War Dogs: The True Story of How Three Stoners from Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History

Product Information

The other crowd that's likely to be approaching this is the group that recognizes that Bear has contributed a great deal to the sci-fi genre. Two of his works are printed in the SF Masterworks imprint, which are meant to celebrate formative works in the genre that were highly influential or mind-blowing. This group is likely to think that Halo novels represent Bear "selling out," or "doing lazy writing," and are disappointed when he doesn't blow the lid right off their craniums every time. I was military and respect military greatly. The author dedicates this to the men and women of the military. That's good. The story however is (in my opinion of course) weak. It gets lost in the telling and winds itself around the internal struggles of the protagonist with a mild sprinkling of politics and social commentary. I have however taken the entrie trilogy out of the library so I plan t to (try and) see where it goes. The almost-forgotten story of Stubby lured Bausum away from social justice history temporarily. She wrote twin titles about the stray dog smuggled to Europe during World War I who returned to a hero’s welcome. Both books were published in 2014 by National Geographic: Sergeant Stubby (for adult readers) and Stubby the War Dog (for children). The book proceeds from there through what is discovered, uncovered and....exposed. There is some political pontificating but it comes across as thoughtful musings on the part of the narrator.

Plot 'Looseness'. I think the issue is that the author tried to do too much and ended up with a mess. I think the book would work better with a tighter focus and some of the repetition removed. Im not sure what to make of this book, or really what it is supposed to be. A weird mishmash, "War Dogs" follows a space marine through a crash landing on Mars, stumbling from one life-or-death situation to another before changing to some kind of thought experiment. Poor set-pieces: the hand to hand combat scenes read more as choreographed dances than as, you know, actual fights. Battles with the Antags were hardly better. I know that my take on the book is different from the main stream view. I am forced to the conclusion that it's simply a matter of taste. I've read a few books books by Mr. Bear and I have only liked a couple. Maybe it's simply a stylistic thing. If this is a book like or even love, I think that's great. We can't always agree. All that said even in the struggle to survive across Mars and the building mystery of what is ultimately going on I simply didn't get involved. As noted, possibly just my own taste maybe see what you think.

Possible slight spoiler> Now, that is only half of the setting and plot. When you open to the first chapter, you will notice that the setting is not on the red surface of a dusty planet, rather here an Earth. Sgt. Venn has just returned to Earth from a drop and is en route to a safe house. What happens is that the viewpoint shifts between Venn recounting, in first person, the events that transpired on Mars, and the present day omniscient third person with Venn in the safe house accompanied by a friend of a friend. Protagonist's inner dialogue: It's awful. Full of cliches, tropes, faux-deep thoughts that logically make little sense, etc. And the profanity: I'm no Puritan and curse plenty myself. But too many times he seems to be like a 12-year-old who curses for its own sake, without the benefit of any humor or cleverness. Just as they are about to asphyxiate, they are rescued by Teal, a runaway from a settlement of " Muskies", the leftovers of Earth's earlier, ambitious attempts to establish colonies on Mars.

Anyway. I'm not sure I liked how we've been told so much instead of shown. It was also a bit rushed and "by the way". Then again, that could have been done on purpose to emphasize how people regard this as normal and not suspicious at all. I never got involved in the narrative, I never came to care about what was happening. Could be I was just burned out on heavy reads or it could just be that book didn't appeal to me. Either way not one I'm overly thrilled with. Not bad, but I was glad to get out of it. All the partying wasn’t exactly conducive to running a small business, especially one as complicated and perilous as arms dealing. As AEY grew, it defaulted on at least seven contracts, in one case failing to deliver a shipment of 10,000 Beretta pistols for the Iraqi army. Diveroli’s aunt — a strong-willed and outspoken woman who fought constantly with her nephew — joined the two friends to provide administrative support. She didn’t approve of their drug use, and she talked openly about them on the phone, as if they weren’t present. What I really liked was the Mars lore Bear is establishing. What the Skyrines come across and learn is a fairly interesting plot line that sets the hook to bring readers along to the next volume of this series. Unfortunately you really only start getting to the more interesting unravelings towards the end of the book, leaving you with a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger certainly makes we want to continue on, but I do wish I learned a bit more first.Ben-Hur' remake likely won't be able to topple 'Suicide Squad' at the box office". Los Angeles Times. August 16, 2016. War Dogs is a 2014 science fiction novel by Greg Bear, the first in a trilogy chronicling a war between Earth and mysterious alien invaders in the Solar System. After the sequel, Killing Titan was published, War Dogs was re-published as War Dogs: Ares Rising. This one passed the bedtime and bathtub tests. First, I stayed up way too late reading it, then in the morning I turned myself into a prune in the tub so I could finish it.

Moreover, for a mil sf novel, this didn't have too much combat. The scene at the very beginning was intense and cool, just like their scrambling to survive the aftermath but that was basically it. I presume one has to see the trilogy as a whole. Don't know. Or maybe the author was trying to make the point that even in the military it's not 100% fire fights 100% of the time. This is, in my opinion of course, military only in the strict sense of that word. It is about a group of marines that end up "lost" during a combat drop. Only a few have survived to reach the surface of Mars and now they have to survive there. The middle, however, was plateauing out a bit and I didn't like that the author either didn't know or didn't care to make the distinction between biology and geology (when talking about Mars' ores). And don't get me started on the female spec ops Marines (as a woman, I love that women can serve but spec ops? give me a break!). I was excited to be offered the chance to read and review this book. Due to my love of military themed books and dogs. The author really gives a nice in depth look into the relationship between the dogs and their handlers. Which I really liked this about this book. The psychological aspect of the handler and the dog's relationship. Honesty, as I was reading this book it was not just the military dogs that I could see having a close relationship but my own two dogs as well. I have always shared a very close and personal relationship with all the dogs that I have owned through out the years. My dogs are not just dogs but really are part of my family and they are my children. I believe that I can talk to dogs and they do understand me. So again I get where the people featured in this book are coming from when they share their stories. Dogs are amazing. There were a few times where I did get very emotionally attached to the stories as if I had known these dogs all my life.Calm down,” Diveroli said. “Don’t throw around three-letter words like IRS. We can find a settlement.”

This book is listed at my library as a teen book. There is another book by the same author that is shelved with the adult books and it's called Sergeant Stubby - How A Stray Dog and His Best Friend Helped Win World War 1 and Stole the Hearts of a Nation. a b Gleiberman, Owen (August 16, 2016). "Film Review: 'War Dogs' ". Variety . Retrieved October 25, 2016. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( February 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Kit, Borys (December 3, 2014). "Jonah Hill to Star in Crime Comedy 'Arms and the Dudes' ". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on June 21, 2018 . Retrieved December 4, 2014. Feature Film Study" (PDF). FilmLA. May 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 31, 2017 . Retrieved July 4, 2017.And then it hit me. This was designed to be popcorn fiction. Fun and smart and fast-paced military action that comes full of massive angst and battle on Mars against aliens and even better reveals about what they're even doing there. This heartwarming tale details the life and brave wartime experiences of a stray dog and the man who adopted him during WWI. The book is full of descriptions of Mars and what one would need to do to survive there. It has plenty of advanced technology and descriptions of how such technology would help one survive on Mars.