Wiser in Battle

I have recently finished reading Wiser in Battle, by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

In it, Sanchez recounts his military career, with the vast majority devoted to his experiences in Iraq. In particular, he feels that he was made a scapegoat for the development of a coordinated insurgency in after the Iraqi regular forces were defeated, and for the prisoner abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib.

The book is especially damning of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for micromanagement of the military, for various political decisions that set up the military for failure, among other things. It is also damning of Ambassador Bremer, when he was head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, for failing to properly manage post-war Iraq and not attempting to achieve military, economic, and political tasks simultaneously. Furthermore, the way that Sanchez tells it, Bremer went out of his way to prevent progress from being made among the Iraqis and encourage reconciliation among the major tribal groups.

On one hand, it is a pretty convincing narrative. Each accusation is described in detail and with plenty of evidence. On the other hand, this is only one side of the story, and you would expect any author to paint themselves in the best light. To his credit, Sanchez does criticize himself for many decisions made in Iraq, and does not find himself completely faultless for the development of the insurgency or Abu Ghraib.

One of the more interesting points in the book was that Abu Ghraib was a blessing in disguise, because it pushed the treatment of prisoners to the forefront and forced similar institutions to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

Overall, it was a very interesting read (albeit dry in many sections). Particularly interesting are all of the details of the Abu Ghraib fiasco, most of which were not covered in the mainstream press.

Shooter

I had previously mentioned reading War of the Rats, which has kind of put me into the mood of reading about snipers. War of the Rats [amazon.com] and Kill Zone [amazon.com] (which are both about snipers) are some of the best novels that I have read in a while.

One of the authors (Jack Coughlin) of Kill Zone actually wrote an autobiography called Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper [amazon.com], which I decided to read next. In the book, Coughlin recounts his role in several conflicts, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Coughlin spends a bit of the book on top of a soapbox, describing his ideas on how the role of the sniper can/must change along with the recent changes in warfare. The authors seem to think that the role of the sniper is being marginalized in mobile, fast-attack forces; but that snipers are now needed more than ever and can be better utilized in these kinds of military operations.

Many of the chapters of the book focus on conflicts in which he was given greater flexibility to demonstrate how snipers could be better utilized, to devastating effect.

Of course, one of the most interesting aspects to me was to hear the accounts from the ground (especially in Iraq), which sound very different than how they were reported by the media.

War of the Rats

Out of all of the books that I have read this year, War of the Rats [amazon.com] has to be my favorite.

Ok, imagine that you're transported back to the middle of World War II. The Germans are rolling over everyone in Europe. The Russians have to make their stand in Stalingrad, which German bombing has reduced to a pile of rubble at this point. Due to the overwhelming German air superiority, the Russians tried to keep their front line as close to the Germans as possible (so that the Luftwaffe couldn't support their own troops). So, they're running around in a maze of rubble (like rats), fighting a ferocious battle house-to-house. More on the Battle of Stalingrad [wikipedia.org].

Now that you know the backdrop, the book is a novel about a Russian sniper who is wreaking havoc on the Germans inside the city. He gets permission to start up a sniper school, so that he can teach his skills to a new breed of snipers who will continue the havoc on a larger scale.

The Germans become so worried that they bring in their best sniper to try to take out the Russian sniper. This is the concept that was eventually turned in to the movie Enemy at the Gates [imdb.com].

A lot of the book focuses on the tactics of the Russian sniper. In that era, snipers took hours and hours to set up a kill. And you would think that it would be boring to follow someone who spends hour after hour waiting for their prey to make a mistake. But it's not. It is actually really exciting the way the battles and individual hunts are portrayed.

This is a book that I am considering buying, because I enjoyed it so much that I will definitely want to read it again.

Body of Lies

One of the books that I have read lately was Body of Lies by David Ignatius [amazon.com]. It's a spy novel, in which CIA agents are going after Al Qaeda.

Actually, the basic premise of the novel is very formulaic, and reminds me of most of the other spy novels I have read. The agents are in black ops, where there is little/no government oversight over what they are doing, and they're running around doing all kinds of crap. Then there is the obligatory spy novel theme where the main character realizes that there is no one he can trust (a la Jason Bourne [wikipedia.org]).

Plus, the characters were comically two-dimensional. All of the other CIA guys (other than the main character) were like robots. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the story was too similar to all of the other books in the genre.

That being said, there were some really interesting plot elements. And it was very suspenseful; I didn't want to put the book down, once I got into it. So, from that point of view, it was pretty enjoyable to read.

