Rating: 
Summary: Michener's Best
Review: This is a wonderful collection of stories. It captures how young naive and idealistic americans find themselves thousands of miles from home in a strange environment involved in an epic struggle which will not only change the characters, but also the course of US history. Unlike many of his other works, which focus on history and happen to throw in some characters, this focus of this book is the characters: Bloody Mary, Lt. Joe Cable, Bus Adams. Tony Fry). Each of these characters is particularly memorable (in sharp contrast to some such works as Hawaii, Centenial). This is Michener's best and I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Agree: Michener's Best
Review: This was Michener's first book and it's one of his shortest. It is also, for my money, his best (though I must admit I haven't read them all), maybe because it is based on personal experience and not research. Exotic island locations, memorable characters and stories: excellent even without the Rogers and Hammerstein tunes.
Rating:
Summary: War, romance, and black-marketeering in the Pacific
Review: To use an old cliche, this book gives the reader a sense of "being there" during the Second World War in the Pacific theater. This is not a chronicle of the war itself. It is not a military history, although it is full of military anecdotes. It's a series of loosely connected stories of the prolonged island-hopping campaign across the Pacific, related through the personal experiences of a variety of characters. Michener's emphasis is on the individuality, humor, valor, and idiosyncrasies of the men and women who populated the bases and combat units of the Pacific campaign. As anyone who has seen the musical "South Pacific" (based on a part of this book) knows, it includes the island natives and expatriates who happened to live in the places where the war was taking place. In reading these stories, you may come to understand why many of the armed forces veterans of the Pacific war were drawn to go back to the islands in later years. If I were limited to one sentence, I'd say that this book is about everyday Americans doing unusual jobs in exotic places. I like it well enough that I've read it multiple times and consider it a favorite. It's a lot easier reading than many of Michener's later epics, and in my opinion it's as good as anything he's ever written and better than most.
Rating:
Summary: War, romance, and black-marketeering in the Pacific
Review: To use an old cliche, this book gives the reader a sense of "being there" during the Second World War in the Pacific theater. This is not a chronicle of the war itself. It is not a military history, although it is full of military anecdotes. It's a series of loosely connected stories of the prolonged island-hopping campaign across the Pacific, related through the personal experiences of a variety of characters. Michener's emphasis is on the individuality, humor, valor, and idiosyncrasies of the men and women who populated the bases and combat units of the Pacific campaign. As anyone who has seen the musical "South Pacific" (based on a part of this book) knows, it includes the island natives and expatriates who happened to live in the places where the war was taking place. In reading these stories, you may come to understand why many of the armed forces veterans of the Pacific war were drawn to go back to the islands in later years. If I were limited to one sentence, I'd say that this book is about everyday Americans doing unusual jobs in exotic places. I like it well enough that I've read it multiple times and consider it a favorite. It's a lot easier reading than many of Michener's later epics, and in my opinion it's as good as anything he's ever written and better than most.
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