Wayne Fannon

Absolutely Fantastic

Revisado: 05-11-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I am an aviation buff, and this book was right up my alley.

Ahrens' memoirs are quite well done. His purpose in writing was to record all the great stories he thought his grandchildren and great-grandchildren may want to know after he's gone. That perspective hit home for me, because I know I wish I'd had heard a lot more of my own grandfather's stories of when he served in WWII aboard B-17s in Europe. Ahrens focuses on the parts most readers would find interesting. I'd estimate that about 40% of the book is combat flight stories, and all the rest is about his long career as a fighter pilot, with only a bit of childhood raising toward the beginning. The combat stories are interspersed throughout the book to spread out the most exciting parts, and the rest of the narrative is presented chronologically. Again, he hits the high points, and I was never bored. I was quite entertained, and I have to say I learned a lot about the planes he flew (I think it was the RF84-F, F-100, F-102, F-105, and F-4. I was also fascinated by the two jet trainers he described. I was already familiar with the T-38 because of it's use by NASA, but I had never heard of the "baby jet" T-37 that Ahrens began his training on, and I looked it up later. A really cool little trainer jet with side-by-side seating.

Ahrens is a committed Christian, and mentions that here and there throughout the book, but I didn't think he was pushy about it (disclaimer: I'm also a committed Christian). He discusses his thoughts on what went wrong in the Vietnam war, and what the government could have done to win it quickly and decisively. I'm sure some people will disagree with his conclusions, but I value hearing his perspective as a front-line fighter pilot directly participating in the war. Toward the end of the book, he goes into his thoughts on how American foreign policy has gone wrong, and how things could be done better.

The narrator was great. He spoke very clearly and the audio production values were pretty good. The great thing about listening on Audible is the ability to speed up or slow down any audiobook to listen at your desired pace. I usually listen to books at 1.1x or 1.2x but I thought this book was just right at normal speed, YMMV.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'd recommend the book to anyone who is interested in aviation, especially fighter jets, or who enjoys accounts of the Vietnam war. I'm glad I was able to listen to this.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I have done my best to keep this review completely unbiased.

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A fun alternate alternate history

Revisado: 01-26-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I have an interest in the Civil War and I also very much enjoy alternate history fiction novels, so this book was right up my alley.

The premise of this book is very entertaining: in an alternate universe where the South had won the civil war, a history professor writes his own alternate history of what he thinks it might have been like had the North won. Every other chapter bounces back and forth between the narrative in this alternate world where the Confederate States of America survived, and excerpts from the main character's novel (the book-within-the-book), so there's something for everyone. Some readers who don't have much interest in the military actions may find some of the excerpt chapters a bit dry, while hard-core history buffs may find them lacking some detail on the minutiae of individual regiments or brigades. I think this book strikes a good balance. It's been several years since I listened to Foote's extensive three-volume "The Civil War", so I wasn't always sure exactly where and how the main character's novel deviated from actual history (though some differences are obvious).

As the main narrative unfolds it paints a wider and wider picture of what the Confederate States is like. I did find myself wanting to know more about that world, but I think that's how good world-making is done; if everything is explained exhaustively it becomes too dry and is no longer about the story. This author's take on what the South may have become was different from any other alternate histories I've read. I think some of the things in the fictional CSA are unlikely, but really, it's all conjecture, so who's to say?

As for the narration, I thought it was top notch. The reader spoke very clearly and the audio production values were quite good. Her southern accent was perfect for this story. The great thing about listening on Audible is the ability to speed up or slow down any audiobook to listen at your desired pace. I enjoyed this book listening at 1.2X speed, but YMMV.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'd recommend the book to anyone who is at least casually interested in the Civil War, or who enjoys alternate histories, or just likes to read a fun book with a premise they haven't seen before.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I have done my best to keep this review completely unbiased.

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In need of an editor!

Revisado: 05-03-19

I really like to learn strange facts and miscellaneous general knowledge, so this book should have been right up my alley. I was already aware of several of the facts presented, but there were several facts in there I genuinely hadn't heard before. The book consisted of a collection of random facts, randomly arranged, which is exactly what I expected based on the title. So those are the good things about this book.

The subtitle for this book is "The Crazy Stories Behind the World's Most Interesting Facts," so discussing each fact with a few supporting paragraphs is to be expected (whether the facts are the world's most interesting is subjective though). But in this book the author has the most roundabout, awkward way of writing I've ever seen, and ends up using a lot of fluff sentences to add bulk to each fact without adding much of value. There are lots of "there's more to this than you might ever have imagined" and "scientists decided to go ahead and find out whether that was true", and that sort of thing. To me, it seems almost written as if each fact were a clickbait article, and the author wanted to put enough fluff in there to stretch three sentences of information into twenty clicks. I was continually frustrated by the writing style, although, by the end of the book, I was starting to find it somewhat comical.

