Review: That Dog Don't Hunt
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 07 11, 2014
The free sample was just not-bad enough that I got to chapter five and bought the book.  I got forty per cent into the book and decided that I'd had enough.  I did something I rarely do - I returned it.Alternate history is all about credibility, craftsmanship, and attention to detail - all three of which are sorely lacking in Professor Strain's 'Stalin's War'.Mechanically, the sentence structure is awkward and unwieldy, and the author has no idea where to use a comma. There are words left out and homonym issues galore.  The dialog is flat and unconvincing, the narrative is plodding and pedestrian - all tell and no show and full of tired clichés and stock phrases.Particularly annoying is the fact that the author is apparently unaware that 'apostrophe s' indicates possessive or contraction and not plural, and that more than one Nazi is 'Nazis' and not 'Nazi's'.The author's biography proudly proclaims him to be a college-level professor of communications.  One can only wonder what he's teaching his students.The whole effort just doesn't feel right; frequently, when the author tries to add the little 'I know what I'm talking about' details, he shoots himself right in the foot - i.e.* SS General Wolff pulls his Luger revolver.  Luger revolver?  Really?  How can a self-styled alternate military history author NOT know that the Luger (the most recognized and recognizable handgun on the planet) is NOT a revolver or that 'revolver' is not a synonym for handgun?* It's 'MiG', not 'Mig', and all of the MiG 1s & 3s had been withdrawn from service prior to the end of the war, so there wouldn't have been any for the B-17 pilots to worry about.* The P-51 had six .50 caliber machine guns, not four.* The RAF would not have had (and never has had) a 'full bird colonel'; that's a strictly American designation used to differentiate an O-6 colonel from an O-5 lieutenant colonel, and refers to the O-6 colonel's eagle rank insignia.  Instead, an RAF O-6 equivalent would be a 'Group Captain'.* He frequently uses anachronistic phrases or concepts - i.e. 'no fly zone', 'travel docs', and the modern NATO phonetic alphabet instead of the period-appropriate 'Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog' version.* The final deal-breaker for me was when a 'Lugar' pistol (as opposed to a 'Luger revolver' I suppose) was several times mentioned.So, sloppy editing, sloppy research, and indifferent, uninspired writing.  I'll pass this one by, thank-you, and suggest that you do too.