Book Description
Annadel, West Virginia, was a small town rich in coal, farms, and close-knit families, all destroyed when the coal company came in. It stole everything it hadn't bothered to buy--land deeds, private homes, and ultimately, the souls of its men and women.
Four people tell this powerful, deeply moving tale: Activist Mayor C. J. Marcum. Fierce, loveless union man Rondal Lloyd. Gutsy nurse Carrie Bishop, who loved Rondal. And lonely, Sicilian immigrant Rosa Angelelli, who lost four sons to the deadly mines.
They all bear witness to nearly forgotten events of history, culminating in the final, tragic Battle of Blair Mountain--when the United States Army greeted ten thousand unemployed pro-union miners with airplanes, bombs, and poison gas. It was the first crucial battle of a war that has yet to be won.
Customer Reviews:
More than a book, a piece of our lives and history.......2007-05-20
Between 1910 and 1920, one million people moved to the coal fields of West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. Hundreds of thousands of folks who were already there were sucked into the coal mines or run off their lands into the coal mines by the combination of big coporations and the governments they bought from Washington down to each county and town. Some were mountaineers from the region, some were immigrants from Italy, Hungary, and Poland, and some like my grandfather Henry Hudson Jones were Black miners from Alabama who thought they could make more money and have less Jim Crow up there.
This book is the story of those people and the struggles they had with the coal companies and the bosses' government. It is told not historically but in the voice of four different people who are not just examples for history but real people struggling for love, to fit into or get away from their families, and who learning about life.
This is a good read, a page turner that does not need to be melodramatic because the lives of its characters have such real drama.
I enjoyed the way the author tried to inhabit the voice of her characters by having them (with the exception of her Italian character) speak in the language that they would have used. However, I am familiar with that language from people in my family as well as having spent years studying Appalachian folk music. I am not sure how someone not familiar with these varients of English would have found this novel.
I live in Florida, but I am in touch with people in the coal fields. Old mines are being reopened in the Appalachians due to the high price of oil and the cheapness of coal. Mining companies are being set up with the same greed that powered the exploiters described in this novel, often with a get rich at any cost while the oil prices are high approach. There are expanding battles coal miners are facing in the Western coal fields in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming that are now the center of the expansion of the mining industry. Battles are taking place in the West where the new militancy of immigrant workers especially from Mexico has given strength to the UMWA.
Moreover, people in coal areas of Appalachian and no doubt the West, are facing ecological disasters--floods, ruined water, higher risks for cancer and other diseases--as a result of the rapacious way mining was and is being done.
And every year more miners are being killed, more miners are being injured, as safety is disregarded. Unionization a life and death question for miners and their families. Fewer accidents and death take place in mines where the union mobilizes miners to defend their rights to safety and health.
Of course, in a larger sense, all working folks and farmers are up against the same greedy capitalism we see in this novel. We've got no other solution but to get together and realize that we are in a war with the big business system, with the politicians in the Democrat and Republican party supported by that, and we need to follow the example of the fighting miners we read about in Storming Heaven.
After saying all these things about the social and political questions, I want to emphasize that this book sensitively describes the lives of real people, not just in the face of the mines and the struggle but in the real ways we all reach out for love and identity.
This is one where you really feel bad that the book ends. I hope Denise Giardina and other children of the mountains have more like this.
Coal Miner's Daughter.......2006-11-30
As I wrote above I am a coal miners daughter from a small Southern West Virginia town. I am now married to a coal miner as well. First of all I will have to say that I loved this book from beginning to end. The only problem I had with it is that the language is a little hard to understand. I understand some people in West Viriginia talk like this, but most of us do not. But, This book is so amazing and while I was reading it I felt like I was 7 again at my Great-Grandfather's house listening to his many stories about coal mining in the old days. I feel that this is a part of history that often gets looked over. I mean the Battle of Blair Mountain, was the largest labor uprising fought on US Soil. How many people know that? Not many. I read this book my junior year of college in my West Virginia History class. I not only feel like it is great West Virginia history, but American History as well. I can not praise this book enough! Everyone should read it! Thanks so much Ms.Giardina for bringing this tale of the struggles of coal miners to life!
