Customer Reviews

Khmer Rouge End Game

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Sorry, Amazon, but I can't recommend this book to anyone. I worked at China Daily for two years (coming first in November 1994), so I was interested in the topic, naturally. The book contains many factural errors, including misspelled names (a no-no for any self-respecting journalist!). I know and know of many of the China Daily foreign experts he writes about, and I'm sure they would be appalled by how they were represented. Their accounts of some events also differ dramatically from his. I found his complaints about how he was unable to make Chinese friends hilarious (also sad) and probably a reflection on his personality. If he hadn't spent so much time drinking at the Mexican Wave and the Jiangguo Hotel (places Chinese cannot afford), perhaps he would have made Chinese friends. The Chinese that I came into contact with love Americans, and are very eager to be friends. You have to meet them on their turf, however, which isn't Western bars. I cherish very deeply the friends I made in Beijing and remain in frequent contact with them. To top it off, he is a boring writer, and if it weren't for my personal interest in the subject, I would have quit reading after the first page. The book apparently is self-published; I know of no publisher who would have hand-written in corrections, as was done on my copy. If you want a book written by someone who understands China, I cannot recommend "Red China Blues" by Jan Wong enough.

I am really baffled by some of these reviews, and wonder if people are reading the same book I did. I don't know what the China Daily has to do with this book, since the story is set in Cambodia. And I can't understand how anyone would find this book funny or 'a hoot' as there was nothing funny about it. I found the depiction of the horrible torture and killing carried out by the Khmer Rouge so disturbing I almost stopped reading the book. What a grim, sad, and tragic aspect of Cambodia's history and upsetting how it still continued after the Khmer Rouge had been 'defeated'. Certainly the allusion that the U.S. supported the Khmer Rouge in its fight against the Vietnamese in Cambodia as part of clandestine operations under the 'Reagan Doctrine' seems to be reasonably well documented.

Like other reviewers, I did not find the characters well developed, especially the female ones. The sex scenes are pretty awful and clearly written by a man without a lot of sensitivity to a female point of view.

To my fellow amazon customers: I am reluctant to write the following very negative review because "Khmer Rouge End Game" is a self-published book, and as such I feel squeamish about shooting the fish in this barrel of bad writing. But my purpose is not to savage the writer, only to warn others against an exceptionally bad book. Like Paul Ryder Ryan's other self-published book of quasi-journalism, this one suffers from poor spelling, weird diction and poorly checked facts. Beyond its technical faults, which are considerable, the thing is so tasteless it is hard to imagine the audience this book was written for. Ryan's cheap and easy use of recent history, sporadically inserted into the narrative with loud clunks, is sure to offend any one who knows anything at all about Cambodia, especially those who are actualy named in the book as characters. The other characters in the book are so unlikeable and bizarre they are painful to read about, particularly the fem! ale characters who for some reason are always having rape fantasies. Even someone just looking for a readable bit of historic fiction will be disappointed (and no doubt insulted by the repellent themes). Cambodia is not an especially funny subject, nor are the various other serious situations described in the book, but Ryder does his damnedest to describe these in a tongue-in-cheek way which verges on a literary form of Tourette's Syndrome. The word "unseemly" does not begin to describe it. It is a 192 page very un-funny sick joke. Note: I have no personal grudge against Mr. Ryan at all, nor have I ever met him.

This fascinating bit of creative writing will find two distinct audiences. Those who are unfamiliar with Cambodia and its traumatic recent history will be treated to a romping spy yarn. Those who know something of Cambodia's tortured realities are in for an absolute hoot! I thought I was going to die laughing as I worked my way through this book. But then, I've been there... up close and personal.

As an old China hand, I found this to be a very interesting, ambitious work.. It is at once a memoir, a travelogue, a reflection on Chinese journalism practices, a "foreign expert's" view of China in the years 1993-94, and an experiment in using various literary devices, including fiction, to weave what the author terms a "non-fiction novel." In addition to describing the functions of China Daily, the main English Language newspaper in the country published by the communist government, the author gives the reader a parallel glimpse of life in the United States through the publication of letters from friends. This serves to highlight the differing concerns in the two societies and to introduce a number of fascinating, if jaded, characters. Through the re-publication of selected newspaper and magazine articles, some his own, the author reflects on various economic and cultural issues, such as unemployment and religious tensions in China. There is not a great deal of literature on the subject of the media in China and I recommend this book to serious scholars. Mr. Ryan I gather is a former Fulbright scholar to Japan and an accomplished journalist.

I would have never thought a book about Cambodia would make me laugh, but this one did. Livingston tries to paint a realistic portrait of Cambodia and I think she succeeds. Refreshingly, Gecko Tails doesn't focus exclusively on the Khmer Rouge or the fantasy world of drugs and sex which is the basis for much travel literature on Southeast Asia, and yet it's not a dry or academic. Excellent.

This is an excellent read. The author has crafted a fast-paced adventure yarn that rings true to life. He gives the reader an accurate account of the tragic history of Cambodia while at the same time bringing the reader into the present day. The author has an excellent feel for the grimness of revolutionary movements yet manages to distance himself from a subjective conclusion. It is a multi-faced work that can be read on many levels. I was particularly struck by the suggestion that secret American misadventures may be continuing in Cambodia. Mr. Ryan has managed to extract a large measure of humor from what essentially is a tract on despair.

This is a marvelous work of art. The author has crafted a riveting novel with wit and aplomb. He has taken a dark subject--a tragic Cambodia in the dying throes of a revolution--and fashioned it into an interesting sweet and sour yarn of dramatic intensity. I was particularly struck by Mr. Ryan's clever use of literary devices, such as forced confessions, to forward character development. Also, he seems to be extraordinarily well-informed. He must have written this work considerably before Ta Mok emerged as a contender to succeed Pol Pot. His blend of historical fact and fiction is masterful.

The only thing that survives in this small literary gem, and I write as a Professor of Literature, is the truth.