANY MARINE TO GO THROUGH PARRIS ISLAND

This book is phenomenal for any one considering the USMC, for those who are a Marine and for those who know a Marine. It really allows one to experience the mental anguish of a recruit at bootcamp. It should be a mandatory read for all potential recruits!

This book did okay at capturing what boot camp was like, but didn't really shed any new light on anything. Also, I've read a lot of memoirs that came across as balanced, but this one was a bit too self-serving.

"Boot" or "Making Marines" made for a better read.

This summer i leave for San Deigo, for boot camp. After reading this AMAZING book, i am now even more motivated and pumped to become a MARINE!! This book is great for anyone planning on joining, or anyone that knows somebody in the Marines.

The final challenge each Marine faces after bootcamp is the struggle to find words to describe the ordeal of the previous three months. Gunnery Sgt. Will Price has answered the impossible question, "What was it like?" If you are plannning on joining the Marine Corps or know someone who is this book is a must read. This book is also a valuable tool for friends and family members to understand what their Marine is going through, this is the only thing closer than to going to bootcamp itself.

This is the real story of Dieter Dengler's experiences in Laos. When compared to the movie RESCUE DAWN, it becomes obvious that the movie is a lot closer to the truth than it's critics advocate.

I finished this book on Memorial Day 2008. It is still relevant to our
position of freedom and life.

Escape From Laos is truly an amazing tale of survival. Having a first hand perspective like no one else has, Dengler tells this story with almost no emotion, describing each terrible situation without shying away from the reality or overdramatizing. A quick and interesting read.

Best book I read in 2007 and I'm squeamish about war narratives. Riveting, astounding, a profile of courage and mental agility. This is the bible of survival techniques.

I shudder to think what details were edited OUT of this book.

I also recommend the film "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" where Dengler himself takes one back to the scene of these horrors.Little Dieter needs to Fly

On February 1, 1966 the American pilot Dieter Dengler (1938-2001) took enemy fire and crash-landed his plane in Laos while on a secret mission. After surviving in the jungle on his own he was captured, tortured (hung upside down with an ant nest around his neck, submerged in a well, dragged by an ox through a village), then taken on a three-week jungle trek to a Pathet Lao prison camp called Par Kung. Dengler recalls that it was nothing like he imagined a prison camp might be, but instead a tiny enclave of a few huts exactly twenty-one by twenty-two steps in size. There he met six other POWS, two American and four Asian (which later became a source of tension), who had been imprisoned as long as two and a half years. Later they were transferred to the very similar Hoi Het camp. When starvation threatened both the prisoners and the guards, and the prisoners overheard the guards saying that they planned to shoot them, they made an elaborate plan and escaped. The fellow POWS were separated after the escape, and Dengler and his buddy Duane Martin teamed up. Lice, leeches, ticks, ants ("the true torment of the jungle"), sweltering days and cold nights, torrential rain, dumb mistakes and incredibly good luck, and the human will to survive--these are only part of Dengler's first person narrative. Incredibly, after soldiering on for so long, Dengler and Martin stumbled onto some villagers, scared them, and in the space of a minute they had beheaded Duane. After surviving twenty-three days in the jungle after his escape, hallucinations, wandering in a circle, tumbling over water falls, and eating things you never should eat, Dengler was rescued in an improbable stroke of luck. He lost sixty pounds in the six-month ordeal. In 1997 Werner Herzog made a documentary about Dengler called Little Dieter Needs to Fly. More recently Herzog dramatized this survivor's tale in the film Rescue Dawn (2007). This is a gripping book that reminded me of Alfred Lansing's Endurance about Shackleton's Antarctic survival story.

This is one of Elizabeth David's classic cookery books, bursting with good advice and as always, beautifully written. Her research was excellent and she always added interesting historical asides and information. If you are looking for a typical recipe book with artfully arranged photos, and the latest trendy dishes, then this will not be for you. The book, written in 1960, has some line drawings, but is otherwise pretty much free of frills.
However, if you are a serious cook, either amateur or professional, and enjoy reading about great French country cusine, this this is for you!

The truly remarkable thing about Elizabeth David was not so much that she could write enthralling and compelling cookbooks ("Mediterranean Food", "French Provincial Cooking", "Italian Cooking"), but that she transformed a glum, drab post-war England by the beauty of her prose and her ability to evoke the sunshine and brilliant colours of the mediterranean. And, further north, the simple beauty of cuisine bourgeoise, home cooking french style.

