White Star

Rating:
Summary: Compelling but deeply flawed
Review: As far as the overall plot and the action, White Star is reasonably entertaining. But there are several problems which keep it from being a really good book. The characters and their interactions are at best cheesy, and some of them, especially the 'love interest', add nothing to the story. The action of the final battle between the two snipers is well written and exciting, but does all of the action have to be saved for the end of the novel? White Star is worth reading, but if you want truly great sniper stories stick to Stephen Hunter.

Rating:
Summary: good but
Review: I listened to the audio book WOW it was great. Every person I loaned it to thought the same. One guy sat in his car for 15 minutes while a particular part got over with. Great description of events make it seem like you are there watching it happened. Mr Thayer seems to know the sniper craft well!

Rating:
Summary: Bob Wehadababyitsaboy's rewiew of WHITE STAR
Review: I read the book White star by James Thayer.
A cram course in the art of killing. The best against the best in a compelling yet thoughtful thriller that draws you through a labyrinth of deceptions until the explosive climax. Two snipers in a dual where only one survives. Owen Gray, worlds best sniper, who killed 97 soildiers in Vietnam, against Nikolai Trusov, son of Victor Trusov who put 88 Nazi soliders in his crosshair and pulled the trigger. Nikolai lived all his life with sniping in mind and hes out to prove he's the worlds best. If there was a squad of fast-paced action writers, James Thayer whould without a doubt be the leader.
" We know how good Nikolai Trusov is because we've seen him do his work. And the Russians confirm how talented he was in Afganistan. So it has to be me." this quote touched me because Owen, the american sniper, said he was ready to dual against Nikolai by himself to save other peoples lives. James Thayer writes fiction and makes it sound so real, right at the barrier of unreal fiction. Which makes it the most exciting book you can read with out being too unrealistic. This book is definatley not for people under the age of 13, because it is very graphic writin and Thayer makes it sound so real.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining book but unbelievable
Review: I really enjoyed Thayer's book, Terminal Event, that prompted me to buy this attempt at dramatization of an ex-Marine Corps Sniper going one-on-one with an ex-Ruskie Sniper. White Star is an entertaining read but the supposed physical stamina of the players is a bit much for me. The final duel is, shall we say, unbelievable, especially when one considers the geriatrics involved. Both snipers where in Vietnam back 1969, so do the math. I would love to hear what real ex-Marine Corps Snipers have to say about this book. Thayer can do better which he proved in Terminal Event.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining book but unbelievable
Review: I really enjoyed Thayer's book, Terminal Event, that prompted me to buy this attempt at dramatization of an ex-Marine Corps Sniper going one-on-one with an ex-Ruskie Sniper. White Star is an entertaining read but the supposed physical stamina of the players is a bit much for me. The final duel is, shall we say, unbelievable, especially when one considers the geriatrics involved. Both snipers where in Vietnam back 1969, so do the math. I would love to hear what real ex-Marine Corps Snipers have to say about this book. Thayer can do better which he proved in Terminal Event.

Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic, Unbelievable, and Poorly Written
Review: James Thayer has clearley not spent too much time in the woods, if ever at all. His descriptions of the wilderness ring completely false. As an avid outdoorsman, I find his depiction of the wilderness contradictory at best, and unrealistic at worst. Apparently the author knows nothing of firearms, specifically military firearms. His description of the story's hero, Owen Gray, holding the WOODEN stock of a modern Marine Corps M40A1, is laughable, as all current USMC sniper rifles have composite stocks. Finally, none of the characters are believable or even sympathetic. This book was painful to read and hard to finish. Don't waste your time on this one. If you want to read an excellent fictional book about a former Marine sniper, check out Stephen Hunter's Point of Impact. If you want to read about the real thing, check out "One Shot, One Kill", which is about Gny, Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, an American hero from the Vietnam war, with 93 confirmed kills.

Rating:
Summary: The Game of Death
Review: Owen Gray is a retired Sniper who was known as the "White Star" back in Vietnam. Gray now lives at home with a family of three children whom he has fostered. Trusov is also an expert Sniper from the same era, and draws Gray into a game of death. Soon, professional hits are carried out on people close to Gray, and he is pushed to pick up his weapon once again and plunge into action. Trusov runs the show until both snipers are alone, left to settle the score man to man. Thayer hasn't done a bad job, some reviewers have put his novel down by saying there's no touch of reality, but putting those aside; it is a decent and enjoyable action/adventure story with a few thrills added in. There are also some truly interesting points and details about the methods of professional sniping. The ending is brutal and long, concerning the final shoot-out, but it doesn't seem to ruin anything at all. In fact, being fond of action novels, I found it entertaining- although I do realize it was hard to believe that some of those things would happen the way it was portrayed. Still, a great way to fill in your time!

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy at best, total ignorance at best
Review: Owen Gray is an assistant prosecutor who also happens to be an ex-ace sniper with the Marines. But Gray hasn't picked up a rifle in ten years and has no desire to. Suddenly, people near Gray are being assasinated and Gray discovers it's really him the sniper is after. The mysterious sniper is trying to force Gray into a man-to-man showdown that Gray has no other choice but to accept.

I never really believed in the Owen Gray character. For an ex-Marine sniper with 96 confirmed kills he just seemed to wimpy to me. But I could have lived with that. The thing that really destroyed my belief in this book was the duel. The two snipers get shot, burned, stung by wasps over 400 times, but just keep trucking along. The author seems to believe that by piling more and more debilitating wounds on these two that he's upping the suspense. Actually, all he's doing is making it more cartoonish until it gets to the point where it's not believable. It's easy to see that people who write like this have never seen the real affects of gunshot trauma.

My recommendation? Read Stephen Hunter's "Point of Impact", "Black Light", or "The Master Sniper" if you really want to see how this idea works in the hands of a good writer.

Rating:
Summary: good but
Review: this is good book, but the end would never happen. The story line is also not plasable. The book is boring in spots.

But still a very good read

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic! Would be even Great if edited better.
Review: Want to know how juicy the sniping is? This is the one in addition to all of Stephen Hunter's "Earl Swagger Saga". I'v translated this one into Chinese and have published it in Taiwan. During the translation, I've found lot of mistakes, draggings, holes of this book, but I would not blame Mr. Thayer but his not so qualified editor, because those mistakes were just how incompetent the editor was who should not have paired with a great writer. Mr. Thayer has proved himself a multi-layer, multi-dimentional most talented writer and he's continuedly improved himself during the Odyssy of his story tellings and would not border or bond himself in a narrow and small territory. This is one of the books that I've collected and strongly recommanded to others.