dick

One of his best, a classic

Revisado: 04-12-21

Follett is a master of historical fiction. It is set in the years before the Great War, before the Russian Revolution. The husband, an English Earl, his wife a daughter of Russian Aristocracy, their daughter still sheltered of 18, yet inquisitive. A clash between love, lust and duty, Tory politics and Anarchist anger, between love and family.. Hard to avoid comparing it to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.
What is love? The excesses of the rich. The entrenchment of political ideology. Assassination plots. Well crafted,, captivating story, well written. .

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

Very informative histury of disinformation

Revisado: 11-11-20

Disinformation aka Active Measures, has been widely used by US, USSR and Russia for many decades to promote their world view short of outright war. It is complex, subtle, presistent and adaptive to perceived needs. The book goes through dozens of examples showing the complecity and creativity of the intrigue. Absolutely fascinating. Interesting how the Soviets supported the peace movement (no new nukes) in Europe keep the US from introducing our own intermediate range missles (NATO) when the Soviets already had their own SS20 missles in place. Active measures work best when it piggybacks on existing sentiments making it hard to assess the effect. Only the last few chapters covers current events - perhaps disappointing both sides of political debate. It's a book worth reading.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Street vs Dillard spoiler allert

Revisado: 04-06-20

It's strange to read a book with a multiple murderer as the angry unrepentant protagonist; maybe murdering presumed killers might be excused, but less so the cold blooded execution or an incompetent doctor whose dalliances delayed attention to a patient causing a death affecting the protagonist. And being abetted by his grandmother, fully aware of his vigilante murdering bent, all the time lying to everyone to get elected to a powerful office, and seemingly having all the characteristics of the politicians he seems to despise. We generally like our heroes to be honorable. Yet, the book seems to get very good reviews.
Many novels, including those by Pratt highlight prosecutorial and police injustices, but there is usually some legal remedy. Compare Pratt's Darren Street vigilante justice series with Joe Dillard legal remedy series. Bookends . Many popular thrillers make heroes of assassins taking out foreign agents, gangsters, and combatants, usually resisted by evil or weak political and/or corrupt military figures. If there is a silver lining in reality, it's that, in contrast to dictatorships, we at least try to observe legal means and trust that voters have some role getting it right. The best of our heroes do take responsibility for their action, not lie and evade any consequences. At what point can we advocate letting the end justify the means? For a while I was wondering if the book would end with a friend of someone he had murdered murdering him and become the protagonist of the next Pratt novel. Pratt is a good author, and this book was worth reading, despite my reservations. It's always hard to know an authors motivation and inspirations. Stephen Coonts' America was very dark and disturbing too - as was Steven King's The Stand -- the former seemed more political, and the later just scary and prophetic.
Maybe I'm just naive. Puzo's Godfather book was rife with assassinations, but it seemed abstract, just business, institutional, professional, historical, without glorification

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Reminds me of Tom Clancy at his best

Revisado: 07-11-19

Good writing, character development and international intrigue. Maybe not the scope of a Tom Clancy Jack Ryan Universe book but a great start.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Fascinating, even for a Liberal

