Knowing his father had won a Pulitzer, and never having read either the father or the son, I was quite excited to receive this advance copy of Jeff Shaara's, A Blaze of Glory, that I won on goodreads. Having now read it, I can safely say the younger Shaara will not any time soon be joining his father on that most esteemed of lists.

The prose is repetitive and drones on, all but a few of the characters flat, and the dialog almost laughable at times given the great men who were supposed to have spoken it. In fact, the best parts of the book were the chapters on Bauer, the lowly private, which I imagine was a fictional character aimed to get the reader a little closer to the dirt. Funny that the imagined characters should be more alive than the historical ones. And maybe a cue for Shaara to find his own niche, and let his father's ghost lie.

That said, and in spite of the disappointing quality of the writing, there was much to learn in this book. It is obvious the research was thorough (perhaps too thorough), and the battle scenes conveyed effectively the sense of chaos and gore. But like the history books I remember from grade school, I found myself plowing through like one of the ubiquitous musket shots - not much knowing where I was aimed or if I'd find a target, but trying to get there as quickly as I could.