Review: Great Book! -- Except for two things...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 31, 2014
Shanle has written an outstanding book, except for two things.First, the good stuff. He very accurately describes pilot training, military life, and the intensity, horrors, and exhilaration of wartime. He brings the reader right into the moment and the setting, making the reader feel like he or she is right there as part of the military. Shanle uses lots of military jargon, but by deft commentary never lets the jargon get in the way of the story.Barring exception #1 below, Shanley is a good writer, for the most part able to make his writing transparent - that is, to allow the reader to get lost in the story and lose awareness of reading. This is a wonderful thing.Would I read another book by this author? Probably so, but with reservations.Now the exceptions to why I did not give this book a 5-star rating.Exception #1: Shanley obviously acted as his own editor and proofreader. This never works. Shanley needs to engage the services of a professional editor/proofreader. The two most glaring demerits to his writing were his erroneous use of homonyms and the fractured nature of his chapter flow.For example, when a fighter pilot is lining up for a shot at an enemy aircraft, he would put his "piper" on the target ... A good editor would have caught this - you don't put a musician on an enemy target. You put a "pipper" on the target - a centering dot in your gunsight. Or has anyone really ever worn a "May" West? (It's supposed to be MAE West.) This may not seem like much (or anything) to some people, but to others, it screams "amateur writer!"It gets in the way of transparency.As to the fractured chapters, there were at least four story lines going on at once. This in itself is not necessarily bad, but it takes a high degree of delicacy to pull this off and not get in the way of the read. Shanley just didn't cut it. Some of the segments were so short, it was nearly impossible to get oriented before he was on to the next segment. Had it not been for his segment headers, announcing the geographic location of the segment, it would have been nearly impossible to follow.These are all demerits because they get in the way of the read. They destroy transparency.Minus one star for doing his own editing, for not engaging a professional editor to catch (and help him fix) these blunders.Exception #2 has been addressed by other reviewers -- the abrupt ending.I felt I got my money's worth from the length of the book - it was not too short, but I felt cheated because he put the ending of the book into the next book in the series, and ended this one with a come-on for the next.  This is NOT what he said, but this is how I perceived what he said at the end of the book: "Want to know how this tense situation resolved? Go buy my next book and pay me more money and I'll tell you!"To me, this is slimy, underhanded, and cheating. It's like I've already given you my money for your book, now you want me to give you MORE money so I can find out how it ends?I felt swindled.Minus one more star for not giving us the last chapter but instead using a sleazy come-on for the next book.All in all, it was a good read, and I was very relieved to find that this book and its sequel are on Amazon Prime/Kindle Owners Lending Library, so I was able to check out the sequel without (additional) cost to me, and so find out how this book ended and get on with more of the story, which I am thoroughly enjoying. I am, however, feeling some trepidation as to whether he will actually finish this next one, or ask me for yet more money.