Don't have to have Appalachian heritage to enjoy!!.......2006-09-24
I read this book for a class focused on Appalachian families, and at first I was like, "Oh no. Hillbillies. I don't care..." But this book CHANGED MY LIFE. I laughed, I cried, and one of the characters, Carrie Bishop, became a hero to me. It was amazing. My family is from New York, and I have no ties to Appalachia, so my thinking initially was,"This is not going to interest me." BUT I WAS WRONG!! It doesn't matter who you are or where you are from, this book will captivate you. I can't WAIT to read the sequel The Unquiet Earth.
A Coal Miners Life..........2006-09-20
I just loved this book. It was such a real look at what coal miners and their families had to go through in the early 1900's. Set in West Virginia and Kentucky, it follows two families and the struggles they go through trying to free themselves and their friends of the coal company's brutal leadership.
I'm not going to summarize this book, cause I'd be here all day, and it would be one long review, but I can't recommend it enough. I had no idea that this all-out war between miners and company officials even took place. And the brutality of it was absolutely heartbreaking. These people just wanted the freedom to work, get paid fairly for their time, and be able to spend their money wherever they wanted to without being in debt to the company store. They wanted to be able to provide sufficiently for their families (most of which consisted of 5-6 children), and live and work in a safe environment.
Upon finishing this book, I immediately picked up the sequel 'Unquiet Earth', which follows the offspring of the families in this book. Though this was at times very difficult to get through, I'm glad I read it, and I look forward to the continuing story of this very brave and courageous family.
Storming Heaven.......2006-03-13
This is another I read in high school and loved it so much that I wanted my kids, or at least my daughter to read it. She hasn't read it yet, but I've read it again and it is still a wonderful book that I feel anyone from the coal mining areas should read.
Customer Reviews:
lost history.......2007-08-22
This should be required reading in American History. Who knew Canada had legal LSD centers? And the characters- Nin, Huxley, Kesey, Leary and Capt.Al Hubbard (??). Will we ever see their like again? Really a very sad story, and a fascinating one.
Nice to see the Chief Boo Hoo, old Art Kleps in there as well.
Sen. Kennedy: "Is your title really Chief Boo Hoo?"
Art Kleps: "I'm afraid so, sir."
Very good but ignores many facets of certain indivuals.......2007-02-11
This was a very good book. You get lots of interesting stuff about Aldous Huxley, the famous beat writers, Owsley, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the evolution of the so called counterculture as a whole.
The problems that I have with Storming Heaven is not for what was in it but what was left out. For one Stevens was WAY too easy on Timothy Leary. The author seemed almost like a school girl with a crush when he recounts his visit to Learys home for an interview for the book. He comes off more as a fan than he does an objective writer at times when he deals with Leary. Why wasn't it mentioned that it has come out that Leary was a government informant and information he gave led to the death of two members of the Weather Underground? Its also a known fact that Leary was surrounded by CIA assets and there is a lot of evidence that he was a government agent himself, and at the least he was feeding them information.
There is also a fleeting mention that wasn't elaborated on about Ken Kesey that he had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that ended up in charge of the CIAs Mkultra mind control program. This really makes me wonder about Kesey. Its more or less accepted history that the first LSD to get out on the street level was what Kesey stole from the medicine chest at his job as a night shift janitor at a mental hospital and distributed it among his elitist friends. Kesey went from writing what was probably the best novel written during the 1960's to, while becoming a counterculture hero, never writing another thing worth reading again. Did doing too much LSD scramble his brains and ruin his creativity or was his creativity nullified by Mkultra programming? Its hard to say for sure but I have to wonder if Kesey was not under some sort of mind control or was being used by the CIA in one way or another. There are a lot of unanswered questions in my mind about Kesey.
