Customer Reviews

The Brief Sun

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The Brief Sun was a wonderful book !!! There was no wasted space, no flowery wording....just an incredible journey through unimaginable circumstances. The author describes in perfect detail what his characters experience..to the point where you can almost SEE what they see and FEEL what they feel. The book was a learning experience for me... and gave me an appreciation for what strife people can and have endured and how their lives were changed forever by their experiences. I highly recommend this book....it has something for everyone...from history to adventure to romance and then some...and I look forward to Robert Ambros' next work !!!!

In his beautifully crafted book "The Brief Sun" Robert Ambros tells the story of 16 year old Andrzej and his companions in a Northern Siberian labor camp in 1941, and beyond. Mr. Ambros has the unique gift of describing his characters fully formed. The reader can almost see them, touch them, and understand the motives for their actions, as well as get into their minds. That is the mark of a true story teller! In spite of the pathos of the era, his matter-of-fact telling of the story makes it an easy to read book. His descriptions of fear, cold, hunger, loss, guilt and immense sorrow are offset by tales of the closest cameraderie, the desolation and beauty of the various landscapes Andrzej encounters, and the hunger for, and finding of first love. This story, told with passion, is rich in historical detail, and should become required reading in every modern history class. I highly recommend it to anyone, today and in the future!Mr. Ambros is a surgical pathologist.

This book takes you by the hand and unflinchingly leads you into a nightmare, seen through the eyes of an adolescent who had the misfortune of growing up during one of the cruelest wars in history. Be prepared to tear up and effortlessly absorb historical facts in this quiet masterpiece.

An absolutely amazing novel. A wonderful mix of historical fact with a thrilling tale. A movie should be made of this incredible journey. My grandfather went from Poland to a camp in siberia, to Iran, to Italy with Anders' army just as in the book, and it provided me with a newfound respect for his accomplishments. A piece of history that no one of European ancestry should do without. Even goes on to say how the Yalta conference was a blow to Poland's existance.

It's great to finally find someone who does justice to the story of all the Poles sent to Siberia to die (~1.5M). The authors family also passed through the Siberian camps and then fought in the Polish army... so this is a story told from the heart. Historically accurate and with a lot of detail... Robert Ambrose makes this a gripping tale... I didn't want to put down the book. It's a story that couldn't be told for many years. Read it and you'll learn some history that reflects poorly on the allies but remains edifying.

Both my mum and dads families lived through the same experiences... but my mum and dad were unable to supply much detail (10 years old when it happened)... so this book is very good at filling in many of the blanks.

Including a few additional points of contact in the book for those wanting to know more about what happened to their families in this period would have been useful.

:-)

The story told in this book, is almost the same as the story my father told me - about what he went through. He was a 7yr old boy when Russians broke into his home in February and forced his family, at gunpoint, to leave for Siberia.
It's nice to hear a story not told often enough - the Polish holocaust. Not only Jews, but also Catholic Poles were executed during WW2. This book tells the truth beautifully.

Robert Ambros' The Brief Sun is a compelling historical novel within the context of the Cold War Era and based on a true story of desperation and heroism. In the dark years of World War II, Polish prisoners in a Siberian labor camp seize advantage of Hitler's betrayal of the Soviet Union to form an army in exile, and fight their way home. A powerful, gripping historical saga, The Brief Sun clearly establishes Robert Ambros as a gifted author who will leave the reader eagerly awaiting his next effort.