It was this book that got me started on a lifetime of home cooking. Like all great cookbooks, it can be read and savored without cooking at all. Her ability to evoke time and place is startling -- for example, her recipe for little courgette souffles is wrapped in the story of how she first enjoyed them. Of course, this was in a small country restaurant where the proprietor used his own recipe to make them for her.

She talks vividly about La Mere Poulard and her Mont St. Michel omelettes, for which she offers the original recipe. Roughly translated from the french, it reads: "Monsieur, I get some good eggs, I put them in a bowl and beat vigorously. Then I put them into a pan with good butter and stir constantly. I will be very happy if this recipe gives you pleasure".

I remember, over 30 years ago, the first time I made her recipe for pork chops "to taste like wild boar". They do indeed, and very good they are. Her recipes for classics like Cassoulet, and Bouillabaisse are vivid and provide the cultural context as well as precise directions. Her description of a bouillabaisse on the beach makes you want to catch the next plane there.

She explains the environment of her recipes, their milieu, and their progenitors so that you get right inside the whole theory and practice of french cooking. This is not haute cuisine, though it is not always simple to execute. But her sympathy for the process of cooking and her ability to describe it precisely prefigured writers like Richard Olney and Alice Waters, who owe her, as do we all, a great debt.

In any case, she is directly responsible for the appalling culinary assaults I have perpetrated on family and friends for longer than I care to remember. I still use the book, though most of its pages are now stored directly in my memory.

This book assumes that you know something about cooking and working in a kitchen. Many times amounts of ingredients are not specified, but easily guessed at. The recipies are relatively easily prepared and well worth any effort. I have never prepared a poor meal using this book. Ms. David was a leader in Britain in bring continental cooking to the British Kitchen. This is not a new book but still one of the best, and a favorite. I have used it since 1972 and am still finding things to make. Compared to Alice Waters, the preparations are less fussy but equally satisfying. I would recommend this book to a cook who has experience, it is most likely not a good wedding present, but entirely appropriate for the 5th anniversary.

Elizabeth David is one of foremost writers on food in the latter half of the 20th century and this book has her most celebrated writing. For this reason, I was inspired to write this modest review when I saw Amazon feature the volume as an offering, 43 years after it's first publication in England.

It is a coincidence of no small meaning that this book appeared within two years before the publication of Julia Child et al's landmark `Mastering the Art of French Cooking'. Child was even worried, when David's book appeared, that it may steal a lot of the thunder from Child and her colleague's effort. The fact is, the two books are very much like the Wittgensteinian `duck rabbit' optical illusion in that they deal with the same subject but from different points of view.

One distinction is that while Child's book is simply a cookbook of French recipes, David's book is a long essay on French cuisine, offering the sketches of recipes more as exercizes to be completed by the reader than as true recipes. In fact, it is one of the most enduring legacies of Child's book that it redefined the detail to which a recipe writer should go in order to adequately communicate the process of preparing a dish.

A second distinction between the two is that they deal with two different facets of French cuisine. As David recites from work by Curnonsky, there is haute cuisine, la cuisine Bourgeoise, la cuisine Regionale, and la cuisine Improvisee. David discourses on the third while Child, et al present the second.

For many, including such luminaries as Jeremiah Tower and Alice Waters, Elizabeth David is the fountainhead of thinking on the French notion of `la cuisine terroir', sometimes interpreted by the notion `what grows together goes together'. For David, this is the heart of regional cooking, and the thing which most distinguishes it from cooking at restaurants where clientele arrive at any time of the year or the day and expect to be able to order virtually any well known French speciality.

One of the passages which best characterizes David's approach to a lot of cooking is her opening statement on the perfect omelette: `As everybody knows, there is only one infallible recipe for the perfect onelette: you own.' I'm sure this would not work for Daniel Boulud, but it works just fine for me, after having seen about five (5) different, contrary techniques on how to make the perfect omelette.

It's interesting to constantly encounter reminders that the book was written before the widespread distribution of Teflon coated cookware, as there is no mention of it, even for egg cookery. I believe the book is all the more valuable for this fact, in that it paints a picture of a cooking style which has irrevokably been changed by technology. A second technological change brought upon the world by the French themselves is the 'robot-coupe' or food processor. It's noteworthy that the device is only mentioned in Notes to the 1985 edition where it is pointed out that the device was a major contribution to both the good and the bad aspects of nouvelle cuisine.

