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: The Korean War through the eyes of well-heeled Marines
Review: Although I have read and enjoyed the Griffin series on the Army, this was my first delve into his Marine series. I enjoyed it but if one didn't know better, he would believe from this book that all Marines are rich. The hero, Fleming Pikering, owns a steam ship company and his wife owns a very large hotel chain. One sidekick is married to a billionaire of a wife and the other has a Chinese wife who has made a fortune in business. They spend much of their time sipping drinks ("Famous Grouse" scotch that seems to mysteriously pop up wherever in the world they happen to be) and hopnobbing with the likes of General MacArthur and President Truman. The two sidekicks, both from humble backgrounds and without college nevertheless speak Korean, Chinese, and whatever foreign language the situation requires. The books strong points are its description of how the military works, what its equipment was during this war, and, of greatest interest to me, the clearest explanation of the difficulties to be encountered in the Inchon invasion that I have ever seen.
Rating: 
Summary: tired characters - good stories
Review: Basically I want to reiterate what most everyone has said. It does get tiring that all the good main characters are rich and/or have rich lovers and that the only way to get stuff done in the military is to act outside the lines of command and not only bend the rules, but throw them away.
And I do wonder what happened between the Gobie Desert and Seoul. However having repeated all that, I really enjoy this series. It's given me an interest to find out more about what was going on in WW2. I'm constantly surprised when I search out some interesting fact in Griffin's books and find out it's really true. That is the real value in these books of fiction - that the facts there pull you into wanting to learn more.
Rating:
Summary: Not Up to Griffin's Usual Standard
Review: Don't get me wrong -- Griffin could write the phone book and I'd read every word of it. And an average Griffin book is leagues ahead of most other popular authors' excellence. But this one just doesn't sing like most of his other books. I guess I'm getting a little weary of Griffin's trademarked characters who use, in this case, the Marines as their personal country club. I agree with other reviewers who feel that this book has a "churned out" feeling to it. Characters lacked Griffin's usual credibility. Some things border on the incredible, such as allowing McCoy's wife to be in on Top Secret - Presidential plans and some aspects of the lady reporter character. The novel is an excellent primer, however, on the Korean War and the military genius of McArthur. I just hope Griffin's not getting tired. Maybe he needs a little Famous Grouse...
Rating:
Summary: Not up to par
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: What happened?
Review: I have been following this series since it came out in the 1980s. Being a former Marine and Viet-Nam Vet, I could identify with some of the characters. This is a supposed series dealing with WWII. In the first 8 books all was well. When book VIII ended in 1943, McArthur was preparing to return to the Phillipnes, several characters were stranded in the Gobi desert, The Japanese codes were being read like the Sunday NY Times. I eagerly awaited book IX.
Lo and behold it comes out and it starts up in 1950! What happened!? It appears to me that 7 whole years were lost and no one seems to find this odd but me! You cannot write a series on WWII and have it end in 1943. The war went on until 1945. Yet I keep seeing reviews written and only 1 person so far has alluded to this serious gaffe.
Will some one please offer me a plausible reason for this. It appears that someone at the publisher has gotten the series out of sequence but will not admit it. That is what I think but the publisher is not responding. I guess they feel as if they are so big they don't have to offer an apology or explanation.
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: 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: Another tale of the Marine Corps
Review: I've read about 20 Griffin books and, frankly, I don't like his characters or a lot of his attitudes. Major Kenneth "Killer" McCoy, the principal character of this and about 10 others of the Marine Corps series is one of my least favorite. McCoy is an arrogant, impertinent, know-it-all twerp and just once I would like to seem him get his just desserts of humiliation, humble pie, and a foxhole for life on the front lines. So why do I read Griffin? Because despite his obnoxious characters, he writes about war and the politics of war and he builds a story with lots of interesting details, mixing fact and fiction. His characters may be incredible, but he spins a mean yarn -- at great length it may be noted, but he's easy reading. He creates an air of authenticity with his military jargon and his confident descriptions of military culture. This is one of his moderately good efforts, about the beginning of the Korean War. Truman is here as a character and MacArthur -- and Griffin can't seem to make up his mind whether MacArthur is more of a great man or a buffoon, which makes Big Mac interesting. I would recommend that the reader start with the first book in the series and then continue reading the series in sequence -- until he can no longer tolerate another word about the detestable Ken McCoy.
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.
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