On the other hand, there is a lot of information that I wish the author would have added. Most of the facts given are lacking on specifics, reasons why, and some kind of reliable source. These are the kinds of things one would expect in a "fun knowledge encyclopedia". I think just 10 minutes of research on each topic would have given the author plenty of interesting supporting information. And maybe I've spent too much time on Wikipedia, but I am skeptical of a lot of "facts" that aren't backup up by a trustworthy citation.

I was given this complimentary copy of the audiobook by the author himself, so I really wanted to like it and give it high praise. Bill O'Neill has a pretty large list of trivia books available on Audible, and maybe some of them are more a list of facts, without all the fluff and awkward prose. But I just can't recommend this book.

Despite any shortcomings of the book itself, the narration of this book was top notch. Miller's speech was always clear, and he kept up a level of excitement through the whole book that wasn't brought down by the frustratingly meandering prose. It was a very professional production. My preferred playback speed was around 1.20x, but a good thing about the Audible player is that you can adjust the speed to whatever is comfortable for you.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I have done my best to keep this review completely unbiased.

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A fun historical novel

Revisado: 02-16-19

I wanted to listen to this book because I have read a lot about the Titanic over the years, but very little about the Lusitania, or the whole WWI period, for that matter. I'm glad I listened to it. Overall, it was a fun story, and I did learn a good amount about the Lusitania, WWI-era U-boats, how the passenger ship ended up in the middle of a naval war zone, etc.

The plot is a pretty decent one and I always enjoy historical fiction that takes known facts, adds in common theories and educated assumptions, then weaves in a fictional central plot. I'm not sure how plausible the fictional plot is, but that's fine with me. It's entertaining, and I had fun. One unusual thing I'll note is that the author intersperses the main plot with chapters focusing on disparate ground-level views of various real and fictional characters all around the Great War. At some points, this gives background to the naval situation the Lusitania was in, and some of them seem to be just for getting a feel for the war. I thought it was an interesting way to organize the book, and not in a bad way, once I figured out that's what was going on. It may help you ahead of time to know you won't need to remember characters from most of these seemingly-unrelated chapters later on. They just give you a flavor of what's going on in the world at the time.

My only negative about the story is that the author most often uses dialog sequences for exposition and historical background. Sometimes the dialog felt very unnatural or strained to me, and I think it would have been better in those cases to just tell the reader the information directly.

There is one explicit R-rated sex scene midway through the book, so be forewarned if you like to avoid that kind of thing.

The narration in this book was a mixed bag for me. On the plus side, the narrator has a very nice voice. He reads clearly, and I never had to decipher mumbled words or anything like that. I also very much liked his pace of reading. Most audiobooks are a little too slow for my taste, and I end up listening to them somewhere around 1.1x to 1.2x speed. But I listened to this book at normal speed and I seemed just right to me. As usual with narration speed, YMMV, but the Audible player makes it very easy to adjust the playback speed to be as fast or slow as you like it. On the negative side of things, I was very aware of a verbal tic the narrator has where he adds emphasis to the last word of each and every sentence, excluding dialog. It took me a while of listening to get past it. It didn't ruin the book for me or anything, but it was probably one of the more distracting idiosyncrasies I've heard when listening to an audiobook. It seems to give every sentence a sense of urgency which shouldn't really be there, or at least that was my perception. A lot of people probably won't have any problem with this, but some might. I would very strongly advise you to listen to the sample audio on Audible before purchasing. You'll very quickly hear what I'm talking about; the entire book is read this way, so if you are a picky listener (and you already know who you are!), you'll be able to determine whether this is a problem for you. The only other issue I had with the narration is that the accents (British, German, etc) didn't really work. I think he was going for the different accents, but didn't really pull them off. Again, this didn't ruin the story for me or anything; I just want to make a note of it in case that's anybody's pet peeve.

Altogether, this was a fun novel, and I enjoyed listening to it. The historical setting for the story was right up my alley.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I have done my best to keep this review completely unbiased.

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A good overall story of the campaigns

Revisado: 10-12-18

I have an interest in the Civil War and have already listened to Foote's extensive three-volume "The Civil War". But I'd by no means call myself a Civil War buff. I was interested in this audiobook because I have family on Lookout Mountain, and have been to the Chattanooga area many times, including a couple visits to the Chickamauga Battlefield as a kid.

This audiobook is a pretty thorough account of the different battles in the Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaigns. It was good for someone like me who is casually interested in the Civil War who wants to learn about these battles. For someone not much interested in the fighting, they may feel bogged down in descriptions of troop movements, engagements, communications, etc. On the other hand, a big Civil War buff who has already studied this stuff extensively may feel that too much detail was left out, such as the actions of each brigade and regiment.