As stated above, the recipes are not as much presented as a blueprint to reproduce every dish cited, but rather to illuminate the discourse. One of my favorites is the entry for Salade Nicoise, where not one but four (4) different variations are given, including the variation of Escoffier.

The sections on French kitchen equipment and French techniques appear to be quite complete and absolutely essential if you embark on reading a cookbook written in French. The book has a short essay on each of the major culinary regions of France, starting. Almost obviously with Provence which is blessed not so much with great culinary talent as a great source of produce, similar, perhaps to the situation in California where the `la cuisine terroir' could take root much more easily than in Toledo or Albany. The largest portion of the book is chapters on cuisine by type of foodstuf or type of preparation such as:

Sauces
Hors-D'oeuvres and Salads
Soups
Eggs and Cheese
Pates and Terrines
Vegetables
Fish
Shellfish
Meat
Composite Meat Dishes
Poultry and Game
Left-overs
Sweet dishes

The book ends with a bibliography which alone is worth the price of the paperback volume.

This book begs to be read from cover to cover. The only other writers who come to mind of a similar caliber are John Thorne, M.F.K. Fisher, and Harold McGee. Elizabeth David's books belong in the library of anyone who loves to read and prepare food and this is her best.

This book is unequaled, engrossing, superlative. It remains, despite the four decades since its publication, the finest book on authentic French cooking in the English language. To that extent, it is uncompromising - a quality not likely to endear it to the timid or fadish american cook - but never daunting. The sheer sensuous beauty of the food evoked in these pages is a loving, prolonged essay on one of the glories of western civilization.

The titanic battles of the Great War on the Western front are probably well known to most readers of this review. Much has been written (and rewritten) and analyzed (and overanalyzed) about the Somme, Verdun, Ypres. Given the relative numbers of troops and the distance from the main action, the events in Africa can seem to be of little importance. The story of the fighting in Africa during the Great War contains no less heroism or bravery shown by many participants, and the actions of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck are still mentioned amongst the greatest campaigns fought by any general at any time. Throw in a few harrowing and humorous anecdotes plus some unusual aspects to campaigning (like big game hunting), and you have a great read.

Byron Farwell has written a detailed, entertaining account of the events of the Great War in Africa. It is part military history and part adventure story. There were essentially four (largely) independent campaigns fought against the Germans in Africa: Togoland, the Cameroons, German Southwest Africa, and German East Africa. Farwell covers each of these in detail, the last of course taking up most of the book, as a succession of generals chase Gen. Lettow-Vorbeck and his native askaris through modern Kenya and Tanzania. From a purely military perspective, there is quite a bit of interest here. For the Germans, how do they defend a central position we surrounded by much stronger forces. For the British, how do they use their military and logistical superiority to advance into hostile (to say the least) terrain against a disciplined and motivated enemy?

One of the great aspects of this book is that Farwell occasionally takes detours from the narrative about the purely military aspects of the campaign to present accounts of many of the quirky events and people and the role they played in Africa. For example, Farwell discusses in detail the dragging of several ships over several thousand kilometers to Lake Tanganyika to contest naval control of the lake with the Germans. This expedition was probably unique in the annals of military campaigns, but it leader was particularly unusual. Farwell also discusses an attempt to resupply the Germans with zeppelins, some of the confuse naval actions along east Africa (the German cruiser Konigsberg sailed up the Rufiji river and it was quite difficult for the Royal Navy to get at it, to say the least). Finally, Farwell discusses some of the nasty diseases present in Africa that were often more of a scourge to the average soldier than combat. One type of parasite that infected the body and slowly ate the infected person from the inside out was particularly nasty. It is also annoying that Farwell tries to explain away every British defeat as the result of unreliable and poorly motivated natives, poor leadership, etc. To be fair though, he does give the natives (particularly the askaris fighting for the Germans) their due.

There are two reasons that I only give this book four stars (most reviewers to date have given it 5). First, while both detailed and highly readable, this book is not uniquely outstanding. Farwell is not David Chandler or Shelby Foote, and while anjoyable to read, this is not something that most readers may read 3-4 times in their lives. Second, this book is definitely written from the British perspective by someone who is obviously sympathetic to (and enamoured with) the Golden Age of the British empire. I certainly respect this view, but I think there is much more to the events in Africa during the Great War than what can be gleaned from General Smuts headquarters or in London. Working through Gen. Lettow-Vorbeck's memoirs after reading this book would give you a somewhat different perspective.

