They had joined an organisation that advertised itself as 'the best flying club in the world'. Now the young pilots of 409 Squadron are flung into battle over Germany where their training, tactics and aircraft are all found sadly wanting. The spirit of the gentleman amateur flickers and dies in the harsh glare of searchlights over the Ruhr. We see the reality of war: chaos, cock-up and comradeship in equal measure. Derek Robinson reinforces his reputation as the best aviation fiction writer in the business with this tragi-comic story.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
DAMNED GOOD SHOW has received two fantastic national reviews: "... Robinson is brilliant... The author, previously shortlisted for the Booker Prize, should be mentioned in the same breath as Mailer, Ballard or Heller; the more so because it does not undermine in any way the personal heroism of the fliers. Flying is hard to write about, but Robinson never loses his way, or his dry eye. A masterpiece." Paul Pickering DAILY EXPRESS (5 star review) "a superb character called Skelton....tough, taut prose that pulls you through the book like a steel cable, close-up examination of the details of pilots' duties, theacrid tang of veracity." Nick Lezard THE GUARDIAN
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Derek Robinson's acclaimed First World War trilogy and PIECE OF CAKE have established him as the world's best aviation writer and one of the top authors of war fiction.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The same again. please!,
By
This review is from: Damned Good Show (Hardcover)
OK. It's not terribly fresh in plot or characters. In fact you could say it's Piece of Cake transferred to Bomber Command without the freshness or style that made the previous book so good.But it kept my interest for the day and a half it took me to read it. To begin with, we learn a fair bit about medium bomber operations in early World War Two, before the bomber offensive really got cranked up. Just as in Piece of Cake, they were doing it all wrong at the beginning yet thought they were hot stuff and it takes a while to puzzle out their mistakes. The arrival of a film crew and their participation on a mission over Germany gives a unique insight into the difficulties of undertaking such a mission at all, let alone filming it. I enjoyed that part. But on the down side, when two of the wilder pilots went off for a drunken spree in London, I thought oh-oh - I've been here before. There's a bit of a feud and a bit of tension amongst the characters, but it hardly comes close to what we enjoyed in Piece of Cake. The marriage of two of the characters and subsequent events is just bizarre. On the plus side, it didn't descend into the slapstick of A Good Clean Fight. All in all, it covers a lot of familiar territory, it doesn't have the "edge" of previous novels, but it's inoffensive and entertaining. I like Robinson's style and that made this a four star book rather than a more mediocre three.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Comparable to Other Robbinson Novels,
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This review is from: Damned Good Show (Hardcover)
Derek Robinson is certainly one of the best writers of wartime aviation fiction, as demonstrated in superb books like Goshawk Squadron and Piece of Cake. In Damned Good Show, Robinson attempts to use the same winning formula that he used in six previous novels about fighter units to dramatize a notional RAF bomber squadron in 1939-1941. However, Damned Good Show is simply not in the same league as Robbinson's previous novels. It is entirely too derivative, with too much cloned from Piece of Cake but without the drama or trademark dry humour. Indeed, there is little to laugh about in this novel. Damned Good Show consists of three episodic sections: the antics of two quirky pilots (Langham & Silk), the arrival of intelligence officer Skull Skelton, and the film producers who are sent to the squadron to make a film of a bomber raid over Germany. Unlike previous Robinson novels, character development in Damned Good Show is minimal, indeed the entire book feels like it was produced from left-overs. The final section of the novel results in a merging of all three subplots into a rather dull and untidy mush. As in his last few novels, Robinson continues the disturbing trend of adding annoying civilian female characters into what is essentially an all-male environment. Certainly Zoe Herrick, a fabulously wealthy Anglo-American nymphomaniac, detracts far more than she adds to Robbinson's portayal of Bomber Command. Indeed, her marriage with pilot officer Langham is so improbable and absurd as to cause the reader to wonder why the title of the novel was not Damned Silly Show. Nor is the presence of "Skull" Skelton much of a comfort here, for readers who enjoyed him in Piece of Cake and A Good Clean Fight. Transferred to Bomber Command, Skull appears as more of a carping whiner here, than someone with insight who will improve unit efficiency. Nor are there any interesting squadron or flight leaders in Damned Good Show; commanding officers like Rafferty or Hunt come and go as ciphers without any of the panache of someone like squadron leader Rex. Robinson's main points about Bomber Command - that it couldn't hit within five miles of most targets in night raids over Germany in 1939-1941 - are already fairly well known. Although Skull and other intellectuals raise the issue of whether the heavy losses of sustained night bombing are worthwhile, Robinson presents the case that there was little alternative in 1941. Britain had no other means of hurting Germany or showing the Soviet Union and the USA that it was still in the fight. Actually, Robinson is not correct in this theory and there were many others at the time who felt that the enormous resources poured into Bomber Command could have been better applied elsewhere. If even a few hundred RAF bombers had been diverted from Bomber Command in 1941 to anti-submarine patrols, the German U-Boats would have been seriously affected. More effort could have been put into modernizing the Desert Air Force and the RAF in Singapore, where the payoffs would have been sudden and apparent. Instead, Britain's political leadership was bamboozled for years into wasting scarce resources and lives on a campaign that never held much promise of success.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
always entertaining,
By
This review is from: Damned Good Show (Hardcover)
Derek Robinson has proven himself to be the best writer aboutair combat in World Wars I and II. This novel centers on the first couple of years of the british bomber command. Some of the characters from his other novels (e.g. the intelligence officer "Skull" Skeleton) appear here--a nice way of helping give continuity--Fighter Command (Piece of Cake), Bomber Command (this novel), North Africa (A Good Clean Show), etc. The novels pull no punches--terrible tactical theory, hugely inflated combat claims, etc--you learn a lot about little-known historical details, things that the military establishment would rather be forgotten. These are not anti-war novels, but novels which often stess the dichotomy between the individual pilots and aircrew and the military bureaucrats who lay down policy. The example that best springs to mind (Goshawk Squadron, air combat in WW I) is when Squadron Commander Woolley is told that headquarters deosn't want any more silk scarves issued (too expensive). These scarves are needed because the pilots must continually turn their heads to look for enemy aircraft--no silk scarves means bad chafing and less head-turning and more danger. Woolley puts a couple of bullets through the briefcase with the HQ demand. Robinson's best novels are his WW I novels--5 stars, with
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