Customer Reviews

A Reckoning For Kings

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like one of the other reviewers I was actually born at the tail-end of the Tet Offensive. My father had been there and served his tour of duty in 65-66. But this book is on the mark. I first read it in 87 when I was in the R.O.T.C. program at Boise State University.

Just young cadet fascinated by all things having to do with the Army.At the time I felt that the book captured the feel and the rythms of Army life. Whether that be the peacetime Army or the wartime Army. At the time there were still many Vietnam vets in the service and I gave this book to one of the cadre members(a sergeant major) to read. He had served two tours over there and when he finished reading it he told me that the authors had done a better job of capturing the war in all it's nuances then all the other Vietnam novels he had read. No weird musings on the nature of man and no bizzare drug induced fantasies that so many other authors were turning out in the seventies and early eighties. Just a straight forward story.I've since reread this novel twice. The first time was about three years ago and then just last week. I'm older now and my attitude towards things have changed.I have found that often those things which seemed so impressive to me at the age of nineteen are diminished at the age of thirty-three. Well this novel hasn't lost anything. It's still wonderfully detailed, suspenseful, humorous and intelligent. One could do far worse this summer then reading this book. Unfortunately it's out of print, but I still see copies floating around in used book stores - both in paperback and hardcover. Good luck and, when you get a copy,enjoy.

OK, I really loved this novel. I wore out my paperback a while ago and was excited when I saw that it was back in print and even more pleased when I saw there was a Kindle edition. However, when I started reading it quickly became clear that this was scanned and either left unedited or the editor spent more time picking his nose than editing. There are mis-scans on every page. Words like 'die' convert to 'the,' the name Fuller converted to Poller -only sometimes, 'them' becomes 'mem' and on and on... I have never bothered with a review before. However, I care enough about this book that I felt I had to say something in the hopes that others are able to enjoy a truly excellent story. Save your money. Buy the actual book.

I have two copies of this book, just in case one is lost or damaged, that's how much I love it. I purchased the Kindle edition so I could re-read favorite sections anytime and anywhere; that was a mistake.

This is a book that honors the Vietnam combat soldier, the draftee field grunt, who does his best in an unpopular war. No philosophical officers agonizing over the war; just teenagers handed an M-16 and trying to stay alive. They don't kill babies or rape or pillage. The authors use the word "Kings" in the title and they mean it.

But what sets this book apart is that it alternates between the American side and the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. It's not a comic book drawn in blacks and white. And unlike some other popular "war" book series, none of our heroes is a multi-millionaire or if they were born poor, they didn't marry a young woman with a millionaire father. The combat scenes are detailed and aren't glossed over.

It's so sad that the Kindle version of this marvelous book is marred by so many typos that a first time reader might delete it in irritation. There's usually at least one typo on each page, often two and sometimes THREE in a single sentence:

"Mosby watching the muzzle come back toward him, his own rifle coming up far too slowly, and mem (sic) Pritche (sic), bellowing like a bull in heat, buried the Made (sic) of his entrenching tool in the back of the man's neck....."

I'd recommend new readers buy the paper edition of "A Reckoning for Kings". The Kindle version will eventually wear you down with the innumerable typos.

This was the first of many books I have read by these two authors. Being an former Airborne Ranger the details and thoughts they give their characters and the events which surround them are scary in how realistic they are.

Since reading this book I have enthusiastically read ALL of their other works, though I must say the STEN series is at the top of the "must read" list. I have read this entire series at least seven times.

I read this book back when I was in the Army in 1987 and took it with me to the field. The rhythms, the people and the language struck me as being authentic - albeit to a Peacetime soldier born on one of the days detailed in the book - and I am sorry to see that it is out of print. I've read it 3 times, every few years, and the scenes, characters and action stay sharp in my memory.

Find it. Read it. Keep it.

An honest, brutal betrayal of the VietNam Conflict as seen by members of the US Army, the VietCong and the North Vietnamese Army. This book isn't about heroes and villians, it is about the soldiers sent to die in a war they don't understand for people who don't deserve their sacrifice, and for the soldiers who die defending their homes against those who would take away their land, their freedom and their honor. This is a book about courage and carnage and should be read by anyone who's tired of the typical saber-rattling, patriotic garbage that is usually pumped out of Hollywood on a yearly basis and is ready to read a thoughtful novel on what it takes to stand up and throw down.

This novel presents the reader with a brutal and realistic perspective of the war in Viet Nam. I have read many non-fiction books about various aspects of the war and cannot fault the authors as to terminology, tactics and politics. Utilizing the run up to the Tet offensive we are swept along with an NVA/Viet Cong unit as they single mindedly prepare for the final battle to destroy the Americans and over through the corrupt SVN regime.

The authors keep this reader up late turning pages. His method of alternating each chapter from the American and the NVA/Viet Cong perspective was very effective in building excitement and narrative tension.

In the final analysis I must confess that yes, this is an exciting, realistic novel but it was also very depressing. The carnage that rained down on the people of SVN by both sides for very murky motives left me thinking what a waste to achieve such intangible goals.

Just to set the record straight: Most critics - from the Los Angeles Times, to the San Francisco Chronicle, to the St.Louis Post Dispatch - very much agree that A Reckoning For Kings does, indeed, break new ground in Vietnam War fiction. For the first - and still the only - time both sides of the war are shown. There are thirty major characters, fully half of which are Vietnamese. One minute you are looking through the eyes of a young American soldier, the next from those of a teenage Viet Cong guerrilla.

Really good stuff. This book just sort of takes off and then slogs along through the seminal event of the Vietnam War, just the right detail, just the right film script running through the mind. I was 16 during Tet 1 and knew we were in trouble then, a vague and growing notion that things weren't right. When my Grandpa, the Chief Engineer of the Army Air Forces in WWII, told me one night we were finished, it was the saddest thing. The America he knew from 1893 to 1988 was a changed place. I was just waking up like a child after a long midday nap, groggy, insecure, not ready for prime time. This story is part of the reason, haunting my imagination, playing on the guilt of our generation for treating our big brothers without honor. That was then. This is now. Thank you, all you grunts and jar heads and squids, for everything. This book is worth reading just because it's so well told and so near the mark of my memory of not being there.

I read this book years ago and loved it. Lost my paperback copy a long time back. Can't wait to re-read it on my Kindle. Please, Amazon, more books by Cole & Bunch (especially the STEN series)!

If you enjoy war novels, this one is great. Memorable characters and a great story.

(addendum) Who was in charge of this crappy "scan to file" version of the book? It has so many typos that, had I not read it before, I would have been totally lost. A shame, because this book is truly a gem.