The bottom line is that this is a great (and easy) read for anyone (either casually or professionally) interested in one of the most unusual military campaigns in history. Definitely recommended.

Informative, insightful, & readable.
At last! A writer who both:
A)Knows his material
and
B) Can write in an absorbing & engaging fashion.
L. Sprague De Camp fans take note--you will like this book.

Also, try--
Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika

Joseph Conrad would have loved and respected Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, and any woman would have been proud to have been his African Queen. This book is really three vignettes and one great story of courage and endurance.

At the outbreak of World War I, Germany had four African colonies, Togoland, Cameroon, South West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now mainland Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi). The stories about the conquering of the first three are very straight forward and give a very good idea of how the fighting in Africa differed from that in Europe. Of course the British made major mistakes of bringing in untried Indian troops who were totally unfit to fight in the 'Bush' but everyone kept a 'stiff upper lip' and died from disease and malnutrition.

The major story is how the commander of the "Schutztruppe" (local militia that were made up of European Officer and NCOs, African levies called Askaries, porters who were the most numerous and their wives and children) Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, managed to fight a four year war against over- whelming odds, and never lose a major engagement to the British. Throughout the war he was the consummate Guerrilla fighter, never facing the British head on but using hit and run tactics and always being one step ahead.

(There is a great side story that is better documented in "Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure by Brian Garfield", about the bringing of some British naval ships to fight on Lake Tanganyika; but Farwell does a good job of telling the story in a succinct manner.)

In the end, the British, mostly made up of South African Whites,Nigerians, Kenyans and Indian troops, spend four years chasing Lettow around Tanganyika, into Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), Northern Rhodesia and back into Tanganyika. During all this time he would leave his sick and wounded behind to be tended by the British, and would release his European prisoners if they would give their parole (agree not to rejoin the war). At the end of WWI, he was leading four to five thousand troops and keeping 87,000 British Commonwealth troops tied down protecting ports and railroads that could have been shipped to France. (He didn't surrender until November 15, 1918.)

For any history buff who enjoys a story that is almost Kipling-esque, this is the book to read.

This book was ok, no way near how good you might think it was by reading all the glowing reviews. To me it read more like a university text book than an exciting story. If you read the other reviews and see them mention all the really interesting "forgotten" stories of WW1 in Africa you may be suprised when you actually read the book. Several reviews mention the "Battle of the bee's" - you may be suprised when you read the book & see that the "battle of the bee's" is one short paragraph in the book. The reviews mention an amazing story of zeppelin L59 - in the book this takes up about 2 pages of text & a picture. So if you have read some of the glowing reviews you know almost as much about the bee's & the Zeppelin journey as if you had read the whole 400 page book. I found most of the book of some interest but I wouldn't really recommend this book to someone unless they are really looking for info on a certain battle in WW1 Africa at this time - but even then the info isn't very in depth.

As an italian, I've always had unending difficulties in search of books or any other source about military operations in Africa during WWI. But now and then, the name of von Lettow-Vorbeck appeared, surrounded of the fame of glorious deeds and exceptional personality. Well, reading this book has been a really enjoyable experience: masterly well-written, with sound attention to details but always keeping in sight the overall perspective. Last but not least, really fair balanced, it depicts men and events almost flawless, without any irritating bias against the one or the other side of the battlefield. In the midst of all that, Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck emerges as a hero and one among the greatest soldier of history, maybe a forgotten one, but nonetheless as great as a von Moltke or a Napoleon.

DENNIS R. JENKINS &TONY R. LANDIS are THE best AERO/SPACE historians.I have other titles by them.

Please provide list of ALL titles by them.

THANX VLC

Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony Landis write wonderful books about amazing machines.. (Check out America's super bomber XB-70)

Their style of writing is pure technical eloquence. They can take a complex subject and make it compelling reading whilst not dumbing it down or glossing over it.

The story evolves at a terrific pace and is neatly framed in the events and context of the era they occurred in.

The quality of the images matches the quality of the text. This is a book you will come back to year after year!

This book is an exceptional addition to anyones library on aviation. If you are a X-15 freak, it is an absolute must to have.

This research work was obviously a labor of love and reverence for the authors. They gave credit where it is due, from the pilot astronauts, research scientists, program managers, air force personnel, senior engineers, technicians, and even a handful of glad-handing politicians.
For the first time, the reader wil learn details of the B-52 mothership personnel.

