Jonathan Love

An Instant Classic with Themes From Other Works

Revisado: 03-16-21

I am a big fan of Pressfield's, Gates of Fire, and have followed him on social media because of it. His other books are fantastic in their own regard, but there is a once-in-a-lifetime special book that any author can write; Stephen Pressfield now has his second.

There are themes from other works, Gates of Fire being one but others just as prevalent. A bit of King's Dark Tower series; Cormack McCarthy's, The Road; The Film, The Book of Eli, by the Hughes Brothers; The New Testament; and a sprinkling of Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity. However, the overriding motif comes from: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. These themes are merely that as this book stands on its own feet.

I really don't want to oversell this book. It is as good as Gates of Fire; perhaps even better. Only time as well as additional listening and reading of these two works will one cement itself as #3 on my all time must read list. The other however will be #4.

I usually listen at or about 3x speed, but I slowed it down to 2.25x for this narration. I've listened to several by Guidall in the past and enjoy his voice, but something about it isn't as crisp as other narrators.

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Required Reading for Comprehensive Understanding..

Revisado: 04-23-20

...of geopolitics on Earth. Although any history buff will know most of the information contained, the author packages it so succinctly and deliberate to areas manifesting today of high volatility. The introduction alone cemented this book a required reading for my Military Intelligence Soldiers, but each chapter focuses on an area of interest to current US Foreign Policy.

How development - or lack thereof - due to geographic concerns should be common knowledge, but there's so much historical evidence packed into this little book that everyone will learn something.

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A Boy's Fantasy Facing Staunch Reality

Revisado: 11-16-18

This is another of the classics that I didn't bother to read in my adolescence and now truly sorry I hadn't done that. However, it's salient even at my current age of 40 and appropriate for me to read to my 5 year old. With this work and Jules Vern's, The Mysterious Island, I can't help but feel that the game phenomenon of Minecraft had to have been inspired by these works. Although Vern's work is far more dense in size and breadth, Golding's Island is far more audacious and intense with regard to the subject.

I appreciated the characters in Lord of the Flies far more than the ones I loved from The Mysterious Island, but I think it's because they are so much more critical and believable to contemporary boys than Vern's adults. In addition to the masterpiece by Jules Vern, I couldn't help but remember other books touching on this subject: The Beach, One Second After, On the Beach, The Stand, The Boy Crisis, The Maze Runner, Ender's Game, Animal Farm, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Fight Club, Allegory of the Cave, The Road, Heart of Darkness, and others. The all seem to touch on the natural man/boy against each other and nature as well as his self-awareness to transcend his inexorable death.

I truly appreciated the introduction by the author as well as the afterword, that proclaims proudly his motivations to write and how each reader should interpret it (however they want based on whatever they get out of it). The narration is by the author and is clearly not a recent recording (Golding died in 1993) and not as lucid as a modern digital recording would be. Still I gave it five stars for performance because it was the author and you get his emphasis rather than a falsely-interpretive pertinence by a narrator who never even talked to the author.

I've been listening lately at 3.5x speed since audible added that rate, but I had to slow this to 2.9 to account for the imperfect recording.

Truly a great book, but only four stars as the conflict between the boys - albeit believable - seemed contrived/forced at times and I thought sounder minds would have prevailed in different spots of the book even in those austere conditions. However the boyhood mannerisms and attitude prevalent throughout the book were incredible.

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Not Bad, But I Found I Didn't Really Care

Revisado: 10-08-18

I can't even remember when I purchased this book nor why I felt inclined to do so. It's been sitting in my library for awhile and I keep seeing it as "unread". Finally my OCD kicked in and I listened to this book.

It has a catchy and verbose title and that's about the extent of my praise. The book itself is great and there was obviously thorough research conducted along with a brilliant writer able to link the many loosely-tied-together strings of the history into one work, but I just found the entire thing unpalatable. It might be due to relevance and it might be due to the fictionalized Disney saturation and glorification, but really I just didn't care about any of it. There are some good anecdotes of piracy and excellent narratives regarding truth and fiction.

Unless you're specifically looking for an accurate history on the subject, I just can't make a recommendation here.

I usually listen at 3x speed and had no issues with this one. I have nothing positive nor negative to say about the narrator.

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Political Propaganda Disguised as Science

Revisado: 10-06-18

This is nothing more than slander. Michael Lewis is a great author and journalist, but this whole book - ostensibly about weather statistics - is slander toward Trump and encomiums toward Obama. I didn't vote for Trump, don't really like his entire demeanor, but this constant vitriol directed at him and about him has become monotonously wearisome. I'm so tired of the entire leftist diatribe of all things conservative and Trump that I can't help but dismiss all of their accusations in disbelief... much like the boy who cried wolf.

There are some interesting tidbits contained in this book, but with so short a work I'm surprised at the initial lengthy introduction to a single scientist who makes no other appearance in the book. There's really no conclusion other than Obama was great with regard to supporting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Trump is doing everything to stop their admirable work because he hates science.

Get over yourselves!

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Every Boy's Fantasy of Space and Significance

Revisado: 10-06-18

Just like Wil Wheaton's character in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Max Jones is a intellectual prodigy who finds himself in a position that every boy (at least all my contemporaries with adolescence prior to the 21st century), would die to find themselves. Max is unaware of how special he really is with an eidetic memory and access to books he never should have seen. But he did, and the adventure begins after he realizes that he has no future on earth.

