Customer Reviews

Conquerors of the Sky

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

When the first sentence talks about scotch whiskey acting sullenly, you know you're in for a dreadful non-treat. It doesn't get any better. The author builds his story about a large aircraft company, where the principals are flitting about. Not in real life!

The writing is disjointed, unable to keep a thread going. It seems the author uses up his supply of adjectives on each page. I got to page 24, then quit in disguist. If this book ever makes paperback, which would be a waste of even more paper, that would be a discredit to Tom Doherty Associates.

Fleming's story is decent enough, but it's just a stringing together of a variety of familiar incidents involving various aircraft manufacturing companies and aviation pioneers. Even that is marred by the inclusion of several howlingly inaccurate items about aircraft and aerodynamics, revealing the author's lack of expertise in the subject. And to top it off, the writing is execrable, and that's being nice about it.

If you're looking for a romance novel, this is the place. If you're looking for a novel about flying, fliers, and aircraft, go look for something by Tom Wilson. If James Michener had set out to write Peyton Place, this would be the result. The male characters are angst-ridden caricatures, the females are all sex-obsessed nut-jobs. The flying sequences are virtually non-existent. There were two - count `em, TWO! -- flying sequences from WWII! The author has never been there, and knows nothing about the culture or history of flight. I gave up halfway through the book. This one's bound for the used book store as a trade-in.

I Love history, I love aviation... but I spent THREE DAYS trying to get through the first 18 pages before I came to the conclusion that there was NOTHING in this book worth my time! I've read almost everything Tom Clancy has written so I can handle 700 pages when there is a story worth telling, but this book is so slow in developing a story you are interested in that it NEVER reaches minimum speed for takeoff, let alone complete the flight!

I can honestly say that I've NEVER tossed aside a more badly written book! In less than 20 pages, this one was consigned to the DONATION pile. I bought it at a used book store for $.50 and feel like I was robbed!

The $1.30 Amazon is asking is about $2.30 more than this book is worth. Read the "critic's review and you will understand what "critic's reviews" are really worth, and PLEASE Ms. Truman... stick to writing murder mysteries because you knowledge of aviation books is apparently, quite useless!