The photo-documentation is vast; I find it hard to believe that a companion volume ("Scrapbook") was needed for photos and illustrations beyond Hypersonic!'s coverage.

For modelers, the AFFTC blueprint on page 179 is definitive data on the X-15 fuselage. Info in the text will enable accurate reproduction of wing and tailplane structures.

Hypersonic! will remain the standard reference volume on the X-15 for decades to come.

Not to take from old Chuck's efforts, but I've always thought the X-15 was the more interesting program. It's amazing the level of accomplishments they made, yet the X-15 is far from being as well known to the public as some other programs in aviation. If you like the X-15, this is definitely the book. It's not the kind of book you just fly through and look at the photos, then throw on a shelf... It is definitely worth your while to take the time and really read through the details of how the aircraft worked, what the Pilots went through, and how the milestones were achieved technically. The flight log in the back is amazing in it's detail, evening listing the chase aircraft and chase Pilots involved in each mission. I purchased it along with the X-15 Scrapbook, and they work well together.

In the opening pages of "Inside the Aquarium" the narrator, ex-Soviet agent Viktor Suvorov, describes his first memory as a member of Soviet Military Intelligence: watching a film of an execution of a would-be defector. The officer in question was strapped into a coffin with an open lid, elevated slightly so he could see what was coming, and then traversed slowly down a conveyor belt into a blast furnace, screaming all the way.

With this gut-wrenching scene, Suvorov opens "Inside the Aquarium", his tale of how he was recruited, served, and ultimately defected from, the GRU, the military counterpart (and rival) of the communist KGB.

As an officer, Suvorov was the cream of the cream. A company commander, he participated in the "liberation" of Czechoslovakia in '68, served a tour on the General Staff and in the Spetznaz (the elite Soviet special forces) and was ultimately tapped for service with the GRU, an organization hardly anyone had heard of but whose impact could scarcely have been greater during the Cold War.

Suvorov described the mission, organization, scope and accomplishments of this massive octopus in his companion work, "Inside Soviet Military Intelligence." In sum, its mission was to recruit foreign agents, spy, and steal technology from the West using any and all means -- from bribery and blackmail to intimidation and murder.

Suvorov has many spy tales to enthrall the reader -- his physical and psychological training pitted him against condemned inmates in hand-to-hand combat, punished lapses of memory with electrical shocks, and strove to exploit his emotional pressure points at every turn, until he was for all appearances just the type of pitiless machine-man communism hoped to produce. And his field experiences in the West are an unrelenting tale of deceit, lies and ruthless manipulation. There was nothing the GRU wouldn't do to get its hands on foreign technology and the foreign agents willing to sell it. Success meant medals, promotion and respect; failure meant disgrace, torture and sometimes execution. In Intelligence, like Hollywood, you're only as good as your last job, and the mantra of Suvorov's superiors was unvaryingly: "What have you done for me today?"

The book is most effective for me, however, in conveying the mental and emotional atmosphere which living in the communist penitentiary state produced among its inmates. As a GRU agent, Suvorov had unheard-of priveleges and status, yet the unyeilding pressure to produce results "or else", the knowledge that his every word, action and even facial expression was under constant scrutiny from psychologists and superiors, and the unspoken knowledge that many of his assignments were actually tests of his willingness to betray his friends, all brought me back to Orwell's "1984." To a world where lies, cruelty, double-dealing and fear rule every moment of every day, and all human emotions except lust, cruelty and ambition are discouraged and punished.

The most emotionally difficult moments in the book for me were not the betrayals, murders and interrogations of former pals (conducted on the dreaded "conveyor", which some killed themselves to avoid experiencing) but Suvorov's knowledge that so many idiots in the West were all to willing to give up their freedom and prosperity and become knowing tools of Soviet intelligence. His incredulity and hatred of these people, who he was trained to recruit and treat kindly, is excellent proof that freedom is best appreciated by those who had to risk everything to win it. Suvorov coldly refers to communist-loving Westerners as "expletive-eaters" and this expression was shared by the whole of the GRU. They had to live in a prison: why would anyone want to do it voluntarily?

"Aquarium" (named after the nickname for GRU headquarters), should be required reading for all those daddy-financed college rebels who put on Che Guevera T-shirts and denounce Western capitalism in favor of some kind of Marxian utopia. Suvorov lived in one, and risked being thrown in a blast furnace to escape it.

