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A review by nedjemet
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
DNF
Pages read: 32/725
War games and their associated alternate world histories aren't my usual fair, but I was willing to give this one a chance as I like the topics of strategy and politics. I'm 30, small-print pages in and already tired of the book's narrative style, so I'm calling this one quits. The idea of another 700 pages of dry, technical explanations instead of engaging dialogue or even just letting things play out does not sound like a good time to me.
As an example of what I mean, chapter three starts with two Russian military men discussing a planned attack and it goes like this:
Is it standard in this genre to just tell people what's going to happen instead of showing it? Because that's primarily what these first 30 pages seems to be: page after page of the Russian's detailing their war plans. I don't know about you, but I would have rather just seen the war play out and learned about the Russian's strategy by getting to watch the other parties react to it in real time or maybe through spies learning the plans or just anything more engaging than Russians talking with other Russians about a thing that they're going to do, meaning the only source of tension is waiting for the inevitable action to start.
Like I said, this isn't the type of book I usually read, so it may just be an "it's not you, it's me," thing. If this weren't such a long book, I probably would have given it more of a chance because that's really my only issue. The ideas at play were interesting and the writing isn't bad.
Pages read: 32/725
War games and their associated alternate world histories aren't my usual fair, but I was willing to give this one a chance as I like the topics of strategy and politics. I'm 30, small-print pages in and already tired of the book's narrative style, so I'm calling this one quits. The idea of another 700 pages of dry, technical explanations instead of engaging dialogue or even just letting things play out does not sound like a good time to me.
As an example of what I mean, chapter three starts with two Russian military men discussing a planned attack and it goes like this:
"How are we going about it?" Rozhkov asked.
"Red Storm," the Marshal replied simply. Red Storm was the plan for a mechanized attack into West Germany and the Low Countries. Constantly updated for changes in the force structures of both sides, it called for a two- to three-week campaign commencing after a rapid escalation of tension between East and West. Despite this, in accordance with standard Soviet strategic doctrine, it called for strategic surprise as a precondition for success, and the use of conventional weapons only. (page 31)
Is it standard in this genre to just tell people what's going to happen instead of showing it? Because that's primarily what these first 30 pages seems to be: page after page of the Russian's detailing their war plans. I don't know about you, but I would have rather just seen the war play out and learned about the Russian's strategy by getting to watch the other parties react to it in real time or maybe through spies learning the plans or just anything more engaging than Russians talking with other Russians about a thing that they're going to do, meaning the only source of tension is waiting for the inevitable action to start.
Like I said, this isn't the type of book I usually read, so it may just be an "it's not you, it's me," thing. If this weren't such a long book, I probably would have given it more of a chance because that's really my only issue. The ideas at play were interesting and the writing isn't bad.