Although the story is predictable and we all know that Max will eventually "make it" to his destiny, the real story is about Max, his character, and his growth from those he meets along the way (both positive and negative). All of this prepares him for the inevitable decision he has to and is willing to make, the decision that others are relying on from him that only he can do. It's a risky decision, but Max's audacious personality invariably saves the day.

This was my first book with Paul Michael Garcia as narrator and I enjoyed it. I'm kind of partial to Wil Wheaton as a narrator and due to the comparison of the two characters at the beginning of my review, I would have preferred the later. Again, Garcia was great. I usually listen at 3x speed and had no issues with this version.

Heinlein is my favorite author and this book is a top 10 of all of his book for me.

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Superb Prose From an Inimitable Thought Leader

Revisado: 10-06-18

I pretty much take anything and everything from Simon Sinek as doctrine for guiding my life, both as a organizational leader (First Sergeant in the Army) and with my own family in teaching my kids. His speeches are so ridiculously galvanizing and this book is more anecdotal evidence of the philosophy he espouses. I read a lot of philosophy, both by our ancient leaders and contemporary as well. Sinek's body of work is just as powerful as any.

Since reading - for the first time - Start With Why, more than four years ago, I have tried (successfully and unsuccessfully) to implement the precepts in all I do and remember the results of those examples shared of potential results. I love his example of Apple even though I'm an anti-apple product person myself, but you can't deny the cultural phenomenon that they started and maintain today.

Unrelated to this particular book, but still a Simon Sinek promulgation, his video regarding the difference between being nervous and excited is another epic epiphany. My son was going into surgery the other day and I used this thought game of "changing the narrative" with him. I had him convinced that he was excited for this and being nervous was useless; pretty good for a four-year old. After the surgery, the anesthesiologist, came up to me and said that my son's attitude and demeanor were so good that he's going to start using the excited vs. nervous speech with all his patients.

As a narrator, Simon is excellent. He obviously has much experience presenting these thoughts and switching to a long-format audio book was probably not an issue. I usually listen to my audio books at three-times speed and had no issues with this one.

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Perceptive Past, Prognosis, and Prescription

Revisado: 09-22-18

It was just the other day on social media where I was advocating on behalf of my two daughters and jokingly said, "I'm not worried about my boys... I just have to feed them, get them to practice, and keep them from knocking girls up." Then this book slapped me in my face, followed by an uppercut, and finished with a devastating squirrel tap to my manhood. I - like most everyone else for the past forty years - have so genuinely cared about the future of our girls, that we forgot about our boys. How wrong I was, and Farrell and Gray (of, Men are From Mars..., infamy) had no problem providing the evidence and the cure; but will we listen.

After the introduction and first two chapters, I was already recommending this book to my brother and his wife who just had a son, my wife, my parents who already have raised three kids, my in-laws who have already raised five (with one possible "failure to launch"), my friends, my Soldiers, my neighbors, parents on my kids' sports teams, random strangers, anyone who'll listen, etc.. Then, throughout the rest of the book, I couldn't stop talking about it and the revelations within.

This is one of my most valued books in my audible library (378 books with nearly 20% on psychology) and I'll listen to it over and over. I'm also purchasing the kindle version as well as a physical copy for referencing. I normally listen at 3x speed and had no issues with this narration; both authors narrate.

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Wishing This Book Was As Long As The Stand

Revisado: 08-15-18

Almost immediately - knowing the book was only 13 hours - I found myself wanting it to never end. Yes, it is that good. I've read several "post-apocalyptic stories" with Stephen King's, The Stand, as my favorite. However, One Second After, hits closer to home; it's more real, more daunting, more... everything, except King's mastery of story telling and character development. That is not to say that this one lacks.

One hopes for miracles in tales such as these, but the cold-hard reality of survival trump all such desires. Death makes no exception for your good deeds or intentions... you're just statistically going to die. Just like, Nevil Shute's, On The Beach, it'll be an un-glamorous, inexorably slow, miserable demise - unremarkable in anyway because most of your loved ones are already dead, and those still living are just anticipating their own mediocre passing.

My only criticism of the book is that it bills itself (in the forward) as a survival tale in the event of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), but other than being the cataclysmic event and a few working older vehicles that aren't affected by an EMP, there's not much to differentiate this book from another scenario without electricity. I would've liked to hear more about how the survivors managed and found other ways to manage without this modern lifeblood.

The narration was excellent and I feel Mr. Barrett was an exceptional voice for the protagonist, but not necessarily for all the characters' voices. I usually listen at 3x speed and had no issues with this version.

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A Perilous Journey By Land and Sea

Revisado: 08-07-18

I've never been to Astoria, but have always wanted to go. I have friends living there now and I was in the midst of planning a trip to the Oregon Coast when I came across this book on an Audible sale; what a find. It's funny how some of my most treasured books (audible, kindle, and physical) have been discovered accidentally and in preparation for a personal experience.

One of the best parts of this book is found in the epilogue where the author relays his personal discovery of this story (this part also narrated by the author) and the adventure he took to retell it in this novel. This really completed the story for me as well as other non-fiction where the author gives a reason why.

Unaware of this history, it was fascinating to learn a bit about John Astor and his two concurrent treks he dispatched to establish this eponymic city. If this tale were to be made into a move (or television series) I'd like to see two separate, but concurrent works with tie-ins to the other. This history has all the makings of a modern blockbuster with death, murder, explosions, betrayal, starvation, salvation, etc.. I can't wait for my visit to the mouth of the Columbia.

The narration was fine and I was able to listen at my normal 3x speed. I did think his pronunciation of the word 'voyagers' was distinct and that word was used often.

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