Fiction Reading Lists

[Tom Odom]

Feast of Bones, by Dan Bolger is another fiction book that I really enjoyed - told from the perspective of a Soviet paratrooper; mostly set in Afghanistan.

I will pass that on to him. He appreciates such feedback.

Best

tom

[Steve Blair]

Feast of Bones was quite good. The end was a bit shaky, but the rest was very good.

[Rifleman]

I also liked Gates of Fire and the Sharpe's series. Also check out Bernard Cornwell's books about the Civil War. Being an Englishman he gets some of the southerner's expressions wrong, but still good reads for Sharpe's fans.

The only John Del Vecchio book I've read was The 13th Valley. I'd recommend it to anyone. I'm reading it again now for the first time in about 15 years.

Some of the Stephen Hunter books, The Master Sniper, etc., are fun reads but not realistic or technically accurate.

Of course, for some of us, Lonesome Dove tops everything? Hey, it's about small wars, ain't it?

I hate rude behavior in a man. I won't tolerate it! - Ranger Captain Woodrow F. Call

[Steve Blair]

I reread the 13th Valley every year or so. Same goes for "Cross of Iron" and "War in 2020."

Stephen Hunter is a good light read, although his later stuff just leaves me going WTF?

Another good one, at least in my mind, is CW2 by Layne Heath. Fascinating look at the life and eventual meltdown of a helicopter pilot in Vietnam circa 1969 through 1970ish or so. He also wrote The Blue Deep about early American advisor effort (with the French, no less...it's around Dien Bien Phu time). As far as I know Heath only wrote two books, but they are downright keepers.

In the SOG stuff, "Break Contact Continue Mission" was good, and there was another one called "Sympathy for the Devil" that was a touch 'out there' but still a good read.

[Tom Odom]

If you liked Team Yankee, you must read The Third World War and its follow up by retired British General Shawn Hackett (who was a brigadier at Arnhem in WWII). It is a better protrayal of what combat in Europe would have looked like had it gone down versus Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising.

Team Yankee was tailored to fit with Hackett's books.

Best

Tom

[Steve Blair]

Sir John Hackett's second book (Third World War, the Untold Story) is more of a narrative version, while the first is a "history."

My copy of 3WW the Untold Story is actually autographed by Sir John. When I was in good ol' DoDSS in the 1980s we got him to come and speak at our high school. I got to do the introduction and briefing about his books. An interesting guy, but a bit intimidating when you're 16.

[Tom Odom]

1980s we got him to come and speak at our high school. I got to do the introduction and briefing about his books. An interesting guy, but a bit intimidating when you're 16.

Ok I feel old now....

I guess the thing that really makes Hackett's books really tell the story of the so-called Cold War are the cold chills they produce when you read them and realize just how cataclysmic such a 3rd World War could have been. I can say that they certainly had that effect on us at the time; we read the these in grad school (1980-1981) at the Naval Postgraduate School as part of our National Security Policy course work.

Best

Tom

[jonSlack]

Anyone read Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste series? I imagine it as a Spanish verison of the Sharpe series.

I remember reading his Club Dumas and really enjoying his writing.