Customer Reviews

Where Eagles Dare (Adrenaline Classics)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Growing up in the UK my reading material was an eclectic mixture of Enid Blyton children's adventure novels, Ian Fleming and John Gardner espionage tales and Alistair MacLean wartime escapades. It was in this environment that my love for well crafted tales of suspense, adventure and espionage was fostered and nowhere is this more apparent than in the MacLean thriller WHERE EAGLES DARE.
Second among my favorite MacLean works (my all-time favorite being WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL) the storyline for WHERE EAGLES DARE was faithfully recreated for the 1960s movie with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood (not surprising really since MacLean adapted his own novel for the screen).
A group of British Commando's along with an American Ranger parachute behind the German lines in World War 2. Their stated mission: the rescue of an American General who has been captured by the Nazi's and taken to a mountaintop fortress.
Of course like many I had seen the movie several times before finally settling down to read the book, but settle down I did and what a ride MacLean treated us to. The action is well described with white-knuckle realism and MacLean's complex and intricate plotting is both well structured and compelling. For those unfamiliar with either the book or the novel there is also a nice twist that to this day has me marveling at its pure ingenuity.
Okay so the dialogue may not be the best, but I for one do not read MacLean novels for their dialogue.
For adventure novels, MacLean is the master as much as Agatha Christie is the Queen of the whodunnit. I wish that the entire series of novels would be reprinted for a new generation to enjoy.

I have read Ice Station Zebra and the Guns of Navaronne, and enjoyed them both. But I found this book just too farfetched. The Allied agents wander aroung Gestapo headquarters barely running into any Germans, even thought the Germans know they are in the area. Those they happen to bump into come one at a time and are easily subdued, and tied up in too convenient hiding places. Could you imagine Russian spys wandering around CIA headquarters or US spies strolling down the hallways of KGB headquaters without being seen or noticed. The good points of the book are a plot that keeps you guessing on exactly what is going on. But I guess I expect better from MacLean. As for the previous complaint that Helicopters did not exist in WWII, the Germans developed the FW 61 Helicopter in 1937, which in 1938 maintened an altitude of 11,000 for 1 hour and 20 minutes. So in MacLeans defense, maybe his research was not that bad.

This book falls under the category of one of my all time favorites (as does Alistair MacLean fall into the category of one of my favorite authors). I particularly enjoyed it as I was living in Germany and visited so many of the places mentioned -- it seemed real to me.

I think that I have read this book more than 5 times and seen the movie for about 30 times. I really love it and I also love the other books of Alistair Maclean. This book is full of action, politics and mystery. This is definite one of the best actionbooks ever. My only comment: read it!

"Where Eagles Dare" may be author Alistair Maclean's best known novel, thanks to the exciting movie version starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. The novel, in this case, is even better than the movie.

Eight Allied agents parachute into the snowy Bavarian Alps deep inside Nazi Germany. Their hastily-organized mission is to rescue a captured American general from a practically inaccessible castle before he can be tortured into revealing the plans for the D-Day invasion. Their nearly suicidal mission is made infinitely more complicated by the quick discovery that someone on the team is a traitor.

What follows is a succession of hair-raising, white knuckle adventures as the team struggles to enter the castle, rescue the general, identify the traitor or traitors, and escape Germany. "Where Eagles Dare" is Maclean in his prime, providing a challenging and suspenseful plot whose last twists come in the very last scene. The dialogue is brisk, sardonic, and occasionally humorous. The team leader, Major Smith, and his deputy, Lieutenant Schaffer are the archtypal buddy team, easily outdoing their counterparts in the movie.

This novel lacks some of the emotional punch found in Maclean's earlier novels such as "The Guns of Navarone" but excels in MacLean's clear mastery of his craft as a entertaining story-teller. The descriptions of Bavaria add the necessary sense of place to each scene, well-supported by a tautly drawn supporting cast of characters.

This book is highly recommended to fans of Alistair Maclean and to those looking for a very enjoyable reading experience.

I have read Ice Station Zebra and the Guns of Navaronne, and enjoyed them both. But I found this book just too farfetched. The Allied agents wander aroung Gestapo headquarters barely running into any Germans, even thought the Germans know they are in the area. Those they happen to bump into come one at a time and are easily subdued, and tied up in too convenient hiding places. Could you imagine Russian spys wandering around CIA headquarters or US spies strolling down the hallways of KGB headquaters without being seen or noticed. The good points of the book are a plot that keeps you guessing on exactly what is going on. But I guess I expect better from MacLean. As for the previous complaint that Helicopters did not exist in WWII, the Germans developed the FW 61 Helicopter in 1937, which in 1938 maintened an altitude of 11,000 for 1 hour and 20 minutes. So in MacLeans defense, maybe his research was not that bad.

Like Louis L'Amour and other masters of the potboiler, Alistair MacLean styled himself as more of a yarnspinner than a writer. Actually, he could write some awfully fine prose, but even some of his most celebrated work have more than their share of clunky narrative. Take his 1967 novel "Where Eagles Dare."

