The War After Armageddon
by Ralph Peters
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Book Reviews of The War After Armageddon
Book Review: Peters raises provocative issues in memorable new novel
Summary: 5 Stars
A good war story is what you'd expect from ex-Army officer and military commentator Ralph Peters if you're at all familiar with his writing.The War After Armageddon is certainly that and more.
Peters has conceived a 21st century nightmare of a plot. The story opens with LA and Vegas in radioactive ruin and the US fighting to reclaim a devastated Holy Land with religious extremists on both sides. You'll find dramatic, fast-paced battle scenes, courageous soldiers, a full share of villains, an unsettling amount of treachery and betrayal, and one refreshingly bright star of a hero.
The Wall Street Journal calls Peters the thinking man's Tom Clancy. Clearly Peters has put thought into this one....and historical research, an intimate knowledge of military matters and profound understanding of the complicated web of Middle Eastern culture. He'll have you thinking -- about patriotism, liberty, and a future we take for granted.
Good writing may look -- and read-- easy. It's not. Well read in history and classic literature and in command of this material, Peters makes an implausible plot, a foreign setting and the unfamiliar (to many of us) territory of combat believable and real. Long after you've finished the epilogue you'll ponder the provocative issues Peters raises in this memorable and troubling novel.
Book Review: More Art than Entertainment
Summary: 5 Stars
Like, Tom Kratman's Caliphate, this novel takes place I the near future after Islamic fanatics manage to pull off catastrophic attacks on America, destroy Israel, and essentially civil war breaks out in Europe. America then falls to the Christian Religious Right. Overall both books warn that if we don't take the lesser but still significant steps now to deal with the Islamic religious right, then moderates and the "Left" will be the real losers.
The major difference between the two books is not technology or theme (only Europe's response is different) but on perspective. Ralph Peters' novel is military SF and its characters are mostly moderate Christian American military officers who have to fight both Muslim fanatics and the Religious Right in their own country. Tom Kratman's book is more like a spy SF novel. Both books also show the plight of moderate Muslims as well in such a war.
Overall I suggest Ralph Peter's book slightly more than Tom Kratman's, despite the abrupt ending of The war After Armageddon. Caliphate has a clumsy start and is focused more on the lives of the characters rather than life in the nations.
Book Review: Very disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
I spotted this book at Barnes & Noble, and it piqued my interest because I like anything that has to do with the Middle East. The plot started off ok, but I could tell right away that the writing wasn't that great. It's like watching a B or C movie and knowing within a few minutes that you've made a mistake, and you have only two choices: quit right then and there or slog through in the vain hope that it'll get better. I chose the second option and I regret wasting time reading what amounts to a badly written, badly constructed and badly told story. It could have held together if the author hadn't piled up one implausibility after another. The environment he chose (the Middle East conflict) is rich enough in components he could have used to build a rich, credible and suspenseful thriller, but alas.... His characters are all caricatures, the dialogs poor, the scenes gratuitously gory... and the epilogue ridiculous. This smells like a cheap novel hastily written... and not surprisingly it is a big disappointment. This is the first novel I have ever read from this author, and it will be the last. Don't waste a dime on it.Book Review: Exciting New Novel From Ralph Peters
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading Ralph Peters' dark new novel, The War After Armageddon, is, in a way, much like driving by a grisly traffic accident - the view is horrific, but you just can't look away. Peters' novel is, indeed, compellingly horrific, the plot driven along by a realism that only a writer with this author's background, experience and vision can achieve and pass along to the reader in a dramatic narrative. Peters, today's most insightful strategist when observing in print or in his many TV appearances as guest commentator what is really taking place in the dangerous world around us, has the rare ability to think through and vividly imagine the second-, third-, and even fourth-order effects of policy decisions today's world leaders are making. The hellish world vision that Peters' describes in The War After Armageddon may on the surface seem far-fetched; yet, he's skillfully applied his superb insight as a strategist, experienced intelligence officer, and veteran world traveler to show us what might happen in a world where mankind's oldest motivators - faith and blood - have succeeded in trumping reason and good will.Book Review: Fundementalism of both stripes
Summary: 5 Stars
After seeing Ralph Peters on C-SPAN and reading his columns, I was looking forward to his futuristic book.
I was not disappointed. After several nuke strikes on the US, Christian Fundamentalists take over the government and create another Christian based Army (MOBIC). The overarching theme is the battle between Christian Fundamentalism vs. Moslem Fundamentalism.
General "Flintlock" Harris as a bastion of the real Army is fighting the favoritism of MOBIC for resources and fighting the Moslems in the Holy Land.
Along with the combat scenes, Peter's captures all the back room political maneuvering that goes on. The skillful combination of both makes this a hard book to put down.
Peter's has highlighted the results of fanaticalism no matter which side it comes from. I am not sure how probable the scenario but it was a fascinating excursion.
I could not put the book down. Several twists made me stop and ponder. The narrator of the story at the end of the book makes for a great final twist to the story.