bookshelves: about-real-things, read-in-09, uneasy-reads
Oh my goodness, I loved this book. I can't seem to talk about it without talking about the miniseries, they complement each other so well, so I'm going to go ahead and do that.
See, the miniseries (which I watched before reading the book) did an excellent job at focusing on the one Platoon of Marines, even better on the men in Sgt. Colbert's vehicle. I loved getting to know those Marines, and seeing what the invasion was like from their point of view. I got frustrated along with them at the conflicting orders, and seemingly completely incompetent leadership, all of the things they had to go through.
And then the BOOK, does this really spectacular job of just telling you EVERYTHING. Like, they, there's a reason they keep going first into these villages where all of these people are shooting at them. They are PURPOSEFULLY DRAWING FIRE, which apparently was something no one bothered to tell them during the actual invasion. Or the time they punched north as a diversion so that the Iraqi army would follow them. Another successful mission accomplished, except no one told them that's what they were doing that time either. I mean, I expected that broad focus from the book, and I really appreciated getting that narrow focus from the miniseries, because the contrast between the two is incredibly interesting.
It was really fascinating to see how many things in the miniseries were just lifted word for word from actual exchanges in the book. Some of them incredibly endearing (like Espera's letter home to his wife, I still laugh at the "dog, you think that's too harsh?"), some of them (like the Marine who wants to see what a grenade looks like blowing up from inside a body) just downright unsettling. I love that Wright is man enough to tell us when he was scared, that the only thing he could remember when being shot at by a sniper was Peter Falk yelling "SERPENTINE!" at Alan Alda in The In Laws.
I was kind of sad to learn that Garza didn't actually lose his helmet (because I do love the image of Sixta screaming spittle at him about how the kevlar wasn't his to lose! it belonged to every Marine!), and that Wright's girlfriend's picture didn't actually get traded to another Platoon for batteries, but those are pretty minor detractions in an otherwise amazing book.
In the end, I like books that make me think, that draw me into a world I hadn't considered before, that show me a side of things I'd never seen. And that's exactly what Wright does with this book, shining a light on modern warfare and the modern Marine warrior, with all of it's warts and ugly spots, along with all of the courage and valor (and, you know, a certain amount of blasphemy and vulgarity) exhibited by these Marines. I'm grateful to him for writing it. ]]>
bookshelves: read-in-09, sciencefiction
Along the lines of the Terry Pratchett version of sci-fi humor, this book has an enormously improbable origin story for the human race. We've been engineered by frogs. Frogs? FROGS.
The humor escaped me every so often. Tom Holt is EXTREMELY BRITISH and a lot of his references were very cultural, but I got enough that I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, which always says something about a book. I'd like to read more by him. ]]>
bookshelves: literary-crack, read-in-09, sciencefiction
Oh man. So. Sherrilyn Kenyon should stick to her strengths. The romance novel bit of this was pretty good. The female protagonist (femagonist?) was . . . Okay? She was very much the damsel in distress who confused standing up for yourself with being incredibly, incredibly stupid. The male protagonist was good. I mean, definitely the prototypical MY LIFE IS SO AWFUL UNTIL I FIND A WOMAN TO LOVE ME kind of dude, but this novel was written in the 80s, when that wasn't such a tired and hackneyed device.
THE SCIENCE FICTION PORTION OF THIS, HOWEVER. Oh my God, woman. Flying one seated fighters between worlds? Are all of these worlds in the same galaxy? What kind of drive do they use to muck about with? What kind of governing system do these different worlds have? And more importantly, WHY IN THE WORLD do so many people want to kill the femagonist? It was such a mess of a plot line, I just didn't get it. Bleh, oh well. At least I didn't pay much for it. ]]>
Merrin
added a quote:
"With everyone lounging around, eating sleeping, sunning, pooping, it looks like some weird combat version of an outdoor rock festival." — Evan Wright
"With everyone lounging around, eating sleeping, sunning, pooping, it looks like some weird combat version of an outdoor rock festival." — Evan Wright
Merrin
added a quote:
"We're like America's little pit bull. They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody." — Evan Wright
"We're like America's little pit bull. They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody." — Evan Wright
bookshelves: literary-crack, read-in-09
I didn't find out until half way through (after looking towards the back of the book for an author bio) that this is actually a reprint of a book she wrote back in 1994. And. Well. It reads like an early novel, and it is not terribly good, and I'm kind of sad I picked it up. ]]>