Revisado: 04-06-19

Interesting, Of course it is fiction, and this one requires more than a modicum of suspension of disbelief. I have a somewhat different political perspective than the author, but he is a good author and a good representative of his point of view. Like most military, political action books, it's not likely to be turned into a "chick flic" film. Like most such novels, it requires an evil enemy, and most lean heavily on facts about weapons and capability. The great books of that genre, like Clancy's Jack Ryan Universe books, and Tolstoy's War and Peace lean on military strategy, and some, like Coont's The America, quote military strategists. Most are peppered with military terms and agencies, where facts can be gleaned from Jane's or even Wiki pages. But they tend not to be wishy washy about politics and the natural selection process for authors tends to favor right of center politics for action thrillers, and coffee.
It's clear from what Coonts writes on his web site that he is concerned with the power of the executive branch, Obama, and the "rules" federal agencies pursue; he favors more states' issues and the peoples' rights to bear arms. The Obama character is stupid, manipulating, dictatorial, and clearly evil, but not a lot worse than how he has been characterized by Alt Right media and a fair share of GOP politicians. That's OK; the book is fiction. Lock up lying journalists and the educated, blame the welfare state, illegal immigrants work for drug lords, inner city blacks are all foul mouth killers, only gun owners can protect America when Obama defies the constitution and declares a police state/marshal law, a big step up from "National Emergency". Vigilante justice is good, forget the Geneva Convention. Damn it feels good to take back our Liberty and throw the evil progressives out. Global warming is a hoax. We love oil and coal. All politicians are corrupt. The government is a police state like the Nazis. The lamestream media is complicit. Succeed from the union and take our country back, although not to support slavery, but more generally to support states' rights and gun rights, and the fight to end illegal immigration, despite those evil democrats and their sympathizers.
The left generally doesn't do military novels. Catch 22 was irony. Johnny Get Your Gun was just about the misery of war. Non-fiction historical biographies try to get their facts straight most of the time. Political non-fiction is a mix with both left and right leaning authors. I liked Coonts' books, including this one, and did my best to suspend disbelief, and at least to respect the point of view which has a number of core supporters sharing many of its views. The left, generally doesn't have a dog in the action novel race - facts are not that exciting and most issues are not so black and white, like abortion to save the life of the mother, or whether phones should be more encrypted or less. or game and fishing rights to make hunting/fishing sustainable, or child labor laws, or union organizing, or taxation, even social security and Medicare. America is a land of diversity and different viewpoints reflect different circumstances. Our constitution was the foundation of our democracy along with the bill of rights and some amendments. Both left and right should be proud of that heritage.
That said, the constitution may be great framework, but has always been subject to some interpretation, like the meaning of "a well regulated militia", or impeachable offences, or whether individual rights includes the right to cry fire in a crowded theatre. Not much was said about immigration when our country was young - the framers were relatively recent immigrants themselves. Abortion was never discussed - too many died naturally. Abolishing slavery came later, pitting economics and states' rights against the meaning of liberty. Womens' sufferage came much later. Coonts does not argue against amendments, just that things should be legislated by Congress, not by presidential decree. Most of our wars were at least accompanied by some form of house legislation beyond presidential action, e.g. Vietnam, Korea, and the Middle East. But so were more liberal programs proposed ,ratified and budgeted, with Social Security and Medicare being the most costly, dwarfing most other social spending other than the military.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Ponderous

Revisado: 04-06-19

Couldn't finish it. Tried twice. It started fine, but just went on and on as if the author was paid by the word. It might have been better in abridged form. Long novels are fine but they need to entice the reader to want to know what comes next without the story bogging down. I wanted the novel to work. The author writes well, and clearly skilled in the subject matter. I'll try another of her audible books, and maybe come back to this one later.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Couldn't get past the writing or narration

Revisado: 04-28-18

Spoiled by Tom Clancy who set a high standard for plot, dialog and content as did Mars, DeMille, and Berenson. Ray Porter, otherwise a good narrator couldn't help. It just didn't flow and got to be annoying. It had potential but failed to deliver.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Churchill- Fascinating early years also iPod note

Revisado: 10-29-17

IPod Note: If you listen on an iPod, there is a known problem for books longer than about 30 hours causing them to halt playing the last several chapters. The workaround is to download them in sections. Keep using Enhanced mode to download in the My Books place where you download but note there is a small triangle to the left of the book title which if clicked allows you to download the book in sections, 5 for the Last Lion. It's not a problem for an iPhone or to play in iTunes. Audible support picked up on the first ring, and when I explained the symptoms they knew immediately and told me the workaround. They were not sure if or when this bug would be fixed.
Last Lion: Volume 1 reminded me of Caro's first book on Johnson. Powerful leaders, with difficult childhoods, many challenges, huge egos, zigzag paths.Churchill's words permeate the book and Davidson's narration was perfect. Churchill's gifts were self taught. He came of age in a world of British empire before the slide. Manchester's writing is impressive, Even though we know the ending, it is suspenseful. And I learned a lot along the way.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona