Anyone Who Love Tom Clancy Will Love This Book

This book was fantastic all around. It's an epic story of about a potential techno-war in Korea. The North invades, the South and American forces fight back. It's a pretty constant paced book that is superbly written. The narrator is great but not stellar. Larry Bond, who has co-written with Tom Clancy, has produced a believable book with a believable outcome. If you want a great alternative to anything Tom Clancy, look no further. #Audible1

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1 person found this helpful

It’s no Tom Clancy book

It took me a couple chapters to get use to the narrator and gain interest in the story. The book would be greatly improved by a different narrator. “J. Charles” didn’t do a bad job, just lacking in emotion and cadence.

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One of the greatest fictional war

Growing up my father served in the South Korean airforce and he read this book while serving as a phantom pilot he said this was one of his favourite books while serving and I agree with him Red Phoenix is one of the greatest war fiction ever written.

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Classic war story that takes place in Korea

A good story with multiple points of view, the fighter pilot, and the infantry platoon commander. I enjoyed this book.

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'Decent' Speculative Military Fiction

Larry Bond is incredibly good at writing military tactics and combat descriptions. The hand-to-hand, firefight, dogfight, and cat & mouse submarine/ASW encounters in this book are well-scripted and get the pulse pounding. Military-tech geeks like me also get satisfying in-depth descriptions of hardware and weapons. Furthermore, Bond endeavors to give his readers a look at battles from the perspective of in-the-cockpit pilots, on-deck sailors, frontline grunts, company commanders, and generals.. the result is immersive. Unfortunately, his imagination of a second Korean war is explored so extensively that it falls apart: there are no central characters, for example.. only multiple relatively peripheral characters [Bond tries to make them relatable but expands his "what-if" thought experiment (appropriately) to geopolitical levels - the scenario is thought-provoking but the scope is too large to allow for believable characterization].
His musings on political maneuvering/trade wars/economics are likewise an overreach (albeit plausible). Bond should have stuck to the combat.

Unfortunately, the narration from J. Charles contributes to the disappointing impression I got from this audiobook. His diction and timbre/tone/cadence are professional, but he reads too quickly (playback at 0.90X is recommended) and his voice-acting is legitimately *awful* (Charles has no business trying Asian accents, for example).
In addition, Brilliance Audio is guilty of a couple of instances of very poor sound editing (very occasional static and volume issues).

I read this book 30 years ago and I remember being impressed. It still feels genuine now and rings true, but it's a little dated (war is extremely different now).

The lapsed relevance and relatively poor production values render this recording worth a mere 5 stars out of 10. Nevertheless, it was offered for Free as part of the 'Plus' catalogue and I'm glad I downloaded it (I loved 'Red Storm Rising' and this author provides what is promised).

Bottom line: I enjoyed 'Red Phoenix'.. but I wouldn't spend a Credit on it.

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Predictable and Racist

This book was a slog. I guess I was looking for another Red Storm Rising, and this tries to deliver, but...

The main issue is the horribly racist performance of the narrator. Truly cringe-worthy, especially when combined with the tired dialogue and character types.

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just awful

narrator mispronounces common words. character accents are beyond ridiculous. don't bother with this crap.

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could not get past the first few chapters. Mundane

almost passable story ruined by the "piss taking cartoon character voices" by the narrator...RUBBISH! TRIPE! want my money back!!!

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