Double Cross

One of the books that I have read recently is James Patterson's Double Cross [amazon.com]. I had previously read Cross, which is another book in this series of novels. The main character is a brilliant detective, who works or consults for the FBI in solving high-profile homicide cases.

I had previously thought that this author did a great job of making Cross a suspenseful book, but the characters were two-dimensional and lacking in personality and development.

As far as the plot goes, it is very suspenseful. Actually, the premise of the story is great, and sets up all kinds of interesting events. Patterson does a great job of building up intrigue and keeping the reader hooked into the story.

The downfall of the book is the ending. The ending is very rushed, and is a bit of a let down. He spends 300 or so pages building up all of this suspense, which is then resolved in about 10 pages. Not the best denouement.

Since these two were both letdowns (albeit in different ways), I probably won't be reading any other books in this series.

The Good Guy

Another book that I have read recently was The Good Guy by Dean Koontz [amazon.com]. I have not read any other books by Koontz, but this one makes me want to.

Altogether, this was an exciting book to read, with a lot of suspense, a lot of action, and just the right amount of humor.

The majority of the novel deals with a pair of people who are trying to get away from a crazy, well-equipped, well-funded, well-trained, homicidal hit man. The parts of the book that I enjoyed most were finding out the clever ways that the heroes figured out how to trick the hit man and make their escape. The book actually made me want to get chased by a homicidal maniac, just to see whether I could similarly outwit them. You know you have just read a good book when that happens...

Cross

One of the books that I have read recently is Cross by James Patterson [amazon.com].


It is one of a series of books about a detective trying to solve murders (I have not read any of the other books in this series). This in itself is interesting, because the detective featured in the series (Alex Cross) doesn't seem to have much in the way of personality in this book. I mean, he is merely an overly-idealistic workaholic, who is altogether too predictable. He's too generic in this book, and really has no qualities that set him apart from other characters in similar books.

In contrast, the descriptions of the antagoinst(s) were graphic and exciting. Although there was no way you could identify with the primary antagonist, he added a lot of personality to the book.

The plot was also fairly suspenseful. It was a good read because of the twists and turns of the plot line that keeps you on your toes. The way the book kept going back and forth between descriptions of what the protagonist and antagonist were doing made it feel like you were watching a tennis match (which in this case was a good thing).

Altogether an enjoyable read, for a novel clearly intended for the mass market.

The Sword of Shannara

Last weekend, I tried reading The Sword of Shannara [amazon.com] by Terry Brooks. I have never read any of his books before, so I really have no idea whether this book is a good representative of his writing or not.


Anyway, I got about 100 pages in and bailed. My feeling is that it was too much like Lord of the Rings, crossed with Harry Potter. I didn't feel as though there was a lot of originality.

The main plot arc involves an evil guy that hears of a prophecy, and goes out to kill any boys fit the description of someone that will grow up to fulfill the prophecy (as in Harry Potter and Oedipus).

A tall, ridiculously-wise man (some would say Gandalf-like) comes to an out-of-the-way village (like the Shire) to find one of the boys who could fulfill the prophecy, and convinces him he has to leave to save his life and the lives of his family. So, he and his most trusted friend (his adoptive brother) leave the only town they have ever known (like when Frodo and Sam left the Shire) and have a bunch of near death experiences as they make their way through a forest, etc.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

While I was up at the 2008 SAE World Congress this week, I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini [amazon.com]. Hosseini was the author who also wrote The Kite Runner [amazon.com].


The Kite Runner focused on the ethnic divisions among the people of Afghanistan, and how those divisions have shaped Afghani life. In particular, he focused on the Hazaras, which is an ethnic group that has many parallels to the Kurds or the Palestinians.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, ethnic divisions take a back seat as he describes the lives of two women, and how women were affected not only by the Soviet invasion and the coming of the Taliban, but also how women's rights differed by geographical area.

I think that Hosseini has a real gift with storytelling. I bail out of about half of the books I try to read in the first 100 pages or so. This book is similar to the Kite Runner in that the story it contains is interesting on several levels. He includes enough detail that the characters seem real and identifiable with. He wraps in tons of details about Afghani culture and life in such a subtle way that you are not even aware how much you are learning. And he doesn't rely upon contrived suspense (as in books by Dan Brown, like the Da Vinci Code [amazon.com]) in order to keep the reader hooked.

Picture of A Thousand Splendid Suns via mamichan's Flickr photostream.

The Gift

One of the other books that I read over the holidays was The Gift: A Novel [amazon.com] by Richard Paul Evans. The main character is a guy who goes around catching employees who are stealing from a national chain of stores. And in the process, he meets a boy who has a supernatural power.

