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Summary: W.E.B. Griffith is back.!!!
Review: After an almost 13 years hiatus, Mr. Griffith is back on the latest installment of his Brotherhood of War series. Those of us with military Background, will inmediately recognize his ability to intertwain real history with his fictionalized epic. The result is whole satisfaying and although his communications and orders excerts are found by some puzzling and maybe distracting. Nevertheles, it adds an important element of veracity and a glince of the inner workings of the military & intellingence bureacracy. Napoleon's army may have run on his stomach but the modern american army does it on paper. However, the story rest on the shoulders of very well written characters that anyone will wish to continue to read more about. As always, a very satisfactory read, that will be enjoy by everyone and not only by Mr. Griffith's legion of loyal fans.
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Summary: Who actually wrote this story
Review: After reading all the positive reviews for this book, I feel like maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But I can't help thinking that somebody else contributed heavily to this book. It just doesn't feel like Griffin's dialogue. And who edited this book? Johnny Oliver and Jack Portet get mixed up, and I thought the version of the M16 used by Special Forces soldiers during that era was known as the CAR 15...(Griffin calls it a Car 16) As usual, Griffin has changed the story line from past books to make things fit into this story. (Take a close look with how he has played with Lowell's and Felter's pasts) And why can't Guevara actually be used in the story instead of being referred to in dozens of Top Secret messages? I don't know....I really like Griffin's Corps Series...and all the other Brotherhood books I thoroughly enjoyed...but this one was a struggle just to finish. But it's nice to see the characters brought back to life. I hope that if he does so again the story will flow a little more smoothly.
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Summary: Fighting delegated wars
Review: As a GRIFFIN's books fan I felt compeled to by the new opus from the Brotherhood of War. Man was I right to by this great book ! I read all of GRIFFIN's books and was waiting for a new Corps issue but food this one by pure dumb luck in LA. I began to read it and since the first page I have disapeared from my house, spending hours of delight in my study. This book reffers to the efforts of the communists to take over the world by lighting bush fires in all the fragile democraties (beginning with Greece in the middle 40s and later Vietnam...) and trying to help the rebel native forces everywhere harm could be done to our interrests (directly or indirectly). This books shows how the United States Armed Forces (specifically the US Army Special Forces) tryied and obviously succeded (most of the time) in keeping the communist's forces to push the rebel forces in government seats. State of the art guerilla operations and intelligence use for a very modern warfare exemple. Let the others fight their own wars (with a little hidden help from friends) and be proud of their wins. Keep the boys home and safe. Unfortunatly keeping communists out of the picture never made the people of certain countries happier...Read this book and learn from the master.
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Summary: Special Ops is truly "special"
Review: As a long time W.E.B. Griffin reader,I was pleasantly surprised that he resurrected the "Brotherhood of War" series. Perhaps Griffin's strongest suit is character development,and in this novel he has demonstrated that ability with particular flair. This novel deals with a time period during the so-called "cold war" when Castro's Cuba was just beginning to be perceived as a major threat not only to the Caribbean,but to the entire western hemisphere. It involves most of the characters previously introduced by Griffin in his previous "Brotherhood" series,most notably Craig Lowell and Sanford T."Sandy" Felter. After an action filled Chapter One in which the former Belgian Congo is introduced as the scene of action,the story line pursues the planning,and execution of the plans,developed to effectively neutralize Ernesto "Che" Guevara's efforts to "liberate" the Congo. Several new and interesting personae are introduced,including "jack" Portet and a more highly developed George Washington "Father" Lunsford. We also get a brief "Griffin" glimpse of LBJ. After the Special Forces operation in the Congo concludes,the story line and it's execution become a little nebulous due to many pages worth of extracts of CIA communications,which in turn,lead to a somewhat weak conclusion to the novel. Had the ending been as strong as the rest of the book,it would have rated 5 stars instead of the 4 stars I gave it.