In this impressive work, Viktor Suvorov, a former GRU agent, takes the reader out into the field with Soviet military intelligence. He takes the reader through the recruitment process, training, and actual field intelligence work in a manner that crackles with authenticity. After reading this work, it is impossible not to come away sobered by the discipline and dedication of the Soviets. Nor is this book irrelevant today. By all accounts the GRU is still in business, whatever it now calls itself under the Russian Republic. It is not likely that it has changed much.

In one particularly telling scene, during their training military intelligence agents are taken to the training camp of young Soviet athletes, who are struggling mightily and sweatily to prepare for the Olympics--working literally every waking hour. The spy trainer then says to the students words to the effect of "This is how hard those who represent our country in the field of sport must work. Did you really think you, who will represent our country in the field of intelligence, can work any less hard?" Quite a good point, when one reflects upon it.

Suvorov is an engaging writer who knows how to make his points. This book is a fascinating look into a world that many Westerners barely know exists. Highly recommended.

Despite being a (generally) non-fiction novel with only one female character who is there for 3 pages, Aquarium is one of the most interesting books I ever read. Suvorov was a Soviet military intelligence officer who defected to the West in 1978 and became a writer. He has 3 types of non-fiction: political/historical, informative (e.g. about the Red Army), and books about his life. This book belongs to the latter. It starts after his participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a tank commander and follows his rise through military intelligence (spying on the west). It has conversation and reads like fiction, although it isn't. Suvorov is a very capable writer. He is tied with Ayn Rand for the amount of books on my list of best. He is the person I quote the most in conversation.

Suvarov, or whatever his name is, is quite a person. This book details his transition from ambitious soviet tank commander to soviet intelligence agent, and supposedly it is all true. Suvorov is so amazingly smart and thorough that if it were not true, we would never know. But thats not the point. this book is a page turner, reads like a novel, and discloses just how hard core and thorough the soviet intelligence services were, and probably are in whatever their current guise is. They were competitive, ambitious, driven, scared, talented and well organized. It would be hard to imagine building a more frightening group then the GRU. In fact, it makes you wonder how in the world anyone on the capitalist/NATO/etc side could even compete with these guys. From the fact of not even giving them guns (if you need a gun you are already done for), recruiting only agents who did not look suspicious, to keeping them frightened of the "conveyor", I doubt you will be the same after reading this book. I mean, this guy jumps naked into ant hills to get bitten by ants so he wont get sick. Entertaining and highly recommended. If you like reading something like "smileys people" --this is the flip side, soviet, and true. scary.

Suvorov takes a deep look at human nature, the Soviet intelligence arena and military intelligence in general. I believe it is a text to be studied and returned to. The following passage is the readers favorite:

"The troops were convinced that human nature was basically vicious and incorrigible. They had good reason. Every day they risked their lives and every day they had an opportunity to observe people on the brink of death. So they divided everybody into the good and the bad. A good person in their eyes was one who did not conceal the animal seated within him. But a person who tried to appear good was dangerous. The most dangerous were those who not only paraded their good qualities but who also believed within themselves they were indeed good people.

The most loathsome disgusting criminal might kill a man, ten men or even a hundred. But a criminal will never kill people by the million. Millions are killed only by those who consider themselves good."

This book has an ingenious plot, and grips the reader's attention. The geopolitical situation is all too believable, and the characters are reasonably well fleshed out. The technology isn't as well presented as, say Tom Clancy's, but few authors can do what Clancy does. The weakest link in the chain is the dialog: several of the characters are given the same cliches to repeat again and again. So the admiral tells us, not once but a hundred times, that he doesn't consider unmanned aerial vehicles to be true airplanes, nor their operators to be pilots. One of those operators is a smartmouth young woman who can't stop her puerile sexual wisecracking even when combat discipline would have any real military officer paying serious attention. The admiral and his chief of staff, and the besieged, retired general and his retired sergeant major, repeat the same banter again and again. It doesn't detract from the fun of the book, but it is irritating and does break the mood, just a bit.

David Meadows is a fine emerging author of action-military stories with interesting twists. His books are useful to stretch your mind and connect events and ideas that you would not automatically have put in the same category.

In this volume from his Joint Task Force series, a group of Americans have spent the last few years building a settlement in Liberia and are trying to retire to a community that would help their ancestral land while allowing them to enjoy life when a group of Islamic fanatics begin taking over Liberia and killing all the Americans. Among the retired Americans is an African American General with strong combat experience and his top sergeant.