They also fleetingly mention the Brotherhood of Eternal Love who were major LSD distributors and were known to be full of CIA people and had a close association with a Jewish man named Ron Starks who was a CIA spook that also happened to the biggest LSD dealer in the world. Starks was not even given the first mention in this book!
I mean with all these ivy league, Mkultra and CIA connections to the elites of the so called counterculture I have to seriously wonder how much of the hippy movement of the late 60's was an organic rebellion against what was (and still is) a very repressive society both socially and politically and how much of it was intentional social engineering that came from the highest levels of the power structure. Many people believe that the anti-war movement was flooded with drugs, in particular LSD, by federal agents. Its well known that the government tried to subvert and destroy the anti-war movement with the cointelpro program so why wouldn't they also use drugs to try to destroy it? While it can't be denied that LSD has enhanced many an artist, writer and musicians work can you honestly say that sitting around frying on acid all the time is going to do anything but disable political activists who in many cases were in a life and death struggle? Besides that the fact remains that many people became permanently damaged as result of doing acid.
All that said I would definitely recomend reading or of you can get it cheap, buying Storming Heaven. I could hardly put it down once I started reading it. I realize that this book was more geared toward looking into what psychelic drugs can do with the mind and its exponents history and theories on the subject than any conspiratorial maneuverings by the US government involving LSD but it just didn't go deep enough into the rabbit hole for my tastes.
Five stars plus.......2007-01-07
It is no fluke that this book has an average rating of five stars from amazon.com readers. This is simply one of the most informative, enjoyable and engaging presentations ever written on the subject of hallucinogenic drugs in modern history, and how they made their way from the obscurity of laboratories and clinical research to become a fixture in the counterculture of the 1960's and beyond. The complexities of the story make it a formidable challenge for any narrator, but Stevens proves easily equal to the task. In the pages of this book, the reader is introduced to the dramatis personae with an immediacy as though meeting them in person. Many of the facts discussed herein have been recounted before by many capable others. But never have they been put into such a vivid and vibrant perspective as this, so thorough and rich with nuance. That's important because the depths of this story, stranger as it is than any fiction, are where its meaning emerges most clearly. Ever since the impact of LSD and its profound, pervasive influences on our life and times, modern society will never be the same. And it is impossible to imagine what popular culture would now be like without the psychedelic revolution of the 20th century. "Storming Heaven" offers the best single account of how and why this is so. This is a real page-turner, very difficult to put down, and is highly recommended for the interested reader.
The Politics of Consciousness.......2006-01-18
What if you could take a pill or otherwise ingest some substance that would make you see your whole world totally differently than you have seen it before? How do you think your life would change, or would you be any different at all?
As we all know, even if we weren't there...this is a large part of what the 1960's were about. And this book provides a window into the web of events and players that emerged during that turbulent time in our evolution. In my view, it presents an unbiased social history of consciousness expanding chemistry and it's consequences on the human mind and by extension, upon the greater society as a whole. The author uses scenes that are vivid and intimate into the players that had major roles in this upheaval of the status qou - Tim Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Alpert(aka. Ram Dass), Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Aldous Huxley, to name just a few. And of course, they all had their own opinions on how the revolution was to proceed, with frequent disagreements. There is also considerable light shed on the fact that LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and other compounds were being used with considerable effectiveness within parts of the psychoanalytic community for several years before the powers that be came in and put them back in the box. But even if they hadn't passed laws against these tools, it would have eventually come crashing down of it's own weight. In the end, it was too radical a departure from the societal norms and the movement itself had no real leaders. Leadership was anathema to the revolution, the paradox being that authority was what was being disempowered. The result is that the dream spiraled out of control and we eventually ended up with Ronald Raygun as President and we haven't quite been the same since.
The central question posed by this book seems to be: Who is the ultimate arbiter of what you do with your consciousness? I would suggest that if your answer involves anyone or anything outside your self, then you are not truely free.
