John M

Captivating

Revisado: 12-15-23

The author does an amazing job of conveying the mental and physical experience of competing in such difficult races. He is an incredible story teller - weaving his experiences in with his conversations with others - just a fantastic read.

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Not one, but two Mary Sue characters…

Revisado: 02-06-23

I only made it about of a quarter of the way through the book before giving up. The backstory for the characters is as ridiculous as their interpersonal-dynamics. Did I mention that the protagonists are also insanely OP? The longer I spend writing this review the more ticked off I am about the time wasted on the book. Better to just end this now and write the experience off as sunk cost.

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Beat my expectations

Revisado: 01-25-23

This was a fantastic read - the way the author incorporated real world examples was fantastic. Even though I already knew the outcomes of some of the stories I was engrossed with the (re)telling. Gives new meaning to the term and/or idea of "suck it up" in that your mind really is in control of what you are able to accomplish.

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Maybe I was too hopeful going in...

Revisado: 01-04-23

Others had written about how accurate the book is as it pertains to the energy sector, etc. Those aspects of the story seemed well put together. However, the book falls flat so many times that would have been easily rectified before publishing had they had someone with the slightest knowledge of weapons, tactics, and often just plain common sense proofread the manuscript. The faux pas were not so ridiculous that I returned the book, though I did contemplate it. I just wanted desperately to find another series on par with Mitch Rapp or similar. I do not hold out any hope that this series is in the same ball park as those.

Just a few idiotic examples that kept recurring:

1. Modern weapons do not use 'clips' they use magazines
2. The term 'machine gun' got used so often and so inaccurately that I wanted to pull my hair out
3. State police do not ever use an M60 machine gun
4. The book stated that there were over 800 Aegis Destroyers in the US Navy. That is nearly double the total number of all ships of all types in the current inventory.
5. Almost never is surgery required to remove a bullet from within someone's body if it is buried in muscle or fatty tissue. No one would ever go to such lengths to remove a bullet from a shoulder. Also, small shards of remaining bullet fragments will not cause pain for the rest of one's life. Ask me how I know.
6. Some of the decisions people made (no spoilers) were idiotic in the extreme. (see the last series of decisions and actions by a CEO character and his head of security)
7. The supposed main character was often just a caricature of what was intended versus someone I could actually care about.

I might give the next book a chance. Maybe.

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A unique and thoroughly enjoyable story

Revisado: 12-17-22

I’ve read a lot of Jack Campbell’s books and enjoy them all. This one I’d in a class by itself. The characters are well developed and you can truly come to invest yourself in their plight. On top of that the overall story itself is fantastic.

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Want to ruin a book? Use this narrator.

Revisado: 07-05-22

I can’t believe someone thought this narrator was a good choice. The only way to correct this debacle is to erase this version from existence and re-record with George Guidall. It is pure agony listening to this book - only my OCD-completionism (and masochism?) allowed me to finish this book the first time. I had to but the Kindle version the next time I went through the series.

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Extraordinary writing and fantastic narration.

Revisado: 05-30-22

This book had been recommended to me several years ago. To be completely blunt I waited to listen to it because I did not want to be disappointed. Recently I have had less interest in listening to books or podcasts, but reached a point where I needed a good story to help me focus on something other than work. I scrolled through my library and ran back across this title - I was hesitant, but decided to take a chance. I am so thankful that I did.

The writing is captivating and the narration could not be better. I was reeled in nearly immediately and enjoyed every minute of the story. I will add this one to the repeat-listen section of my library.

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Not what I expected

Revisado: 11-20-20

I’ve never seen the movie so I did not know the story before I started the book. I’ll have to write a more detailed review after I’ve had a chance to dwell on what I think. Suffice it to say for now that this was one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Probably better in print.

Revisado: 06-25-20

This book has some good information, but the reading style is something else.

I've never heard anything by Ross Pipkin before, but his method of narration is not to my liking. He emphasizes the wrong words or the wrong parts of words all the time. He speeds up and slows down for no reason. I could hardly pay attention to the material because the style was so jarring.

Basically, I kept listening for a while out of morbid curiosity.

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All good things must come to an end

Revisado: 03-08-20

The story would be okay as a separate series. However, it is next-to-impossible to keep the characters (actions and personality) aligned with the originals with someone else writing the stories. The overall plot seemed forced, to say the least.

The plot was not that interesting and all of the characters seemed out-of-character in subtle ways. I will just have to close the series for myself and repeat the earlier books. My intent is not to trash the new writer(s), but that it is is drifting too much from the original for me.

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