Customer Reviews

Fortunes of War

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

My last Coonts book was Minatour which I thought was a pretty good fictional story on developing the next A6. Good character development, good technical writing about plane tactics and developments, and nice twists involving government bureaucracies and espionage.

But Fortunes of War had none of that. The characters were thin, if not transparent. The plot line was a bit hard to swallow. (A Russia so poor it didn't have even ONE ICBM left??? What's more, Japan with all its economic and technological prowess couldn't field one ICBM???)

And I never got the feeling of "being there," of sitting in a "smart skin" F-22 right alongside Cassidy and wondering about how to find, let alone shoot down a totally stealthy plane like the new Zero. (Think about it, WW-I air tactics at supersonic speeds! Wow! If ONLY Coonts had spent MORE time on that!!!)

Worst of all... the character development was SO THIN, I never empathized with ANY of them. So when it came to the big "show down" at the end, where Cassidy is faced with that "moral" and "emotional" conflict of having to shoot down his good friend Jiro, I couldn't have cared less. And that's a shame. But I suppose this is what I have to settle for until Clancy's Rainbow Six comes out in August!

Awesome action! Coonts proves he can write beyond Jake Grafton (no offense to the heroic admiral). With Japan on the verge of economic disaster, a cadre of right-wing militants murder the pacifist Emporer and sieze power. Then they go after the oil fields in Siberia. With the Russian military falling apart, Japanese success seems assured. Enter Colonel Bob Cassidy and a volunteer group of F-22 pilots who go over to give the Russians a hand. Coonts did a stupendous job with the action. The dogfights between the new Zeros and the F-22s ruled! But by far the best scene, action-wise, was the Russian sub's devestating raid on Tokyo Bay. Unbelievable stuff! Some of Coonts' best scenes take place on the sub. You can feel the stress and the fear of the men aboard as they undertake suicide missions against the best the Japanese Navy has to offer. Death is just one ping away for these guys. All the American pilots had very unique personalities and my one complaint is that Coonts should have featured them a little more. I also would have liked to have seen more interaction between them. But overall, can't fault this book. Definately a winner!

Fortunes of War has got to be one of the most exciting and enjoyable books I have read in many years. Although the US contingent led by Air Force Colonel Bob Cassidy plays an important part in the outcome of the war, it is the fierce determination of its to main heroes (both Russian), along with the troubled dedication of Cassidy's long time friend Jiro Kimura that really makes this book something special. The Russian characters of Yan Chernov and submarine Capitan Saratov (along with Saratov's supporting crew) are just too cool. If it wasn't for them, Russia wouldn't have had a chance.

Coonts also shows us how supreme power on the part of both the Japanese and Russian leaders, creates a mindset that causes them to forget about the people they govern and causes them to focus only on their own personal gains.

I found myself cheering when the good things happened, and feeling down when the unfortunate occurred. Coonts gives a wonderful description of all of the charac! ters and events that unfold, without boring us with extensive detailed hi-tech information.

I recommend you pick this book up, find a cozy spot to read it, and just enjoy this extremely fast paced highly entertaining novel.

Mr. Coonts is a formidable writer. What he is able to do is to balance an exquisite knowledge of flying skills and equipment and the men and women who use them, and as well detail an exciting story sprinkled with morality and humanity.

And I admire him because while he's got a sure fire winner in Jake Grafton et al., he remains unafraid to venture into new terrain.

Here he takes three stories, much like David Robbins' gifted novels about WWII, and weaves them in and out of the reader's scope of vision much so that we're really reading three stories at once. A prodigous task that Coonts handles well.

Whether or not such a horrific series of events could occur is in the mind of the writer. Novelists like John LeCarre and Len Deighton writing of the conspiracy of omission by the ABC Agencies forged in the 1980's could never have imagined what we would experience and the cost it would exact 20 years later. But that's the free reign we give our gifted writers. I shudder to think it would happen but the Fortunes of War kept me at a high level of adreneline.

Colonel Bob Cassidy, his Japanese friend Jiro, the Russian Skipper Saretov, Agent Ju, Chernoff, Dixie . . . we root for them and wonder at each encounter if they'll come out alive.

High praise for a novelist. Absolutely worth the time. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury

Stephen Coonts crafts a tight book with a war scenario between Russia & Japan over control of the Siberian oilfields. The United States gets drawn in, ultimately assisting both sides as desperation leads the combatants to consider nuclear attack.

This is a much faster-paced & faster-reading book than Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, for example. He is Clancy's equal with the realism of his combat scenes. As a former combat aviator in Vietnam, he is especially masterful with the aerial battles involving Cassidy, Kimura, & Chernov, the American, Japanese, & Russian protagonist fighter pilots. He's also not too bad with submarine warfare, either.

