Warriors

I bought this collection of stories primarily for the George R.R. Martin "Mystery Knight" story, which is easily the best of his Dunk and Egg stories. Now, reading through all the other great stories on here I haven't found one bad one yet. Each story is gripping, well written and truly unique. I highly recommend Warriors.

Bob Gandt's uncanny ability to recreate this historic battle through the eyes of the Tail end Charlies is a must read. You feel like you are there in the cockpit of a Corsair, F6F, Wildcat or even a Zero (Zeke) or Tony at times or on the bridge of a DD reliving the momentous action in living color. The intense action is only magnified by Gandt's attention to detail and meticulous research. Once started you can't put it down as dog fight after dogfight is relived through the pilots for the reader. His insight's on the American commanders and the Japanese commanders and the politics of war gives the reader a much better understanding of how and why the battle unfolded the way it did and why the future of the war ended the way it did because of this epic and historic engagement. A must read for any aviation, naval or history buff.

Very good read on the battle of Okinawa. The author does an outstanding job in helping the reader feel the personal stories of the men who are focused on in this book. As a veteran myself, I fully understand that it is impossible to know what it is like to experience combat by simply reading about it. However, this book helps give the reader a little bit of an idea of the chaos, excitement, and utter horror that those who have lived through such things experience. For those looking for a book that gives detailed information and descriptions of the battle as a whole, I would suggest that this might not be the book for you. This book focuses on a individuals, both famous and obscure, and the struggle from their point of view.

My only complaint is that facts and statistics are sometimes not completely accurate. It seems to be clear that the author's knowledge is more slanted to the aviation side of things. That is understandable, given his past as a pilot. Even so, certain things are loosely played with.

For one, the description of the Yamato is not a good one. First, the fighting power of this ship, in relation to any hypothetical surface engagement, is and has been stretched. Her fire control was inferior to the fast battleships of Task Force 58 and some of the older wagons as well. Heavy caliber naval guns have (had) superior penetrating power to all but the absolute largest air-dropped ordnance. So how is it that the Yamato's armor is stated in the book to be impervious to ship gunnery, but was sunk by carrier aircraft? After the war a captured turret face plate of the Yamato class was penetrated by armor piercing rounds that were used on the U.S. fast battleships. All in all, if the Yamato and her escorts had made it undetected to the U.S. battleline, they would still have been decimated. Also, the New Mexico was not a cruiser, but the lead ship in a battleship class.

Besides those nitpicks of mine, this is still a book I would buy again, if I had to do it over.

Gandt's Twilight Warriors is his highest level book thus far. The extreme action shown in this book makes the arm chair aviator feel the action. One of the most intriguing aspects of this book is the inclusion of the Kamikaze side of the story.
The aviation theme of this book is truly very well done. But the inclusions of aspects of the ground campaign for Okinawa were of great interest. My own Navy pilot asingment to Naha during the Vietnam war allowed time to walk the old battle fields and I have benefited from this book on a look back at those experiences. I now understand more clearly what happened then with Gandt's book functioning as a great history update. In particular I found the description of the death of General Buckner very compelling.This book is a must read for all who have interest in a very difficult chapter in US Navy history. I read it nearly non stop to the end. It is extremely well documented.

Herb Klukas,
Coral Gables, Florida

I began with a study of Pearl Harbor, beginning with a study of Joe Rochefort and his code breakers and then a study of the reasons for the war, I.e., "Days of Deceit" and continuing with several books about Midway. I then studied Guadalcanal, Rabaul and the Solomon Islands and New Guinae, followed by six books on the Battle of Leyte Gulf, The Battle of the Philippine Sea, an excellent book called "angel on my Shoulder, and many others. It has been very enlightening for me. I was 8 years old when the war began and that is where my interest in the war began. David C Smisson, Sr., MD, FACP, FACC.

Warriors is a medley of stories of different people (usually they are people) who have come to the point they must put their backs against the wall and fight. The stories are varied, some stronger than others but none of them are dull. I am well satisfied with this book, and it does make one sit and think, what does define the warrior? Recommended.

I think the editors should have read "The Code of the Warrior in History, Myth, and Everyday Life" by Rick Fields before handing out writing assignments. Serial killers are just one example of a group generally not considered warriors in even the broadest sense of the word, yet are main characters here. This is just one example of a story topic in this book that I wold not have expected. Still, the stories are a good read, just not at all what I expected from the title or description.

Wonderful collection of eclectic story lines staying within the warrior theme. The Hedge Knight is worth the price of admission alone. Hopefully there will be more Dunk and Egg stories from George R.R. Martin, though hopefully not at the expense of the timely release of the next Fire and Ice volume.

I was thoroughly entertained and delighted by most of the stories in Warriors, but a few of them were just not at all interesting or in good taste in my opinion. Clean Slate was probably the least "warrior" story in the book and I wasn't bothered by the pointless sex as much as just finding myself revolted that they call that psychotic woman a warrior and not just a whore. One of the stories was about some guys on the front in WW1 and after only 3 pages I skipped over to the next author. The one story about Lord John was a little too gay for my liking so once it started to get too visual I skipped that one too.

Other than a few bad (or just weird) eggs though, the majority of the stories in here were amazing. Some of my favorites were the stories about Buddy/Brutus, Desolation Cain (think that was his name, if I got it wrong my apologies) and of course, the Dunk and Egg novella- the real reason I bought this book in the first place.

*I also liked how they introduced the authors. Ive never read assorted short stories like this before and I found it interesting to see the different histories and careers of some of the authors.

I originally bought this book for George RR Martin's 'Dunk and Egg' story, but I got a collection of pretty good stories along with it! Some were excellent, and some were not to my taste but that's the case in any anthology. I would recommend this book if you like action, as many of the stories have good action sequences.