During World War II, an Allied commando team drops down in southern Germany to infiltrate the Schloss Adler, a mountain fortress occupied by the Gestapo where an American presumed to know all about the upcoming D-Day landings is being held. It soon becomes clear that some members of the team are less committed to the mission's success than others. Even the team's leader, Major Smith, is telling less than he knows.

The mountain fortress itself, as well as the funicular that provides its only point of access, make for a sensationally dramatic backdrop, as MacLean follows his characters furtively grappling and clinging and dodging and sweating every German guard who lingers too long in one spot for an extra puff of his cigarette.

There are some great action moments, too, well-rendered by MacLean's taut prose: "The knuckles of the hands gleamed like burnished ivory. And then, suddenly, there were no hands there, just the suspension arm and the empty wire and a long fading scream in the night."

But the book is also burdened with some of the worst dialogue in the MacLean canon, especially involving the comedy stylings of Smith's American ally, Lt. Schaffer: "The Alpine Corps! If I had known this, I'd never have come along...Why didn't someone tell Ma Schaffer's nearest and dearest!" MacLean's attempts to make Schaffer a slangy Montanan fall painfully flat, and the humor between him and Smith is never better than strained.

There's also some business with a Nazi helicopter. Yes, the Germans did develop a helicopter in 1936, but it was a prototype and never mass produced. If MacLean had to go and put an anachronistic toy in his Nazi fortress, at least he could have done something interesting with it.

The 1968 movie seems to skim away the dross of MacLean's book and delivers slam-bang entertainment, with Richard Burton as Smith and Clint Eastwood as Schaffer keeping the repartee to a believable minimum. It's interesting to see how MacLean treats human life more respectfully in the novel; at one point Smith even endangers the mission by going off to rescue an unconscious Nazi guard too close to a growing fire. The higher kill count of the movie, with Schaffer blazing away with his machine pistol, is more mindlessly entertaining, but it's nice to see MacLean saves the truly nasty fates in the book for those who deserve them.

The best parts of the book are featured to better effect in the movie: Watching Burton as Smith play his hand with the Nazi commanders is to see one of the 20th century's finest actors at his hammy best. But you have to credit MacLean for devising such a scene, and as it appears in the novel much as it did on the script you can't say "Where Eagles Dare" the novel fails at being entertaining. If only it were a touch more plausible.

Another excellent thriller written by Alistair MacLean in his prime. The film with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood closely follows the novel.
MacLean's tale of Allied commandos breaking into a heavily guarded German fortress is often dazzling and always suspensful. It's only after the reader has finished the last page and closed the novel that he may wonder about the plot. There are, to be diplomatic, a few holes in it. Not as awful as the plot in The Dirty Dozen but... It's doubtful this operation would have ever been approved by the Allied high command. But the author makes you believe in it while turning the pages.
The writing is superb. While a little suspension of belief is needed, "Eagles" is an excellent World War II tale.

I seldom read the same book more than once, but the books by MacLean are an exception from that rule. You can have them in the shelf for years and every now and when you dust your books you will start to look at one of them. Before you know it you have finished of three or four of them. I can't recall any other author having the same effect on me. Today I just finished "The dark crusader" after reading "When eight bells toll"... I think I've read those two books three times by now. The MacLean books I rank to be among his very best are; "Where Eagles Dare", "Fear is the key", Ice station Zebra", "H.M.S. Ulysses", Circus", "The last frontier", "The golden rendevouz", "The satan bug", "The guns of Navarone", and "Puppet on a chain". The following books are also worth while reading: "Force 10 from Navarone", When Eight bells toll", "Night without end", South by Java Head", "Bear Island", "The dark crusader". Alistair MacLean mixes suspense, spy stories, heroism, plots, characters of good and evil, and humour like noone else. Thinking about it, its obvious why I keep coming back for the same books over and over again. If you buy and read them; you will agree with me. If you already have them; you know what I mean. Let me end this review by saying; Thank you, Alistair MacLean for having written so many good books! Finally; if you like Alistair MacLean you will also like the books of Desmond Bagley, the earlier books by Jack Higgins, and Dennis Lehane.

I read all of MacLean's books when I was a kid, and although Where Eagles Dare is not his best, it is easily his most exciting. I remember being up at 4 a.m., unable to stop reading.

Unusually, this is MacLean's only book in which he wrote a screenplay first, then based the novel on his script (that's why the film seems such a faithful adaptation). As a result, the book is shorter and leaner then many of his novels, and it definitely works for the story. The suspense never stops building, the action sequences - especially atop the cable car - are some of the best he's ever written, and the characters have a very entertaining repartee between them, particularly Smith and Shaffer. Where Eagles Dare also features some of MacLean's sexiest female heroes, not always present in his books.

The Guns of Navarone had a greater scope and deeper character development, H.M.S. Ulysses was harrowing, gritty and deeply humanistic, Ice Station Zebra had a plot with more twists and double-crosses, but Where Eagles Dare was MacLean's all-time action/suspense fest.