The narration was very good. Everything was very clearly spoken. The great thing about listening on Audible is the ability to speed up or slow down any audiobook to listen at your desired pace. I enjoyed this book listening at 1.15X speed, but YMMV.

The only real negative about this audiobook for me was the inability to look at a map like would be possible in the printed book. Although I've seen reviews complaining that the book had only a few maps, when listening to an audiobook you get zero maps. Since I was already slightly familiar with Chattanooga geography, I could picture some of the geographical descriptions in my mind. But starting from zero knowledge of the terrain, it might be difficult to follow everything in your mind. If you have supplemental Civil War maps of the area, I could imagine referring to them while listening would be very helpful. The reason for the 4 star review instead of 5 stars is due to this lack of maps. It's not something specific to this book; I think any audiobook of this type would have the same drawback. Some people might consider it ridiculous to criticize an audiobook for a lack of pictures, but in this specific case of a military history where a large percentage of the book is about troop placements, movements, and geography, I think the lack of a map to look at makes an audiobook version slightly less valuable than the printed book. But for people like me, whose only time for "reading" is while driving their daily commute, it's still a book worth listening to.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and really did learn a lot about the battles I was interested in. I'd recommend the book to anyone who is casually interested in the Civil War, and wants to learn more about the Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaigns in particular.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I have done my best to keep this review completely unbiased.

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A good insight into Teddy Roosevelt's mindset

Revisado: 09-18-18

I had heard about Roosevelt's Rough Riders before, but I was vague on any details. (I knew they were led by Teddy Roosevelt, and if pressed I might have been able to pick out the correct war the fought in.) Actually, the same could be said about my knowledge of the Spanish-American War in general. I had previously listened to the audiobook of Roosevelt's much earlier history "The Naval War of 1812". It was quite detailed and very extensive, and apparently is regarded as one of the top naval history books, even though that war was fought 40 years before Roosevelt was even born. I learned a lot about the naval battles of that war, so I was excited to see this new Audiobook of "The Rough Riders", which was about the war he actually fought in.

I think this book is a fascinating insight into his thoughts and worldview regarding his soldiers and fighting. He starts with the formation of his regiment, going into details of the lives of many of his men, and why they wanted to serve in a regiment that was almost guaranteed to see hard fighting. He tells about their training, transportation, and the few battles they were involved in. He finished up with his efforts to get his regiment out of Cuba after the war was over, and then how some of his men fared after the war. There are even several appendices of letters he discussed in the book. If what all that Roosevelt writes is true (and I have no reason to believe it isn't true, especially since this book was originally published less than a year after the Rough Riders were disbanded at the end of the war) then Roosevelt's reputation as a "man's man" and all-around tough guy (but not in a mean way) is well-deserved. But his strict leadership and high expectations for his men to endure hardships was balanced by genuine concern for them and strenuous advocacy for their well-being to his superiors.

I thought the story was very interesting, and, at least for me, very educational, since I was pretty ignorant of the exploits of the Rough Riders. It wasn't a very long book, but packed with details.

I listened to this book for my own enjoyment and edification, so the discussion questions that followed each chapter weren't really applicable to me. But I will say, they are truly questions to promote discussion, and are never simple factual questions that just make sure you actually read the book. So they could be useful in a classroom or book club setting. There are maybe six or sever questions following each chapter. Some are along the lines of "what did Roosevelt mean when he wrote such-and-such?" or "what do you think was the reason for this view?", etc. They seem to be good thought provokers, but for some of the questions you'll need to have a good idea of the social and historical issues of the period to be able to answer or intelligently discuss them.

The narration of this book was a bit strange. As other reviewers have said, the narrator had very clear diction and was very easy to understand. He read at what I regard as a much too slow a pace, but speed of narration isn't a problem, since the Audible app gives you plenty of control over playback speed. I was comfortable listening to this book at 1.30x and 1.35x speed. You can adjust to your taste. However, there were several times where the rhythm of the reader's narration was strange. He'd sometimes emphasize or draw out certain words that didn't seem natural, almost to the point of making it sound automated in some way. There aren't very many direct quotes or dialog in this book, but when there is, the narrator's delivery is much more natural and not quite as slow. It didn't really hinder my experience of the book very much, but picky listeners (I'm sure you know who you are!) should absolutely listen to the full sample audio before buying to see if it's your cup of tea. I have no expertise in this area, but I wonder if it's possible that this slower and more deliberate delivery could be helpful for someone who speaks English as a second language.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and am glad I listened to it.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I have done my best to keep this review completely unbiased.

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