The action starts quickly & grabs you from the start. I was unable to put it down & probably read it faster than any other novel this year. I heartily endorse this book for fans of modern military fiction.

Before writing this review, I looked at what people had already said about this book so that I didn't just duplicate opinions. There seems to be a 50/50 split in the reviews as to whether the book was a good read or a bad one.

This review shall end the debate.

Fortunes of War is a literature masterpiece. I found that when reading the book the minutes would seem to past by like seconds. In my free time, instead of playing on the computer or watching rubbish on TV, I would sit in my room and read for hours. I genuinely found the book spell-binding and impossible to put down.

Stephen Coonts is well-renouned for his technological supremecy in fictional writing, and his use of military jargon provides a refreshing realism that the ignorant and unimaginative fear.

The not-to-distant build-up to a WW3 conflict is made believable even to the skeptic by Coont's ingenuitive blend of real-life political, social and political conditions together with his unique brand of story-telling.

Despite my love for military aviation, which only served to increase the intensity of the story-line, I found myself able to relate to the characters in such a way that I would often create conversations and conflicts in my mind, once understanding Coont's reasons and motives in the book.

I have read many techno-novels. Some are too foolish with their use of hardware, and others fail to grasp the balance that ensures that a readable book is created.

Stephen Coont's has struck gold due to his blend of technological hardware, gripping suspense, and evolving character plots. I hope he writes a hundred more.

With some other techno thrillers, I have had the feeling that there was a little too much techno and not enough thriller (and I am a techno fan and love air fighters and warships and submarines). I have even put a few of the big-time techno writers aside when the prose seemed more a blur of military acronyms and abbreviations than a story involving plot and characters. Well, I had no problem racing to the finish of this book. Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of techno detail in this book, but it fits right into the flow of the book. It is also explained well and quickly.

Make no mistake: this one's a thriller. As I neared the end, I found myself so focused in I lost track of time and seemed to come up blinking back into the real world once I had finished. To sum up quickly, Japan has declared war on Russia in an effort to control the vast oil field of Siberia and the world nears the brink of nuclear war. What makes this novel work so well, other than a strongly plotted story served up by an excellent writer, is the way the author develops and handles the characters. I found myself turning pages not to discover the fate of "the world" but instead the fate of the individuals Stephen Coonts brought to such vivid life.

My favorite characters were the Russians: men like Captain Pavel Saratov, the commander of a Russian submarine with an Ahab like devotion to duty and mission; Marshall Oleg Stolypin, a classic, Russian man of steel, returning to soldiering one last time; and (perhaps the most interesting of all) Russian Intelligence officer Janos Ilin, cynical and crafty, alone with his brilliance and planning.

I really enjoyed this book and will read more from this author. -Mykal Banta

I am thirteen years old and I am in 8th grade. This is the best book I've ever read. This book is so realistic when you read it. There are so many thrilling scenes. Whenever I read a page, it gets me so excited because I am always wondering what the next pae is going to be about. I don't usually care to read books and I never really have time to read. I got around to reading this book because I was forced to. I had to read a good book for an event that occured in my humanities class " The reading Challenge". The deal was to read four or more books. If this was accomplished, then my class would get to have a pizza party. I didn't like to read the books that were in the library because they didn't have any good novels about war and violence, so I went to Asia book store and luckly I found this book. I read the back of the book and I didn't hesitate to buy the book. When I read the first couple of pages, I totally got hooked up on the book. This book gots all the scenes that can blow your mind. I recommended this book to my friends at school. I will never forget this eye-opening book. I suggest this book to anyone. It will please any reader.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is good to see an Author who knows the technical end of war and politics, and seamlessly puts the two together so well. Who else can put you in a tactical fighter, old time submarine and behind the desk of the two opposing country leaders at the same time. From the very beginning, there is a full gambit of activity to keep the reader glued to this book. From murder, spycraft, intrigue to ariel combat and under the sea drama, this book is truely a page burner. When two countries fight for honor and oil, it can only end up with a trial towards nuclear devastation. Coonts goes one even better with the envolvement of the U.S. taking sides to a major power and lending a helping hand. This book leaves you with wanting more pages to read at it's end. A definite read for Coonts fans or wannabees.

In the near future a fanatical, nationalistic government comes to power in Japan with reborn imperial dreams. Their target? A weakened Russia. Who will save the day? The US Air Force, of course.

While I am not a huge fan of Stephen Coonts I enjoyed "Fortunes of War" very much. Hope you do too!!!