Posted on 11/08/2017 4:07:56 AM PST by marktwain
Matt Bracken continues to please. I have read all of Matt's books, and consider him a friend, even though we have never met in person.
The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun is a distopic novel of the near future. There have been no significant technological advances. The world's economy has crashed, with large parts of the world torn by local wars. Electricity in most areas is either missing, or highly localized.
The action takes place near the coasts of Ireland, mainland Europe, and Africa, if we consider “near” to be within a couple of hundred miles.
Matt knows his weapons, and how they are used. He knows sailing and boats, and shows a real understanding of interactions in the black market. While I do not share Matt's life experiences, I have been overseas. I have been in some mildly exotic and interesting circumstances, off the beaten track. I know a bit about shooting, hunting, military culture, and defensive tactics.
This is the best book from Matt Bracken to this point. His technical details are correct. That is important for anyone who is willing to set aside disbelief over the future history part of the book. His reading of people and their interactions is believable, especially his understanding of high performing military culture. I found my self nodding, this is right, this is the way it often happens. The believability of the technology and personal interactions overcome the initial assumptions needed for a broken and dysfunctional future world.
The result is a Tom Clancy like novel of serious technical competence wrapped around a page turning action/adventure thriller. Entwined with the action are geopolitical insights and historical knowledge.
I recommend the reader set aside a weekend. Do not start this novel on a Sunday evening,
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Rather like being inside a fast paced, well scripted future history movie for nine hours.
prolly his best work though EF&D is still my favorite
Just read this book while on vacation. I have read all of his books too. I really enjoyed the first three, but this one may be the best.
My review of The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun
“Cliffs” is a fun read but “Enemies Foreign & Domestic” is prophecy. If made into a TV mini-series with high production values and quality actors it would be a huge hit, IMO.
My verbal shorthand for how much I like his books:
THey are as good as Clancy books when Clancy really was writing his own material.
In fact they’re probably better.
Doubtless they are much more relevant to our times.
I am happy to see that he is finally getting at least a small fraction of the publicity that he really deserve all along.
I read my first Clancy book as a young boy after I heard Reagan liked his books, too, and I feel certain that if Reagan were alive today he would also recommend Matt’s books.
I just downloaded this, finally got around to using that Amazon lawsuit win funds they gave me because i stopped buying from them several years ago.
BZ!
Not nice to put in spoilers.
I asked the mod to remove my post.
I fogot Travis McGee is Matt here on the forums!
And a reminder to many who have a Kindle subscription that recently Amazon gave out gift cards for a lawsuit settlement and they do have an expiration date, i think its jan 2018.
I didn’t have an active credit card with Amazon but used part of that gift card to buy the Kindle book.
I’ve been a fan of Matt’s work for almost a decade now, and I think this is his best yet. I was one of the early reviews on Amazon. This novel deserves wider acceptance, but most ‘conservative’ opinion outlets are too politically correct to favorably review a novel where the enemy us a bunch of Muslim raiders.
BTTT!
I just checked. No audiobook version?
Amazon let me purchase a Kindle Reader and pay for it over 5 months. The first thing I ordered was “Red Cliffs of Zerhoun”. Next was “The Bible”.
It really is a good adventure book and as all good adventure stories, it has a couple of pretty girls.
It left me wanting to learn what happens next, which I suspect was put there to help me decide to buy the next one.
I gave it 5 stars like just about everyone else.
BFL
I do not think there is an audiobook.
I would love to see audiobooks for all of Matt’s works, but they take a fair amount of time to do right.
I have even thought about it, but to get the accents acceptable is a little daunting.
Maybe there is some way to crowdsource it.
I volunteered to make an audiobook for John Ross’s book Unintended Consequences many years ago free of charge, and emailed him about it. Never heard back.
I’m good with most accents, too.
Have no idea of the procedure of it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.