Tag: American

Review: War Dispatches Volume 1

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War Dispatches Volume 1: Stories from the Front Lines of World War III

War Dispatches Volume 1 (note: not the most smooth title) is what is known in the anime/manga industry as an “omake” to Alex Aaronson’s 1980 World War III alternate history. It’s a set of stories that didn’t quite fit into the main books, but were/are still interesting enough to be told. These take place in the Middle East, from the Caspian Sea Monsters to MiGs in the sky to BMDs on the ground.

Being omakes, they are limited in scope. But this is no knock on their quality. In fact, they’re influential and good enough that I’m already starting work on a similar set of vignettes set in the Soviet-Romanian War. How’s that for a positive opinion?

A Thousand Words: Titan

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Netflix’s Titan

Netflix’s new documentary Titan is about the submarine that sank near the Titanic in 2023. It’s a well-produced film with many heartfelt interviews. However, I felt it wasn’t as good as it could have been, with one small thing the filmmakers did have control over and a much larger thing that they didn’t. Let me explain.

I think the film could have gone into more detail on showing what a proper deep-sea submersible looks, sounds, and feels like. It would have highlighted Rush’s obsession with making the nautical equivalent of the Bonney Gull even more effectively. While I can understand why they might not have wanted to get too technical, I also think i could have been explained in ways a non-scientist could understand.

The larger issue is that the cause of the disaster really wasn’t very complex. Disasters typically have a ‘swiss cheese phenomenon’ where a bunch of ‘holes’ in the countermeasures all align. So even if the initial catalyst was simple, the situation where it could become catastrophic was not. This isn’t the case here. The carbon fiber hull was fatally and fundamentally flawed, and Rush was a megalomaniac who believed his own propaganda.

That said, this is a worthwhile movie and some of the non-technical parts are actually the most interesting and telling. The CBS crew falling for Oceangate’s potemkin village is a perfect example of how the media can get strung along by people who seem like they know something. I found the host being assured by their safety checks interesting-it’s the kind of thing that seems right and would be if the hull was fundamentally sound, but the equivalent of an early Comet isn’t going to care if the fuel gauges are moving correctly. The other thing is how we see Rush trying to put women who had no seafaring experience into being the pilots of the submarines because he wanted to stand out in the media-another strike against it.

For all my nitpicks, this is a worthy documentary about a real-life terrible person who did terrible things.

Review: Bats

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Bats

The time has come to read William W. Johnstone’s Bats, an epic novel about… ok, you know what it’s abbout. It starts with the main character being a wanted badass who effortlessly killed a group of terrorists. Then come the BATS. See, evil superbats end up in Louisiana. That’s basically the book.

This is a William W. Johnstone book, which means it has pretentions of being ‘epic’ while having a complete inability to actually do so, a hatred of the media that makes even me defend them, and an inability to stick with its nominal subject matter. It’s fitting that I listened to GG Allin while writing this review, for he was to music what Johnstone was to authorship.

So we get about a 10-1 ratio of non-bat to bat scenes. We get devil worshipers (a favorite Johnstone horror villains) starting a rabies chain reaction among other animals. Then comes more conference room scenes than a post-1991 Tom Clancy novel. Then in the same military logistics skill that Johnstone demonstrated in the Ashes Series, a squadron of A-6 Intruders is informally acquired to firebomb the bats and then leaves. Finally the bats are dealt with via a device so lame and contrived that it rivals the end of the Jaws novel in terms of anticlimax. Hint: Imagine if the shark was attacked by a punch of gobies and barracudas and killed in front of Brody.

Well, at least I know now that Johnstone was as bad a horror writer as he was a thriller writer.

Review: Soviet Attack Submarines

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Soviet Attack Submarines: Cold War Operations and Accidents

Mark Glissmeyer’s Soviet Attack Submarines is a short book on a subject that should be pretty obvious. It covers all the bases on the Soviet submarine fleet. Though this doesn’t try to go much deeper, which is a problem for me because me being the CMO player I am has me already knowing almost all of what the book had to say.

That specific problem would not be an issue for many or even most other readers, but I still can’t really recommend this book. It’s just insubstantial for lack of a better word. Basically all it says can be found through trustworthy sources online with just a tiny bit of searching. So it’s kind of a glorified fact sheet and little more.

Review: Steel Rain

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Steel Rain

TK Blackwood’s Steel Rain continues his series of early 1990s alternate World War IIIs. It’s a little hard to review something that hasn’t noticeably dropped in quality and which you’ve already reviewed several previous installments. Note: This means I liked it!

