Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding addition to this excellent series
Review: This is the first time I have written a review on this excellent series. I am suprized I haven't before, however I suppose that there are so many reviews written about the previous books in this series that my opinion is in agreement with those who enjoy this series immensely.This is an excellent addition. The main characters, Ken McCoy, Fleming Pickering and his son Fleming Pickering Jr, Ed Banning, Ernie Zimmerman and all the others are important in the plot of the book. The year is 1950, and it is the beginning of the Korean War. Capt. McCoy is convinced that the North Koreans are a threat and will start a war, however the higher brass dosen't share his opinion and try to kick him out of the USMC. It turns out that McCoy is 100% on the money. Thus begins the interesting story. There of course is combat, political and military intrigue, and of course the women who love their Marines are in the book as well. My favorite is Ernestine "Ernie" McCoy, Capt McCoys wife, she is the type of woman that any man would be fortunate to have as a girlfriend or wife. This is a fine addition to "The Corps" series. It is a definite page turner that will have the reader well up into the early morning hours. I just got finished and am eagerly awaiting for Mr. Griffins next addition to this fine series. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Another great installment for The Corps series
Review: I just finished my 18th Griffin book. Having now read all of the Brotherhood of War and The Corps series, I eagerly await new installments. There is obviously at least one more story left in this series to deal with what happens to Pick.
And yes, there continue to be the usual editing errors, but these are certainly more tolerable than, what, movie versions of popular books? The author was under no obligation to "finish" World War II. Eight books with these Marines in the pacific theater certainly gave us more of the same war than, for instance,the Brotherhood of War books. Griffin offers great entertainment value and I look forward to reading the Men at War, Honor Bound, and Badge of Honor series. If and when another Corps book comes out, I'll be ready and waiting to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Typical W.E.B. Griffin!
Review: Known facts are extremely accurate and Mr. Griffin continues his masterful writing with "Under Fire" which makes the reader feel as if he personally knew the characters. The thoughts that go thru the minds of his characters are as interesting as the words they speak and make for a most enjoyable read. I have all Griffin books and anxiously await the next one. Keep up the good work, Mr. Griffin.
Rating:
Summary: W.E.B. Griffin has done it again
Review: UNDER FIRE, the 9th book of W.E.B. Griffin's "Corps" series, moves from World War II to the prelude and opening days of the Korean War. As in previous "Corps" and "Brotherhood of War" novels, Griffin uses actual historical events as background while skillfully putting his characters into the action. In UNDER FIRE, he uses the intelligence failure that allowed the North Koreans to mount a surprise attack, and the sad state of our military at that time, as the opening, following with an excellent description of the mauling our troops received during the early days of that war, finishing by using a highly fictionalized account of a little known, but highly successful special operation to clear the Inchon Approach Islands of North Korean troops prior to the Inchon Landing. To this end, Griffin uses many of his characters from previous "Corps" novels -- Ken McCoy, Ernie Zimmerman, Fleming Pickering and his daredevil son, "Pick" Pickering, and others. Overall, UNDER FIRE is a "page turner" that offers insight, via Griffin's well developed military fiction writing style, into the beginnings of the Korean War and Korean War special operations.
Rating:
Summary: Typical W.E.B. Griffin!
