Customer Reviews

Dirty Bomb: Weapons of Mass Disruption

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a thrown-together paste-up that wouldn't receive a C grade at a backwoods high school. There isn't enough good information here so the editors resort to useless lists of nuclear facilities (like power reactors) to fill pages. It is poorly editied with many typos. It is built around several news articles that can be accessed for free by simply typing the phrase "Dirty Bomb" into Google. Penguin has some nerve charging $12.95 for this.

This book is so indescribably awful that it is actually funny, in the same painful way that watching "the office" is funny. It was written by someone who blends no knowledge of his subject, with a non-existent grasp of english grammar:- A lethal cocktail indeed. He also did not bother to engage the services of an editor, which presumably kept costs down, but which lead to some pretty troubling typographical side-effects. There is, I grant, an "editor's note" - which for some bizarre reason appears well into the book - but it is so clearly written by the author (no two people could actually write this way) that I would apply a pretty high discount rate to it.

The book is a random stream of disorganized and unrelated statements, is vastly repetitive, full of enormous contradictions (it either is, or is not easy to build one of these things - the book forcefully asserts it is both) and is padded out to a commercial length by vast chunks of utterly irrelevant material. It has the EXACT feel of a poor quality, sensationalist, high school term paper.

The only redeeming thing about this book is that the author frequently cites experts who actually do understand the subject and can speak in coherent sentences. Their observations are reasonably useful, but as another reviewer notes, all of this could be googled in about 30 seconds.

There is only one lesson to be gleaned from this book - the right timing of the right title can be very lucrative. Shame on the publishers for this disgrace. Perverse credit to Mr King for making a lot of money out of 20 minutes of internet research.

This book is a waste of time for the informed reader. The author tries to scare the uneducated. The facts are qualitative and have no valid references. I had to put the book down and never finished the last 20%.

First, this book is full of random thoughts and contradicting statements made by an uneducated author who appears to have done most of his research from internet sites.

Second, I have never been a scholar of English grammer, proper puncuation, and sentence structure, but this book looks more like a high school book report. One that warrants a poor grade.

Third, as a scholar in the subject matter, the book contains many ideas and concepts that aren't fully investigated or researched. I am truly suprised that this book was even allowed to be published. All ideas and thoughts were committed to print with no investigation as to the sources. I would have definitely done more research if I were going to quote internet web sites.

If you are someone interested in learning more about the subject, I would recommend other books on the subject. Hopefully one that has been researched better.

I read this book just to see what type of information is being portrayed to the average citizen and ended up very dissappointed about the content. It has almost inspired me to write my own book.

Sadly, we live in a time when we need to know all we can about protecting ourselves, and the possibility of a "dirty bomb" attack is very real. This book gives you all the facts and tips you need to know about how likely an attack is, how dirty bombs are manufactured, and what you can do to protect yourself in the event of an attack. The book's pretty dry, but then again it is meant to be a handbook, not a novel or expose. If for no other reason, you should read it to keep yourself informed.

I found that this book gathered facts from myriad sources and placed them in a concise, compact, easy to read format. It is my belief that, given today's volatile atmosphere, the population should be educated in this subject. It was apparent after reading this book that the government has not provided citizens with enough information about "dirty bombs" to protect them from the unfortunate consequences of a detonation. The author correctly points out that the goal of an individual placing a "dirty bomb" is to terrorize and this can be accomplished very easily. Although the publisher could have eliminated some pages filled with nuclear reactor locations data, this book is a succinct, instructive account of a global threat.