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Summary: When Is The Next Brotherhood Novel Coming?
Review: Being a huge Griffin fan I jumped right into this book. I loved every page! I have read the Brotherhood series 3 times and listened to the audio tapes at work. It is like a favorite movie, I never tire of it. Some get weary of the editing and typos but I find them not detracting whatever. I like being able to jump into one of Griffin's books knowing all the characters. I liked how he segwayed the histories of each character in an anicdote being related by another character. This seemed to make the book flow smoothly. As usual he does a great job in getting the story moving. If you read and understand Griffin's style you ought to enjoy this story.
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Summary: Special Ops
Review: For the first time I found a Griffin novel deeply disappointing.I found Special Ops to be dull. The last pages of the book were almost exclusively "block orders" that Griffith used sparingly and effectively in previous novels. This time they were used apparently because he was to lazy to write any dialogue. Characters were poorly developed: some major characters of past novels played only cameo roles and could heve been eliminated. Dull!
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Summary: Special Ops
Review: Frankly, it was poorly written and not typical of Mr Griffin's superb talents. I think he owes all of his devoted readers an apology for this offering.
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Summary: Griffin has written better books
Review: Griffin has written twenty books better than this, including the first half dozen books in the Brotherhood of War Series (this title is number 9 in the series) plus the eight titles in his Marine Corps series "The Corps." I would suggest that a new reader of Griffin start with the first book in one of these series and read them in order. "Special Ops" is about the attempt of the U.S. military to defeat and discredit Che Guevara's revolutionary ambitions in the Congo in the mid-1960s. It might have been a great book had Che been a living, breathing character, rather than being seen only from afar. Griffin seems tired of his old military heros, the best of whom is Craig Lowell, who is brave, good-looking, intelligent, irresistible to women, and filthy rich. Somehow, despite all that, you still like Craig, whose shortcomings are that he's always in trouble and gets more medals than he does promotions. He is still around in this book, but Griffin focuses on a younger group of soldiers who are only only bleary, second-rate copies of the original Craig Lowell. Griffin's strong point has been the authenticity he has been able to bring to U.S. military culture. However, in "Special Ops" Griffin seems to have pulled out of a hat all his old literary tricks and reused them, changing the characters and the scenes a bit but relying on the tried and true -- and the now trite for readers familiar with his other books. Moreover, he makes mistakes, probably due to haste, as other reviewers have pointed out. Don't read this book. Read the first book in Griffin's series, "The Lieutenants" or the first book in his Marine Corps series, "Semper Fi." At his best, Griffin is a great writer about war and the U.S. military, but "Special Ops" is not one of his best books.
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Summary: Griffin is back to his old standard of excellence
Review: Having been critical of some recent Griffin efforts, I wasn't sure what to expect here; rarely does an author reverse a downward trend. The master of military fiction is definitely back, doing everything well that he once did well. He already had a batch of great characters to work with here, but he takes time to introduce them for those new to this series (which we had all thought was over with years ago), so the book will stand alone well if need be. The premise is interesting even if one does know the ultimate historical outcome. The portrayal of LBJ, in particular, is marvelous. The action is exciting, both human and military, with a number of good old-fashioned Griffin 'senior officer annoyed rants', one of the things he's best at. Griffin has always been good about avoiding excessive ethnic stereotyping, and in a plot that includes strong African American, African and Hispanic characters this talent really shines through. If I could find a weakness to report I'd do so, but there aren't any. It may be that this book was a long-unpublished manuscript that was gussied up for print; it may also be that Griffin has completely corrected all the recent downward trends of his writing and is back with a vengeance. Either way, this one is his best effort in years--a keeper for sure.
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Summary: Good Research
Review: I always enjoy Mr. Griffin's books in this series, because I usually recognize some of the people and/or places in them. For this book he indicates that he has done extensive research on the designated bad guy, and his demise. Even if it were all purest bull, it is still an interesting concept, and worth the time and energy to read it
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