Review: A Must-Read, and I mean it
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 26, 2012
Injured Reserves is one of the best stories I've read, ever. It's right up there with The Snows of Kilimanjaro, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,  The Monkey's Paw and all of the other stories that typically round out the top ten lists.To say that Injured Reserves is a war story about a battle on a beach is like saying that The Odyssey is about a guy who sails off on a cruise.The great advantage prose has over the visual media is its ability to delve beneath the surface of things, to arrive at and reveal their essence, their connections with other things, their true and deep nature.That's what DC Bourone does with this one battle. Not only does he describe the fight itself with gut-punching, almost hallucinogenic prose, but he goes deep into its essential nature - the connections among Alexander the Great's famous steed Bucephalus, a downed horse on a Texas farm, Picasso's Guernica, and a wounded, drowning man clawing his way to the surface of a battle-wracked sea - the impersonal cruelty of what Bourone calls "The Great Breaking Wheel of Nature" - the inspirational quality of courage and devotion.Injured Reserves is a transcendent war story, part novella, part epic poem. The language is raw and glorious. The story will break your heart and lift your soul.Please don't miss reading Injured Reserves.