The book touches on the nature of giving, and is framed in the context of a Christmas story. Unfortunately, describing the book like that makes it seem so boring. The key to the book is in how each of the characters are developed into people that you can't help but love. Part of the character development is in the poignant dialogue, such as:

"It seems that the most significant events in our lives happen while we're worried about something else happening."

And:

"Is there a hell?"
"I don't know. I think maybe it's here [on Earth]."

The book was surprisingly touching. I ended up reading the entire thing in almost one sitting, because I couldn't put it down.

Kill Zone

Over the holidays, I managed to read some books. I enjoy reading, but I bail out of more than half of the books that I pick up in the first 50 pages.

One of the books that I didn't bail out of was Kill Zone: A Sniper Novel [amazon.com], which was another one of those great military thrillers.

The main character is a sniper who is caught up in a political battle over the hiring of private security companies (an example of a private security company is Blackwater, which has been in the news [hamptonroads.com] of late).

As a fan of military thrillers, I found this one especially interesting. Watching battles played out from a sniper's perspective is certainly different. The book was written by a former sniper, so it goes without saying that everything in the book seemed plausible. One of my biggest problems with suspense novels is that they rely too heavily on contrived scenarios that just aren't plausible.

This book was something like the Da Vinci Code, only with snipers. Thoroughly enjoyable.

The Count of Monte Cristo

I just finished my second read through of The Count of Monte Cristo [wikipedia.org]. It was definitely more enjoyable the second time around, when I had a diagram of the character relations (as I previously said that I would make [fluggart.com]). The diagram is below (click to view larger version):


I really enjoy reading that book. However, my copy is over 1200 pages, with an additional 100 or so pages of footnotes -- so it isn't a casual read.

I found it very difficult to keep track of all of the characters and how they were related to each other, which is why I made the above diagram. The task was more complicated, because several characters have multiple names.

Anyway, it is a great book to take on a trip, IMHO, because of its length. And I found it very enjoyable, so I recommend it to any of you serious readers out there.

A More Modern Harry Potter

Here I go again talking about Harry Potter and boring all of my 2 readers...

Whenever I read Harry Potter, I always picture it in my mind occurring decades ago. I'm not exactly sure why that is. But I don't imagine the story happening in the present day, albeit hidden in the Wizarding world. There just aren't any references to anything modern or high tech.

Can you imagine what it would be like if Harry Potter occurred in the present day? Would there be computers everywhere? You know, the Weasley twins would be busy pulling down the latest mischievous spells, and implementing them in products for their .com venture. Peeves would be busy trying to post videos on YouTube of him dumping crap on people's heads. Kids would have been trying to organize their secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups on MySpace. And Ron would have been too busy to go to class because he was playing World of Warcraft.

By the way, maybe they could have implemented some more realistic security measures. It astounded me how audible passwords seemed to be the primary mode of security. And mind you, they weren't using voice recognition... That has to be the worst form of security ever. And I know that there were probably secondary and tertiary security methods in place... But imagine if you had to use an audible password to withdraw money from your account using an ATM. And the secondary security device in place was the security camera...

Harry Potter and Quidditch

One thing that I have never really understood about Harry Potter is the number of people on each team. There are no where near enough people on each team, it seems.

For instance, they have Keeper tryouts (the Keeper is what we normally would refer to as the goalie position). And out of everyone that tries out, they choose one person to be on the team. That makes no sense. Sure, you might want to use that sort of system to choose your starter, but wouldn't you want to choose at least two Keepers, so that if your starter got injured (or had to serve detention), you would have a backup that has trained all season with the team?

In the books, it seems like whenever a player in a key position has to miss a game, they just choose another person from that house that was great during tryouts, but hasn't practiced with the team. And somehow, it seems to work out, most of the time.

If anyone who happens to fly well could replace any member of the team and do just as well, what is the point of having practices in the first place?

More Harry Potter

Now that I have finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows and know how the storyline ends, I wanted to go back and reread some of the earlier books and refresh my memory on some of the minor storylines. This post contains spoilers for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

One of the things that I found interesting were the little details that foreshadowed the ending that I missed when I read them the first time. For instance, when Hermione first attempts to assemble Dumbledore's Army (although they hadn't thought of that name yet), they told everyone to assemble in the Hog's Head bar during a trip to Hogsmeade. When they meet the barman for the first time, the description is:

"The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grumpy-looking old man with a great deal of long grey hair and beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry."

To me, details like this prove that JK Rowling knew the entire time how she was going to end the series. It has been surprisingly enjoyable to reread the previous books, knowing what is going to happen.

