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White Star: A Novel

White Star: A Novel

List Price: $22.00
Your Price: $22.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great read, as good as Stephen Hunter
Review: I'm not a huge gun person, but I've enjoyed most of Stephen Hunter's books as well as White Star. It ranks up there with my favorite Hunter book, Point of Impact.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Unrealistic and totally unbelievable.
Review: James Thayer has clearley not spent too much time in the woods, if ever at all. 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. 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: 1 stars
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: 1 stars
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: 5 stars
Summary: You just can't put it down
Review: James Thayer has here one of the best action-suspense novels of 1996. White Star contains some of the most intense,graphic action and palm-sweating suspense ever written in a high speed tale of revenge and redemption. The facts about the trciks and trades of the sniper are astoundin

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: One badly written book
Review: Mr. Thayer did no real research into this book and it shows. From the police to the snipers, Thayer creates these characters to be no more than unrealistic, blathering idiots. Facts have no place in this book, just the fantasy renderings of a lawyer who has watched too much TV. This book may be for you if, you are a sixteen year-old video game junkie with delusions of sniping, but if want a story line with more realism than fantasy buy Stephen Hunter's Point of Impact. This book does nothing more than insult the character of Marines and police everywhere. Don't waste your money on this one.

Rating: 4 stars
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: 2 stars
Summary: Weak plot, weak characters
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: 5 stars
Summary: A very good book, a must for every 'action' reader
Review: This book proves the saying 'don't judge a book by its cover'.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Straight up action
Review: This book started off with a bang and continued on in that same vein. It was almost one action scene after another. Some of the scenes were a tad on the "ooh gross" side, but aside from that, the book was pretty good. Unfortunately, I listened to this book on an abridged audio tape so a good portion of the book was cut out. And in some cases, you could tell where scenes were missing. But aside from that, the book was enjoyable.


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