The Guns of Navarone/Audio Cassettes

Rating:
Summary: Awful Writing; Great Reading
Review: "The Guns of Navarone" was an amazing display of creativity in a "war based" novel. The drama behind "the guns". Those darn guns were the only thing stopping forward progress in the war. The only other reasonable attempt would be a suicide mission up the giant cliffs and into the heart of the enemy stronghold. The way each character had his own trait and how it fit into the plot completed the comprehensive make-up of their actions. They each provided a specific and vital part to the mission. I do not want to get into any detail as to not ruin the story for any interested readers, but I will say to the fans of Tom Clancy pieces, you will be happy reading this Alistair MacLean novel.

Rating:
Summary: Simple writing that is far too long
Review: From a military viewpoint, this story is not even close to believable. From a liturature viewpoint, this book has simple sentence structure, simple character development, and very basic dialog. This novel seams to have been thought of and written on a weekend holiday. Previous reviews mentioned this book as a freshman level read and that is a good description of the subject content.

Rating:
Summary: not exactly literature but pretty exciting
Review: I read this book when I was in my early teens and I became an immediate fan of Alstair MacLean. His books waste little time before you get right into the action and then there's action all the way through to the end. I can't remember how many of his books I eventually read; there was "Puppet on a Chain", "Ice Station Zebra", "Force 10 from Navarone", "The Satan Bug", etc. etc. etc.. About the time I was reading "River of Death" I realized that all the excitement in his books didn't always make up for the hasty way in which he seemed to write them. The tough guy with no personality eventually lost my interest. In my opinion, "The Guns of Navarone" was his best work. Maybe it was the World War II setting that gave it added appeal. He didn't have to waste any paragraphs establishing the cause or who were the good guys and who were the bad. Whatever it was, I remember feeling like I needed to take a deep breath when I was finished with it.

It's too bad that literature and spellbinding adventure rarely come together in one book. I remember reading Henry James's "thriller" "The Turn of the Screw" when I was a teenager. That book put me to sleep trying to drag myself through it. Action has no time for character development. Some books make you want to stop and think while others make you want to keep turning the pages. I used to enjoy Alstair MacLean's novels. I would heartily recommend them to any young man who's looking for excitement in a paperback.

Rating:
Summary: not exactly literature but pretty exciting
Review: I read this book when I was in my early teens and I became an immediate fan of Alstair MacLean. His books waste little time before you get right into the action and then there's action all the way through to the end. I can't remember how many of his books I eventually read; there was "Puppet on a Chain", "Ice Station Zebra", "Force 10 from Navarone", "The Satan Bug", etc. etc. etc.. About the time I was reading "River of Death" I realized that all the excitement in his books didn't always make up for the hasty way in which he seemed to write them. The tough guy with no personality eventually lost my interest. In my opinion, "The Guns of Navarone" was his best work. Maybe it was the World War II setting that gave it added appeal. He didn't have to waste any paragraphs establishing the cause or who were the good guys and who were the bad. Whatever it was, I remember feeling like I needed to take a deep breath when I was finished with it.

It's too bad that literature and spellbinding adventure rarely come together in one book. I remember reading Henry James's "thriller" "The Turn of the Screw" when I was a teenager. That book put me to sleep trying to drag myself through it. Action has no time for character development. Some books make you want to stop and think while others make you want to keep turning the pages. I used to enjoy Alstair MacLean's novels. I would heartily recommend them to any young man who's looking for excitement in a paperback.

Rating:
Summary: Awful Writing; Great Reading
Review: MacLean is unbeatable when depicting men simultaneously facing dangerous assignments and horrendous weather conditions. (In addition to "The Guns of Navarone," do read "Ice-Station Zebra" and "Night Without End," for example). This undeniable talent makes for a riveting and enjoyable read. Indeed, these books can and should be reread numerous times over the years. This, despite the fact that MacLean stinks in all other writing aspects.

His preposterous and one-dimensional characters are easily interchangeable from book to book (by the way, the same is true of his awful and tedious dialogue). In particular, his protagonists share the same characteristics, most of them unattractive, regardless of which book you pick up. To be sure, they are all courageous and resourceful (and why shouldn't they be?), but they also are self-righteous, sickeningly sentimental, and not very bright. Worst of all is their artifical (or at least badly portrayed, sledge hammer) world-weariness. Is this what MacLean was like? Is that why he imprints these undesirable traits on his characters? I don't know. What I do know is that, despite it all, he's an irresistible read.

Rating:
Summary: Dear Mokarl
Review: This is a Critical I did for my english class

The book The Guns of Navarone by Alistar Maclean is one of the best books I have ever read in my life. Everything in this book is golden from the characters to the setting. The book is filled with lots of thrills and some of the pages leave you hanging and it just makes want to read on. The author describes everything well and doesn't heavily describe anything. The book contains many strengths they include the following: a well developed story, good characters, simple descriptions and lots of thrills. The story is set in World War II where five men are on a mission to destroy the guns of Navarone. Navarone is a greek island that is currently under the control of the Germans. The guns themselves are massive machines that could wipe out a whole navy. The characters are very well described and each has their own talents. Keith Mallory is the main character and the captain of the team. He is the best rock climber in the world. Andrea is a buff soldier and has survived the roughest conditions. Dusty Miller is an American and was in the British airforce. Andy Stevens is an expert at sailing and is an alpinist. Casey Brown was an engineer. The descriptions of every thing in the book are fairly simple so they don't make confused trying to find out what the author is talking about. There are a lot of thrills in the book. In every chapter there is always an obstacle the five men have to try and win. Some parts in the book put the men in impossible situations, which leave you wanting to read more. There's a bunch of action in this book with guns blazing and characters doing the unthinkable. Even though the book seems flawless it does have a weakness. Some of the obstacles the characters must accomplish seem too impossible. For example there is a scene where the men are at sea and the Germans pull up to the five men and their boat and force them to lower the sails and get inspected. The Germans board the ship and the characters kill the soldiers and blow up the Germans boat by tossing two boxes of explosives over. This causes the boat to sink and the five men move on with their mission. Overall this is a good book to read. If I would grade it on a scale of 1-10 I would give the book a 9. This book is fairly old but it is still a good book even today. I would recommend this book to high school students and up. I don't think anyone under 9th grade should read it because the book contains violence and profanity. I would recommend this book to be read by males because most females don't like books based on war and contain violence and profanity. The vocabulary isn't insanely difficult to understand, as is the same with the descriptions. If you like a action thriller with guns and war pick up this book right now and read it.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific book!
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite books. I got hooked on MacLean twenty years ago, reading everything he ever wrote. The action in the Guns of Navarone is riveting from start to finish, with the right touch of light humor to keep the tension from becoming overwhelming. As the characters make their way through the story,the reader is right there with them. Dusty Miller is a particular favorite. MacLean excels at the World War II stories, and this is among his best.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome!! I loved this book!
Review: To all of you who are bad-mouthing this book, stuff it. It's not modern writing but if you read it to read it, not because you have a book report due, you'll like it. I picked it up and could'nt put it down except for a breif exception where I thought my bladder would explode, but then I picked it back up again. I would definitely rate this as a classic and, although some of it is a tad unrealistic, almost all of it is believable. I would highly suggest that if you have a few spare hours, you should immeadietly pick it up and if not, wait for a weekend (or a better time) and then do it. This book is Awesome!