Meanwhile, off the American coast, a Navy-Marine Joint Task Force is experimenting with a new generation of experimental unmanned fighter aircraft (think predators but much more agile) when it is assigned the immediate challenge of rescuing the Americans in Liberia before the marauding Islamists massacre them. Additionally, the French have decided to intervene with a stronger Naval force and since no American aircraft carrier is in the area, think they will have the dominant force necessary to humiliate the Americans.

The interspersing of Americans trying to survive in Liberia, fighter experimentation at the cutting edge, a tense standoff with an 'ally' and the Navy-Marine determination to save their fellow citizens makes for a consistently interesting read.

Simply stated, Meadows will have you turning pages and thinking new thoughts.

A friend loaned me her copies of this writer's first four book series set and I enjoyed it so much I had to try this writer's next book. WOW, what a compelling writer! I quickly became a fan of David Meadows. I can hardly wait until his next book comes out in September. I ordered my copy early as you might imagine. You won't go wrong with this man's stories!

Captain David E. Meadows rises to the top of the military thriller with Joint Task Force: Liberia. His growing mastery of suspense and characterization captures the reader with his opening sentence: "Ullma pulled the children closer." From here, he delves into the terror of ordinary citizens and children suddenly pitched into the lap of rebel extremists without a lifeline in Liberia. He not only paints the resulting American military rescue scenes with realism and true-to-life dialogue, he presents an interesting political scenario that nails the hidden agenda of a so-called ally: France. This is an author who knows the insides-out of his subject and gives us a fly-on-the-wall view of real possibilities in a world that now rocks with anti-Americanism. For this reason he stands apart from Tom Clancy and is building his own throne in military fiction. Kudos for the first of his Joint Task Force series. Can't wait to read the rest.

I became a fan of this author when I read the fourth book in this series. It was intriguing, exciting ... a book I could not put down. (It helped that there were so many fine, young military men in the book too. I adore men in uniform.)

So, of course, I had to go back and read the other three in this fantastic military thriller, starting with JTF:Liberia. Now I've read them all and each was as good as the previous.

Retired Captain David E. Meadows is a fantastic author who really knows his subject. Realistic, well fleshed-out characters and dialogue, plus an exciting plot--what more could a reader want?

Now, for me, it's back to read his first series: THE SIXTH FLEET. Anyone care to join me? You will have the "reads" of your life. I kid you not!

One reason I am a life-long Civil War buff is because of the pleasant memories I have as a teenager reading several of Mr. Catton's books. Just recently I bought some used ones at a flea market and have decided to read them again. This book is the first one I have reread.

Rereading this book reminded me why Catton is one of the best writers on comprehensive or themed Civil War histories. He was not known for many titles on individual battles but instead focused on particular themes (US Grant taking command of the Army of the Potomac in 1864, a comprehensive history of the Army of the Potomac, etc.).

Mr. Lincoln's Army covers the time from Bull Run to the Battle of Antietam, mainly from the Union perspective. Yes, the folks who like a histories on the Confederacy may like not the perspective, but the book is fair in evaluating the leaders of the Army of the Potomac. The book also has Catton's unique writing style - excellent descriptions of troop movements, battles, and personalities.

The only reason I did not give the book 5 stars was not the content or style of the text but the maps. The maps were few and were of okay quality. To be fair, the book was written in the 1950s, so one should not expect the quality of maps one sees in newer titles.

Complaint aside, read the book and enjoy what is in my humble opinion one of the best histories of the Army of the Potomac.

Recommended.

Around the time of the Civil War's Centennial celebration, Bruce Catton dominated Civil War writing in this country. His books still speak to the reader in a literary style that brings the feeling of the war and its participants very much alive.

"Mr. Lincoln's Army" is the first of his three-part trilogy on the Army of the Potomac. Catton traces the tragic evolution of this army -- always a superb fighting force in the ranks -- from a misused and abused weapon to the anvil that finally broke the rebellion.

In this book, Catton focuses on one of America's few men of Destiny -- at least until he had the opportunity to confront destiny in the face -- General George B. McClellan. McClellan picked up the pieces of the Army of the Potomac twice. First, after its inauspicious start at the First Battle of Bull Run and again after the army's route following the second tussle with the Confederacy near that same small battlefield.

McClellan was good at everything in which a general had to excel except fighting. An outstanding organizer and moral builder, "Little Mac" trained the army to a professional level and instilled in it an esprit de corps that helped sustain it through disappointment and disaster.

