DJM

Frankly, A Bit Tedious

Revisado: 01-26-16

Listen to/read the book "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief" before tackling this book. "Going Clear" will give you a solid background into the history of LRH and the Church as well as several of the higher-ups, places and activities described in Church of Fear. I say the book is tedious to listen to because Sweeney spends much of the book reading transcripts of his interviews where people are constantly interrupting one another and speaking in sentence fragments. These interviews would be difficult to follow if you could see the different people talking. When it's just Sweeney reading all the parts it's a mess. If you have some background with the story of Scientology it will make some sense. If you are not familiar with the COS then it will simply be incredibly confusing.

I gave it three stars which is probably generous. I did that because what does come through is just how disturbing this experience was for Sweeney. Sweeney comes off as very authenticate. If Sweeney had made an effort to provide his readers/listeners some context for the Church and the interviews it probably would have worked. As it was, I'm sorry I wasted a credit even though I purchased it on the 3 for 2 deal.

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A Different Perspective, Not a Justification

Revisado: 12-18-14

I found this historical account truly fascinating. As I listened to the history I realized that I was as ignorant about the culture of Japan as any of the players in the West at that time. I have read extensively about WWII from a western and European perspective but I really hadn't spent much time considering the Japanese. Such people as Tojo and Yamamoto were mostly one dimensional for me. Toland does an excellent job of pulling back the curtain and giving us a view of what was happening in the Pacific. He also offered some new perspectives on such things as the Bataan Death March. He does not seek to justify what happened but I feel that I have a better understanding of why it happened the way that it did.

There are some omissions. Korea is barely mentioned and there is no discussion of the germ warfare experiments that took place in China. If History and WWII is an area if interest I'd definitely recommend this book. Much like Anthony Beevor, Toland does an excellent job moving from the macro to the micro so you have a real sense of what it was like to be in the trenches on the pacific Islands or flying a torpedo plane at Pearl Harbor.

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esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

Each Book Better than the Last

Revisado: 05-28-14

I rate audio books primarily on the basis of whether I'd listen to them again. I've long since lost track of the number of times I've listened to the books in this series. By the time the next comes out in 18 months or so I'll probably have listened to this one three to five more times. (I'm currently on the second play through).

Butcher has created such a rich universe that it's hard to guess which thread he will choose to pick up next. But, even after 15 books, he continues to weave interesting and engrossing stories that end in ways that are unexpected. And, all his characters are so well conceived that I want to spend time with them. This book opens up an entirely new and unexpected story involving Harry and a very unique character, a story that has just barely started.

The only thing keeping me from giving the story five stars is a very glaring continuity error. It was jarring enough to bounce me out of the Harry Dresden universe for a few minutes but I'd largely forgotten about it by the end of the story. It appears early on and does not affect the overall story.

If you have not yet started this series you are denying yourself many hours of enjoyable listening. Why would you do that to yourself?

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Should Have Left Well Enough Alone

Revisado: 03-24-14

I enjoyed When Worlds Collide. It ends where this one begins. The authors would have done better leaving the story to our imaginations. The plot is very contrived and predictable. The authors set up a huge potential conflict and then disposes of it in a short narrative section that can be summed up as "all the bad guys die and everyone else lives happily ever after." It's almost as if the authors got tired of the story or the publisher told them they couldn't have sufficient word count to tie things up. My advice is to stick with the first volume and give this one a pass.

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Very Enjoyable

Revisado: 03-24-14

I first read this one as a teenager in the sixties. An early but effective "end of the world" novel. Characters are well done and the story moves along. Give this one a listen but skip the sequel.

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Ending is Very Contrived

Revisado: 01-16-14

I didn't buy Earth Unaware so it took me a bit to pick up the back-story, but the authors did a decent job with that. The story was pretty engaging until it got to the last hour or so. Then it was like the authors suddenly realized they were running out of paper and had to finish. After providing endless detail about matters of moderate interest the final battle was reduced to a few unconvincing paragraphs. Very contrived. A very minor character at the end sacrifices his life to win the day. Who cares? I didn't have any idea who he was let alone care about him. There is obviously a third book coming, but I doubt I'll invest the time to read or listen.

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Haunting

Revisado: 09-23-13

It is easy to say that those of us who were not there could never understand and should not judge. But if we are ever to learn we must try to put ourselves in these terrible places and we must be willing to judge. Fink has done an outstanding job providing a balanced and detailed account of what transpired during those hellish five days that so many of us remember watching unfold on television. She speaks for the medical workers, the families and the patients. As a pastor and a lawyer the questions she leaves me with are not related to whether the physicians did the right thing, but how we can help others the next time this happens, and the time after that.

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Sit Down With Krakauer and Hear His Story

Revisado: 05-01-13

This is a very powerful book. It is clear that this experience still haunts the author.

When we approach a book like this we want to find some answers, we want to form judgments, we want to know how the tragedy could have been prevented. The reality is that there often are no answers. Sometimes events overtake us. The story is in the striving to come through the events and survive and then to live with the memories. I couldn't make a steady diet of such stories. They hit me too hard. But this story, told by one of the people who lived it, is worth the time and the credit.

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Another Unique and Startling Story

Revisado: 11-29-12

The danger with any long running series like the Dresden Files is that it will fall into a formula where the variations from book to book amount to little more than moving the pieces around through the same story on different days. In contrast, Butcher continues to deliver unique stories that reveal new aspects to the universe he has created and new dangers and possibilities for the characters. The only frustrating thing, and this is not a criticism, is that the universe created over 14 books has grown so rich and complex that some books cannot contain all the characters that you would expect to see. I wanted to know where several of them were and what they were doing but I’ll now have to wait a couple of years to find out.

It’s not possible to say much of anything about the story not already included in the description. It would be too easy to include a spoiler. Suffice to say that rather than getting tedious, this series keeps me wanting more. On a side note I, too, was glad to have James Marsters back. I have to agree with those who say that he is Harry Dresden. John Glover did an outstanding job with Ghost Story but, after 12 books read by Marsters, it just wasn’t the same.

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"I'd Listen Again (but with reservations)"

Revisado: 10-11-12

Blackout and All Clear.

I liked these books, but don't start the first one unless you are prepared to listen to the second. I would listen to these books again sometime which is my primary standard for any written or audbile book. I go back to the stories I like to walk around in the world the author created. Willis created characters that I liked, that I cared about and that, overall, acted believably.

All that said, I think that these books could have benefited from better editing. Willis, at times, becomes very tedious describing the characters' angst over changing time or each others' welfare. In the second, all clear, there are stream of consciousness sections of characters who have suffered traumatic injuries and who can't keeep events and times separated. Although generally well done, these started to get so tedious that I wanted to slap some sense into the character. However, since I wanted to slap the character instead of the author, I guess Willis did a good job suspending disbelief.

The narration is superb.

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