David Blacker

Ignorant mostly, with some coincidental truths

Revisado: 01-16-25

Ignorance disguised as common sense and served up on a plate of semantics and double entendres.

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Needs a better narrator

Revisado: 04-21-24

The prose is in a typical British 1950s -1960s style, dry and understated. So it needs a narrator with a bit more Vim. Instead, he drones on and the listener needs to really concentrate to keep track. A dogfight is described in the same tone as the internal working parts of a .303 machine gun. Also, the narrator, while having the ability to pronounce Croix de Guerre with an unerring pinpoint French accent, doesn’t seem to have bothered to look up even the most well known WW2 terminology and how it is pronounced. The famous German aircraft manufacturer Junkers is pronounced as if it were “junkyard”. The legendary Heinkel 111 is referred to as a Heinkel 3. Strafing is pronounced like “clapping” instead of correctly like “gaping”, even though the narrator seems to pronounce strafe correctly like “gape”. Sailor Malan is “Salem Alan”, etc. Overall it’s a rather grating experience and I’d avoid this narrator in future until he demonstrates an actual interest in what he’s reading.

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Sheer Tedium

Revisado: 05-13-23

There’s a reason this book is offered free. The title is the best part of the entire book, and whoever came up with it did the best writing you’ll find in this piece. I doubt it was the author. Skip everything upto ch 14. Droning tedium where for entire pages the author explains the rank system of the army, then goes on to explaining infantry units. He then describes all his friends in detail, including their physical characteristics, and family background, and gives a short history of their hometowns. Every single callisthenic in basic training is listed, with the numbers required. Tedious history of helicopters on top of that with nothing new or interesting and devoid of any useful details. Just box ticking. Even Ch12 when he sets off to Vietnam is spent on a dull and uninvolved history of Ho Chi Minh, and the Vietnamese liberation effort. Almost half of the book provides absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever, beyond a bit of amusement at the author’s failed attempts to join the air force, navy, and marines in the first chapter. By the time he gets to the Mekong we’re just dying to get him into combat just to stop the stultifying tedium of his prose. Even when he gets to a combat squadron he doesn’t see any. His biggest threats to life were accidentally hitting a tree and being doused in girl during a refuelling incident. The author just talks about organisation and administration. Combat begins for the author only in ch14. As an infantryman! If you start at this chapter you’d have missed absolutely nothing. Once the air combat begins most of it isn’t first hand, and is descriptions by the authors colleagues. The bulk of the chapter is another general overview of the battle for Hamburger Hill with a few second hand anecdotes of helicopter missions. This book is a sheer waste of time and I’d have asked for my credit back if I’d spent one on it.

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Boring

Revisado: 04-22-23

Didn’t listen to more than an hour. Drones on. Dull. Wish I could have my 1 credit back.

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Super book, bad narration

Revisado: 02-16-23

Tim Saunders has written an interesting and informative book on the 12th SS that’s worth having in any military library. First hand accounts as well as big picture views keep it well balanced. Bruce Mann however is not a great narrator. His German accent isn’t the problem. It’s just that he drones on in the style of a 1980s tv news presenter, and it’s difficult not to lose track of what he’s saying and have to go back to erlistend to parts that just don’t etch themselves into the listener’s brain. I almost stopped after half an hour, but persisted, and it does get a bit better as it goes along, but not much. I’d rather have read the original and skipped the audio book.

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Interesting and insightful

Revisado: 09-20-22

Starts a bit slow but if you persevere past the first chapter or two you’ll be rewarded. Also, having the book narrated by an Indian (with a marked subcontinental accent) throws in an interesting flavour of near criticism of the English even when there is none intended by the British author.

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Awful

Revisado: 07-27-22

Narrated like a cartoon with mugged up accents. Racist references to Vietnamese as ‘ugly Asian monkeys’ in the narrative. Full of cliches and Nazi fantasies. Couldn’t get through even the first chapter. Waste of a credit.

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Interesting, but Too Much of a Ramble

Revisado: 11-18-21

Albert Lulushi isn't giving us a history of OSS operations behind the lines here, but rather sets out to restrict his book only to an account of the OSS' OG Teams in the European Theatre of Operations, but as a result, has very little to actually describe, given the short period (1944-45) in which these OG Teams were in action. He therefore beefs up his book with a long preamble on British commando operations in Europe, and their interactions with American rangers. This takes up something like a third of the book, when it could easily have been dealt with in one chapter if Lulushi had been willing to go into more detail about OG Team operations than he was. Another third of the book is taken up with two unnecessarily long and detailed judicial procedures; the first on the investigation into the execution of an OG Team in Italy, and the subsequent trial and execution of its perpetrator; and the murder of an OG Team leader by his men in Italy, and the subsequent inconclusive trial of the accused. Both these incidents could have been dealt with in a couple of paragraphs as they are barely relevant to the account.

Noah Michael Levine's narration is generally acceptable, except for the hard-to-ignore mispronunciations of some very commonly known names and places. It's hard to imagine that the author would have misspelled names to end up with 'Lewis Mountbatten' and 'Edwin Rommel', which must be the fault of the narrator, who goes on to howlers such as 'Sucker-hausen', 'Britney' (in France), 'Afrika Corpse', and 'General der Inventory'. I understand that no self-respecting American feels the need to use two syllables when one will do, but to refer to the famous German city (and the trials it eventually gave its name to) as 'Noonberg' seems a bit much. Even one of the most famous American paratroop songs 'Blood on the Risers' (sung to the tune of the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'), with its now well-known chorus 'Glory, glory, what a helluva way to die', is pronounced 'Gory gory', (though this is a far more common mistake, and is possibly the fault of Albert Lulushi rather than Levine).

Overall, while the book is quite listenable, it's hardly wonderful.

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Interesting, but not a History of Legio X

Revisado: 11-02-21

While ‘Caesar’s Legion’ is well written and excellently narrated, it is lazy. The book certainly begins with Caesar’s raising of the Tenth in Spain in 61BC, and ends (mostly) with its storming of Masada in 74AD, if one is expecting some sort of regimental history of the Tenth, this is not it. Dando-Collins meanders through an account of Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul and Britain, in which the Tenth features only peripherally. Dando-Collins then follows Caesar through the first Roman civil war and on to his death. The Tenth is mostly a supporting actor, and often just an extra. The legion virtually disappears from view in the second Roman civil war as even naval battles such as Actium are described where, it’s unclear if the Tenth was even present. It is only in the Judean campaign that Legio X returns to the forefront as Dando-Collins describes the Siege of Jerusalem in great detail. Overall, while the book is interesting enough for casual consumption, it adds nothing new to those familiar with Roman military history, and reveals little detail of Rome’s most famous legion.

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Great take held back by poor narration

Revisado: 10-28-21

An interesting and insightful story of a famous but flawed American war hero, in his own words. Bravado and humility go hand in glove with Boyington.

Eric Martin, however, drones on, and it’s hard to remain focused on what is being read. One has to pay a lot of attention, which sort of detracts from the point of an audio book. Martin treats a deadly dogfight over the sea and Pappy’s recovery from a hangover in the same tone. Even right after finishing this I have no recollection of Boyington’s kills with the Flying Tigers.

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