Review: Known facts are extremely accurate and Mr. Griffin continues his masterful writing with "Under Fire" which makes the reader feel as if he personally knew the characters. The thoughts that go thru the minds of his characters are as interesting as the words they speak and make for a most enjoyable read. I have all Griffin books and anxiously await the next one. Keep up the good work, Mr. Griffin.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent Story, Terrible Characterization
Review: "Under Fire" is pretty good read, but Griffin's characterization is awful. All of the main characters are heroes, rich, good looking, very well-connected and married to understanding, low-maintenance hotties. This kind of crap makes me groan (esp. since I just finished reading Stephen King's The Stand and the Dark Tower series. Griffin also resorts to military stereotypes where the line officers are wonderful go-getters and the staff types are lazy regulation loving chair warmers. If I wasn't enjoying the easy-to-read story, I'd be putting this book down.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to par
Review: I'm a fan of "The Corps" series, so naturally I read this one and added it to the stack. But I daresay that if it had been written first, the series would never have gotten off the ground. I enjoy a couple of mainstream characters who can dodge bullets, do a triple somersault over an exploding grenade and keep on truckin', break some rules in order to get the job done in the face of overwhelming odds...but this one is over the top. And it shows signs of hurry-up. There are so many typos and sentences with missing words that I felt like getting a pencil and making corrections. Did anybody proof-read this thing? Sloppy, sloppy implementation to the point of being distracting. Apart from that, the main guys are still there, still larger than life, brought together in a totally different war by interesting circumstances. McCoy diminished in stature for me in this installment...he seems more like a loose cannon than the respectful, very capable Marine captain I had grown to like. I did miss Jack NMI Stecker in this one (please, please leave out the NMI...I get it already). The series gets a high rating...this installment doesn't. I agree with a previous reviewer...maybe we should chip in and buy Griffin a case of Famous Grouse to help keep him on track.
Rating: 
Summary: Lousy writing
Review: I got sick of almost every mention of a character having to include his full rank and service. I got sick of the stupid jargon of the weaponry. The writing is very low quality, and the story is hardly worth telling.
Rating:
Summary: A real disappointment
Review: I really enjoyed Griffin's Brotherhood Of War series, the first three of The Corps and a couple of his Badge of Honor series also. But there's a similarity arising in all of these books that is beginning to get tiresome. For Instance: 1. All his protagonists are extremely wealthy, or are loved by a person who is.
2. In his war novels, enlisted men apparently do not exist -- certainly not for long -- and his heroes are military geniuses and extraordinarily heroic.
3. All have an antagonist who hates their guts and completely misunderstands them. (I'm still mad as hell at his character Robert Bellmon (Brotherhood of War) who, as written, was a mediocre [very wealthy] officer who somehow managed to become a general despite the fact that he never did anything worthy of note. He should have been retired as a light colonel and forgotten. He misunderstood everything, without exception, about the protagonist, Lowell. He refused to accept the fact that Lowell was an outstanding officer, interpreted everything he did in the worst possible manner, and stepped in his way at every opportunity. At the same time, he promoted MacMillan and favored him constantly. MacMillan was a lousy officer, completely out of his depth at every job he undertook. He was, at best, a good sergeant, but Griffin couldn't have a mere enlisted man as a heroic figure in his books, so Mac became an officer.) Enough of that.
4. All of his heroes are handsome, easy-to-like, and charming.
5. All attract women who are unusually beautiful who immediately fall desperately in love with them.
6. All friends and acquaintances are wealthy or soon will be. This book is no different in those respects, and to make matters worse the story itself is not nearly as interesting as most. Even for those of you who are Griffin fans, in my opinion, you can forget about this one. It's not worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Dangerous actions at a dangerous time
Review: When I encounter a veteran of world war II, I always ask them their opinion of either general George Patton or General Douglas MacArthur, depending on what theater they were in. In the case of both generals their opinions show a wide divergence , some think they walked on water while others that they were full of a more objectionable semi-solid. Griffin exhibits elements of both opinions of MacArthur, sometimes referential and other times derogatory. One wonders what his true opinion of El Supremo is.
In terms of story line, the background is the North Korean invasion of South Korea and the American intelligence communities inability to predict it. That was clearly the most perilous time in the entire cold war, the one point where communism had a real chance to achieve world domination. Had the American forces been pushed off the Korean peninsula, the communist forces would have been far more aggressive in expanding their influence in other parts of the world.
Such a critical backdrop always makes for a tense and engaging story, and Griffin delivers a good one. The characters are well developed, with strong personalities that are well suited to the circumstances. They are true military men, devoted to their duty and willing to bend orders to suit the circumstances. The quality of the reading by James Naughton is also very good. He uses tonal infections and emphasis to great dramatic effect and his impersonation of MacArthur is credible.
I enjoyed listening to this story. It had enough historical accuracy to be interesting on that account and the action is engaging and entertaining.
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