First to Fight (Starfist, Book 1)
Selected Book Details
- Mass Market Paperback
- Edition: 1st THUS
- Author: David Sherman, Dan Cragg
- Publisher: Del Rey
- Release Date: August 1997
- ISBN-10: 0345406222
- ISBN-13: 9780345406224
- List Price: $7.99
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
Summary"Marines, we have just become a low-tech deep recon patrol . . ." |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Good Read
Rating:
Enjoyed it, and it's free. Download it already. If you decide that you don't like it, stop reading it. You will lose absolutely--$0.00. Jeesh! It's FREE; what's to review?
No, really. I really did enjoy the read. Some of the dialog and routine is spot on; just like I remember from my service years. More of a "guy's" book.
Entertaining and fun, but not realistic - 3.5
Rating:
I just wanted to add a counterpoint to the somewhat overly uncritical reviews out there.
First ... the executive summary is this: This is not the best military sci-fi available, but it is readable and enjoyable as long as your expectations aren't too high. If you like the notion of 'Marines in Space', go ahead and get this book but buy it cheap, read it for fun, don't worry, be happy.
Now for the critique:
I'll clarify to potential readers that this book is not any kind of 'hard' sci-fi. The future-tech is overwhelmingly undeveloped ... very little seems to have advanced in military capabilities as described in the StarFist universe. I could have done without the inexplicable 'futurized' versions of some 20th century hardware that I can't imagine should exist in the future -- why would you have amphibious landing craft and blown-air [as opposed to some kind of futuristic anti-gravity which would have been more interesting] hovercraft when you have interstellar flight?). I'll also agree whole-heartedly with a previous reviewer that the complete lack of females in the military is inexplicable some several centuries in the future.
On the plus side, the characters are fairly simple but robust, pleasantly so in many ways ... we don't need chapters, pages, or paragraphs of exposition about character's motivations in order to identify with them enough to enjoy the story, and the authors did a fine job there.
But for my main critique, as a former Marine, I have to counter other reviews saying that these Marines are realistic ... they are NOT realistic. They are caricatures ... they are the haze-of-fond-memory-through-a-rosy-lens memories of military camaraderie and esprit de corps. The structures of the military organs, the behaviors, the rank structures all smack of Gomer Pyle (or earlier) views of American military life. There is no such thing as a "career [low rank here]", and hasn't been for decades. The modern militaries don't allow people to remain low ranking members for "life" ... officer or enlisted, you must advance in rank, or you are discharged.
But do these obvious caricatures detract from the stories? Not really, simply because of the way the stories are written ... I can get over the Gomer Pyle-ishness of some of the characters simply due to the strength of one of the funnest main characters I've encountered: Charlie Bass. He reminds me of a mixture of R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket and Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge. He's one tough mamma jamma. OOH RAH!!!!
The following are just some minor nit-picks: there is too much for my taste use of Army terms in this military organization which the story spells out is based on the USMC. Marines do not have Kitchen Police (KP), they have Mess Duty. And time is ALWAYS 4 digits ... 1700 (spoken "seventeen hundred"), never "17 hours". Oh yeah, Marines say "Ooh Rah" ... not "hoo-ah" or "hooray" or any other cheer.
Not overwhelming but a solid start to what looks to be a fun series!
Rating:
I am a very eclectic reader. From classics to sci-fi, my tastes run the gambit. With that in mind, I still had a difficult time committing to this read. Several reviews have pointed out that the book's title was a poor choice and I agree. It kept me from purchase for a number of months in spite of the fact that it was free for the Kindle. However, once I got over the name (and was free from the 6 Naomi Novik books I knocked out in 3 weeks) I found an entertaining journey.
I must point out that I was an active duty Marine from 1988-1992 and a grunt, at that. However, while this certaintly made for some "remember when" moments, I am not sure it would change my enjoyment of this book. Actually, I found some of the scenes to be a bit tedious already knowing what was coming having lived a version of it. The point is that this is not a book to only be enjoyed by military personnel.
The book starts out getting you familiarized with the characters I can only assume will carry into the other books in the series. Staff Sgt. Bass is the man! Other than that, I will leave the specifics of the book to you. Anyway, you get to go through boot camp, Confederation Style, and the School of Infantry (S.O.I.) You get to learn a number of Jar Head slogans (such as pogue) and finally get into the Marine Fleet. The authors do a fine job of keeping things detailed but not allowing the pace of the book to bog down too much. I often find this a challenge in writing myself (see new Dan Brown Novel!)
Once into the Marine Fleet, the boys of the 34th FIST end up in a pretty chaotic spot. While the action is good, what I really enjoyed about this book (and I assume the series will follow suit) is the comaraderie and relationships that are established. The characters work well together and give the reader a real sense of the interconnection between them. Clearly the authors are writing from military experience with prior combat.
The bottom line with this book is that I recommend it wholeheartedly but have one small asterisk to attach. If you are one of those readers that needs to be challenged by the author with brilliant literary prose and a complex story line, this is not for you. If you want to grab a quick reading, entertaining and quality first book in a series that gives you some runway in terms of future reads, then you should definitely pick this up. Kindle owners have ZERO excuse as long as it is free. Remember though that there is nothing free in this world...I just paid for the second book in the series and it appears to have 8 more! Get over the name and buy the book, you wont regret it.
i like this series
Rating:
the reason i got this book is that it was free for my kindle, but i loved it. as a combat veteran i appreciate being drawn back to those days of service to our country. i downloaded the series list from amazon http://www.amazon.com/StarFIST-David-Sherman-amp-Cragg/lm/MLSKSY9YW9WY and i'm now on book 4. but don't expect complicated plots or surprise and twisty endings, no female warrior soldiers making the guys look bad and i think these attributes are a plus. this series is simply entertaining military space fantasy.
Where's the Text to Speech ??
Rating:
I'm tell'in ya now. I'm not going to pay for a Kindle book that does not have Text to Speech enabled. This feature was the number 2 reason for me to purchase this device. This is an extremely important feature for those with vision problems. However, having said that, I got the book because it looked really interesting and it was free. And if Text to Speech had been enabled, I would have still gotten it. It's worth paying for. So, my rating is slightly lower because of the Text to Speech not being enabled. But the book is well written and I think the folks who like Military Sci-Fi will enjoy it.
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