Now that we know that she is working on a new book [yahoo.com], it will be interesting to see if she can recreate at least some of the magic of the Harry Potter series (proving that the series wasn't just a fluke, and that she is an unusually talented writer). If I were in the position of having the most popular series of books of all time and having more money than the queen of England, I think that a big part of me would want to stop writing and not risk producing a flop.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows

So, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows. I've kind of been Harry Potter obsessed lately. Warning, the following post has SPOILERS.

When I finished the 2nd last book, I thought to myself: How in the world is Harry going to find all of the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort all in one book. And when I was halfway through the last book, I still had the same question. I was really worried that the ending would be rushed, and therefore really disappointing.

It wasn't, though. The ending was surprisingly satisfying. There were a ton of loose ends from a bunch of the previous books, which they wrapped up nicely. There were a few twists at the end that I never would have seen coming.

The first time I finished the book, I was on the fence about how I felt about it. It was touching, but at the same time, I wasn't totally sure that I had understood everything that happened. It wasn't until a day or two after I finished it that I really started thinking that it had been ended well. And then I reread the ending, just to pick up all of the loose details I might have missed.

So, was Harry really the Deathstick's master, as he claimed? Or was Harry just bullshitting? The part that doesn't make sense to me is how it would have chosen Malfoy as its master (and how Harry could have guessed that). I think that was a pile of steaming bullshit. And Harry was just using it to delay or confuse.

And what was the screaming creature that Harry encountered in King's Cross station? Was that Voldemort? Or was that something completely unrelated? I'm not sure that I understood the symbolism.

Harry Potter

I'm about halfway through the latest book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows.

At the end of book 6, I thought to myself: Harry has set off to do a ton of things, and they could easily get several books out of them. How are they going to wrap all of that up in one book? And halfway through the last book, there is still almost everything left to resolve, which leaves me wondering whether the ending will be satisfying or rushed.

Adam has been posting [livejournal.com] some amusing observations about his readings of the previous books. These books are no doubt riddled with plots holes.

For instance, in one of the previous books, Hermione is given a time-turner so that she can go back in time to attend a class that conflicts with another class that she had. First of all, it seems ridiculous that they would give an object like that to a child, just for the purposes of attending some classes.

And I also can't help but think that these books would have a completely different outcome if either the good or evil side had a time-turner, and used them to good effect.

We Got Harry Potter-ed

In short, we caved.

We weren't going to submit to the Harry Potter-mania that has been sweeping the nation. But nothing has been made clearer to me than the fact that the release of the latest Harry Potter book has been bigger than the Superbowl.

We were going to wait until it came out on paperback, or until our turn came up in the library's unbelievably long queue, or until someone who bought it would loan it to us. Heimlich and I have read all of the other books, but we never bought them within a month of them being released.

But it has become completely impossible to read the news (or other weblogs, for that matter) without accidentally reading a spoiler. I keep half expecting to show up to work and see someone wearing a shirt with a Harry Potter related spoiler (such as "____ Kills ____").

So, we are lame, and we went out and bought a copy. I have noticed that Harry Potter seems to be very polarizing. Or maybe it is not Harry Potter itself, but the media coverage of it that is so polarizing. Everyone I know either seems to be a fan, or militantly against it -- they're not against it because of some moral reasoning or anything like that, but they just don't understand. They remind me of people who don't have Tivos or cell phones.

Mega Bookstores

Over the weekend, Heimlich and I went to Crocker Park [crockerpark.com], which is one of those new trendy malls that is trying to be more of a stand-alone village than a mall. Not only does it have stores, but it has it's own internal street system, complete with traffic lights and crosswalks. There's no internal part of the mall -- you have to walk on the streets outside to get to the storefronts. So, I kind of hate it, because you have to walk a long distance outside to get from your car to any of the stores.

Anyway, they also have their own condos and supermarkets and all kinds of stuff. So, you could live there, but I don't know why you would want to. Like any mall, the traffic would be ridiculous if you had to deal with it on a daily basis.

We went there, because they have a huge Borders bookstore and a huge Barnes and Noble bookstore. And they are probably about a block away from each other. Both were also packed with people, so neither was apparently struggling with business.

We ended up spending a few hours looking at books at one store, then walking to the other store, and comparing prices and selection, etc. Aside from the very popular books (which neither of us were interested in anyway), we found that in general, there was very little overlap between the selections in both stores, which made things a little easier.

I ended up selecting Led Zeppelin: 1968-1980 [amazon.com] by Keith Shadwick, which is a beautiful book. My taste in music runs in cycles, and you can tell what kind of cycle I am in now...