Anyway, what this has done is inspire me. With my latest book done, I’m in the mood for more writing, and am thinking something. Namely, what about I finally write what I’ve always blogged about and make a conventional World War III or something similar?

Review: Red Bandit

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Red Bandit

Mike Guardia’s Red Bandit is a brief history of the MiG-29, covering its basic designs and all the conflicts it participated in. Do not expect a technical deep dive or a massive tactical overview. This is a short and small book.

It’s also a book that won’t surprise any serious scholar. The MiG-29 was really just a rich man’s Fishbed meant as a point interceptor first and foremost. It did not have the versatility or capability of western 4th gen fighters or the Su-27. In most of the conflicts it’s fought in, it’s suffered heavy losses, though not always by fault of its own. We see its service in the Gulf War to Ukraine in a short overview.

This isn’t the most illuminating book on the Fulcrum. But it is an excellent start for a plane I have a soft spot for.

A Thousand Words: The Simpsons Wrestling

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The Simpsons Wrestling

Simpsons games have a reputation for a few hits (Hit and Run, the original arcade game) and a lot of misses. One of those is The Simpsons Wrestling, one of the last Playstation 1 games released. By this point, a lot of wrestling games had been made. A lot of 3d and 2d fighting games for it had been made. A lot of Simpsons games were just low-quality knockoffs of the big popular genres, from skateboarding to platforming.

This is at least interestingly bad. It’s a 3d fighting game whose only actual “wrestling” is a pin incorporated in the final knockout. The characters are laughably imbalanced, and the action is unhinged (and not in a good way). Simpsons characters with crude early 3D models pinball around the wrestling ring. Yet the worst thing is the moveset. You have only three attacks, something that Street Fighter 1 had more than twice of.

But if “it’s interestingly bad” is the best one can say about this, then… it’s bad.

A Thousand Words: Aqua Teen Hunger Force

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Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Now Aqua Teen Hunger Force is the most misunderstood show on television. See, most people perceived it as a crude, absurdist, and surreal Adult Swim animation that made South Park look highbrow and subtle. A place featuring the strange happenings of straight man (or straight hovering box of french fries with a beard) Frylock, delightfully immature meatball Meatwad, and idiotic troublemaking drinking cup Master Shake. And their human neighbor Carl.

No. They have it all wrong. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is actually a nature documentary showing viewers the hidden, wondrous and fearsome at the same time place known as New Jersey. People don’t get it, but they just don’t get that this is what Jersey is like.

Seriously, it’s great for what it sets out to do.

Review: Flight of the Intruder

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Flight of the Intruder

Well, I finally did it and read a classic Vietnam War aviation novel, Stephen Coonts’ Flight of the Intruder. The joke before its infamous film adaptation was released was “Fighter pilots make movies, bomber pilots make history.” Afterwards, it was “Fighter pilots make movies, bomber pilots make bad movies.” Having not seen the film yet (and not likely to sneer, as I enjoyed Iron Eagle of all things), do they make bad books?

The answer in my opinion is kind of but not really but also kinda? Coont’s first novel, this is basically Herman Melville but with A-6s. Read the long, long sequences of a plane doing plane things. The sequences of an attack run. The sequences of a carrier landing. The sequences of doing naughty things in the Philippines. You get the idea. Thing is, even though I didn’t really care for these, I could see the appeal, especially to a non-expert reader back in the past.

So this is another one of those “have I been skewed against this?” books. And there could be worse.

Review: The Machiavelli Covenant

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The Machiavelli Covenant

Allan Folsom’s The Machiavelli Covenant is the story of people walking around Europe in search of a nebulous conspiracy. Kind of like his first novel, The Day After Tomorrow, where people walked around Europe in search of a nebulous conspiracy that involved Adolf Hitler’s preserved head. Here it involves the kind of thing that Jon Land would make and make amazing through ridiculous set pieces. Except here, there aren’t any and the whole thing has a poker face that would have given it millions of earnings in the WSOP.

Well, the set pieces technically are ridiculous, but not in a “wow a monster truck chase” kind of way. More like “ok, it’s the twentieth chapter of people getting in and out of cars.” It’s ridiculous in a not-so-fun way, not a fun way.

I truly believe this book could be a quarter of the length it actually was and still work. I hope it was due to some length obligation by the publisher, but given Folsom’s other work, I really doubt it.