My Tank Is Fight! [Paperback]

Zack Parsons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2006

My Tank is Fight! is a humorous look at more than 20 unusual or insane inventions of the Second World War. Each chapter features a detailed examination of the real history and technology behind each invention. All 19 chapters are linked by a fictional narrative that explores what might have happened had the inventions been put to use during the War. The book is also lavishly illustrated, with 18 full-color illustrations and more than two dozen detailed black and white illustrations. My Tank is Fight! is not a dry analysis of the forgotten weapons of war, it brings those weapons to life.
A SomethingAwful.com Book

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Soldiers that fly! Tanks that fly! Cruisers that . . . sink!
WHAT FIGHT HAVE BEEN
My Tank Is Fight! contains a humorous and exciting examination of twenty real inventions from World War II that never saw the light of day. Each entry includes full technical details, a complete development history, in-depth analysis, and a riveting fictionalized account of the invention’s success or failure on the battlefield. Lavish color artwork and technical illustrations are falling from the pages of this book like toenails from a trench foot.

Dive under the Atlantic in the turreted U-Cruiser, or rule its surface from an aircraft carrier made out of ice. Shred bomber formations in a high-performance flying wing fighter and then rocket to your untimely end from the cockpit of your very own suicide missile. We’ve got a pair of German armored land vehicles for you that are so large they had to be powered by naval engines!

My Tank Is Fight! delivers the thrilling action of the Second World War as it might have been with a touch of humor and a lack of class. Only the slow-witted are reading this anywhere other than inine at the cash register. Ask an adult to help you if you’re still not sure you want to buy the book.

About the Author

Zack Parsons and SomethingAwful.com have been making people stupider over the Internet since 1999. If Zack were more secure in his sexuality, he would have a framed picture of Roger Mudd on his wall with a pink heart drawn around it, and for him, watching History's Mysteries is like riding with Indiana Jones and a little Asian kid in a coal car through a volcano.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Citadel (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806527587
• ISBN-13: 978-0806527581
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Zack Parsons is a Chicago area writer known for his acerbic commentary and bleakly humorous science fiction. He has authored two non-fiction books, MY TANK IS FIGHT! and YOUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR IS A DRAGON. His works, including That Insidious Beast and CONEX: Convict Connections, have appeared online and in various published anthologies including A COMMONPLACE BOOK OF THE WEIRD: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT and OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS: DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS.

His debut novel, LIMINAL STATES, will be released in April of 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good mix of technical info and fictionalized vignettes, October 5, 2006

By 

B. R. White - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Tank Is Fight! (Paperback)

Great technical info, great vignettes, if you are interested in WWII weird tech, and how it might have been deployed, than this book is for you.

For the tech buff, there are good scale line drawings, and tables of specifications; for the action buff there are plenty of well done painting quality pictures, and fictionalized accounts of their use in the field. For both there are good potential timelines for deployment (if they had been deployed), and excellent commentary by the author.

My only complaint would be some of the aside jokes in the descriptions might be obscure or unnecessary to some of the more serious/ older readers, and may also date the book rather quickly.

All in all it is a good balance of technical and fictional, and is, in the end, very entertaining. A good read for the military buff who isn't proofreading Jane's or anyone who enjoys military fiction above the level of a GI-Joe comic book.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My tank is.... fairly entertaining, October 27, 2006

By 

J. L. Shepherd II "code monkey" (colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Tank Is Fight! (Paperback)

My Tank is Fight is a pretty interesting book. It's not quite comedy, and it's not quite weapons nerd grade specs and charts, but rather somewhere in between. Imagine equal parts of History's Mysteries and The Daily Show and you've got a fair approximation of how My Tank is Fight is written.

Technical information ranges from fairly in-depth to almost nonexistant, as some of the contraptions featured in My Tank never made it off the drawing board (and for good reason). The technical area of each misguided project's section, appropriately titled 'Technical Mumbo-Jumbo' is in general well written, with Parsons injecting just enough levity to keep the non wargeek crowd interested.

Along with development history, specifications, and analysis, Zack also tries his hand at some historical fiction, adding small vignettes about the fictional deployment of these sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes laugh-inspiring, and universally idiotic devices. The vignettes are unfortunately rather disappointing. The bad ones simply made me want to skip to the next section, and the good ones left me disappointed because they were all too short. I wish Parsons had been able to better flesh out some of the narratives simply because it's hard to not be entertained by the cartoonish supervillainy of Hitler's 2,000 ton megatanks clashing with the Red Army on the eastern front.

If you're looking for an in-depth technical manual, My Tank will probably be something of a disappointment, same with if you're looking for 175 pages worth of Zack's patented internet humor. Instead, My Tank straddles the fence between the two. While it delivers neither in-depth wargeek fodder nor mountains of comedic gold, it manages to be a highly entertaining read.

132 of 195 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 4, 2006

By 

Scott - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Tank Is Fight! (Paperback)

What a great book. I actually ordered this book by mistake, thinking it was about dinosaurs, but I sure am glad it wasn't! It was filled with all kinds of illustrations of things from the book and if it's too long for you to read (it isn't), the back has a summary of what happens inside the book!

Hurry up and buy this book now before it is sold out and you're forced to pay $200 for it on ebay.