The one thing McClellan could not do, as Catton illustrates through his focus on the Peninsula Campaign and the Battle of Antietam, was use this superbly honed weapon decisively in battle. Always thinking he was outnumbered when in fact he held the advantage in forces, and lacking the inner confidence to take even good battle risks, he wasted multiple opportunities to end the war (or at least the existence of the Army of Northern Virginia) and save years of conflict and hundreds of thousands of lives. McClellan ends up as the ultimate in tragic figures, outwardly seeming so perfect for the job and bearing the loftiest of expectations as a savior, but inwardly cowed by fears and suspicions that he wasn't up to it.

This book is a wonderful and evocative portrait of the spirit of the Army of the Potomac in the McClellan era. Catton's great strength is the use of anecdotes to draw the big picture and sniff out "what was in the air" at different points in time. Thus his books are not exhaustive campaign and battle portraits and are short on troop movements and deployments of particular units. He seeks to demonstrate what was actually happening when all the personalities and actors of a moment are factored together. It is a big picture look at his subject buttressed by observations, iconic stories and the unusual that allows the reader to understand the feeling that surrounded events.

Thus, Catton focuses mightily on the relationship between McClellan and Lincoln's administration, his relationship and the performance of senior officers and in deciphering the motives, mindsets and chess game that seemed to envelope significant figures in the Army of the Potomac to a much greater degree than any other Union or Confederate army engaged in the conflict.

As all of Catton's writings on the Civil War are, this one is a classic.

This is the second of Bruce Catton's "army of the Potomac" books that I have read. I have the whole series but let them sit on my shelf for years until I discovered Catton's genius for communicating history while reading "Glory Road". Some historical books are written by persons adept at research but short on writing skills. Others are adept at writing but short on research skills. A good book is when you find someone good at both. Catton EXCELS at both. His ability to show us the Civil War through the eyes of the participants is quite impressive. It's even more impressive when realizing that he takes us across a lot of ground in a mere 339 pages yet never lets us feel that we missed anything nor that we were bogged down in anything. He gives us his philosophy yet seems to try and give us enough leeway to decide for ourselves on a number of issues such as the merits of McClellan as commanding general.

"Mr. Lincoln's Army" covers the war from post First Bull Run with emphasis on the Penninsula Campaign and Antietam. Along the way we get a lot of insight into the politics that had many a politican exasperated with McClellan while the majority of soldiers worshipped him. As we explore the book, we frequently come across many a sideline subject. For example, he covers in this vollume the food that the common soldier had to eat. It was surprizing how thorough he covered the subject in far fewer pages that I encountered in other books.

I've read plenty of fiction that wasn't written as well as Catton writes. Given the fascinating subject matter, this book was a pleasure to read. I can't wait to read "A Stillness at Appomattox".

What a wonderful book. I was so lucky to be able to pick up a great condition trilogy of the AOP (Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road, and Stillness at Appomatox).

Catton's style is so amazing. You get the broad strokes of tactical movement, political wranglings, down in the ditch tales, camp life, and of course the human equation.

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.

I must say, I'm glad I had a little working knowledge of the ACW before reading. He does have a tendency to just start up. For instance, Lincoln's Army starts in the middle of 2nd Manassas, then kind of works back into a flash back and fills in some of the bios. This may be a little confusing for an un-informed reader. You may want to read a very general, one volume sort of history before moving on to Catton.

The good thing though is the book is suitable for a beginner and yet I think the more you know about the ACW, the more you will enjoy it. There are so many great little stories about politicians, soldiers, officers, etc.

Highly recommended.

When it comes to writing, Catton's style is nearly impeccable. When reading Catton's book, you get the feeling that this is a great writer writing about the Civil War, not a great Civil War historian who is writing.

Catton paints with broad strokes regarding the campaigns of the Army of the Potomoc up to November 1862. People who are interested in the Civil War will definitely want to read more detailed histories of the individual campaigns, but for those who have already done so, reading Catton is great because he ties them all together and really gets into the psyche of the soldiers and the army as a whole.

Much of the book focuses of course on McClellan, who is persona non grata in most histories being written these days. But Catton is able to evoke some sympathy for McClellan's odd position in the power struggle between the military commanders and the Administration's politics, let alone the power struggle within the Administration itself.

All in all, this is a great book for people who have read about the Civil War in depth and are looking for enjoyable reading.