It pulls all of the loose ends together.......2005-09-28
The author takes the reader on a fascinating journey to visit the people, places, and cultures of the psychedelic movement. This book contains interesting inside information about Albert Hoffman, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Ken Kesey, Owsley, and a myriad of minor players whose names are fading into history. The story is chronicled from the Swiss Labs where LSD was first discovered to its legitimate use in the psychiatric profession to the artistic salons of the 50's to Harvard to the native villages of Mexico to Leary's temporary home at the Millbrook mansion to Kesey's Prankster hang-out in La Honda to the Haight-Ashbury to the streets of America. An enjoyable peek into diverse cultures from the psychiatric clinicians to world renowned authors and artisans to the faculty of Harvard and Berkley to pre-Columbian mushroom cults to the Beat poets to the Hell's Angels to the Hippies. It is The Doors of Perception, The Psychedelic Experience, On the Road, Howl, Holy Goof, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Living with the Dead all rolled into one. Exhaustively researched, a very entertaining read from front to back. Like the era that it chronicles, I hated for the book to end.
Amazon.com
As fans of Ridley Scott's film Gladiator know, ancient Rome could be a violent, treacherous place, one in which might made right. In this well-crafted historical study, Antonio Santosuosso shows that the structure of the Roman military itself was a cause of strife and disorder.
In the early Roman republic, military service was deemed a privilege reserved for members of the propertied elite, whose interests were considered to be close to those of the state. As Rome's empire grew, and with it the forces needed to control Rome's holdings, its armies increasingly had to rely on a different kind of soldier, drawn from the many conquered peoples the empire embraced and from the rural, landless poor, whose loyalties to faraway Rome were less constant and who saw military service as one of the few means to advance themselves in a class-bound society. As historian Antonio Santosuosso shows, armies at the edges of the empire instead gave their allegiance to their commanders, who harbored imperial ambitions of their own--and who, from time to time, turned their armies around and marched on the capital to claim the throne for themselves. Naturally enough, this made Roman politics an unstable affair, and in fact throughout the third century A.D. an emperor was likely to have come to power through a coup d'état, and to end his days as the victim of assassination.
Students of military history and Roman history alike will find much of value in Santosuosso's survey. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
The story of the Roman military machine beginning with the crisis that enveloped Rome in the late second century B.C., when soldiers became the Empire's worst enemy, pillaging citizens and creating social turmoil. In the closing years of the second century B.C., the ancient world watched as the Roman armies maintained clear superiority over all they surveyed. But, social turmoil prevailed at the heart of her territories, led by an increasing number of dispossessed farmers, too little manpower for the army, and an inevitable conflict with the allies who had fought side by side with the Romans to establish Roman dominion. Storming the Heavens looks at this dramatic history from a variety of angles. What changed most radically, Santosuosso argues, was the behavior of soldiers in the Roman armies. The troops became the enemies within, their pillage and slaughter of fellow citizens indiscriminate, their loyalty not to the Republic but to their leaders, as long as they were ample providers of booty. By opening the military ranks to all, the new army abandoned its role as depository of the values of the upper classes and the propertied. Instead, it became an institution of the poor and drain on the power of the Empire. Santosuosso also investigates other topics, such as the monopoly of military power in the hands of a few, the connection between the armed forces and the cherished values of the state, the manipulation of the lower classes so that they would accept the view of life, control, and power dictated by the oligarchy, and the subjugation and dehumanization of subject peoples, whether they be Gauls, Britons, Germans, Africans, or even the Romans themselves.
Customer Reviews:
Good History and Great Storytelling.......2003-05-13
This is a good book to read for a perspective on Roman history that emphasises the role played in that grand drama by Rome's legions. The author discusses the changing political, social and economic effects of how the legions were recruited, commanded and paid, as well as providing significant detail on the structure, command and performance of the legions over time. The effects of the military reforms of Marius, Julius Caesar, Octavian, as well as Septimius Severus and Diocletian are given special attention as are their different offensive and defensive strategies.
The author weaves historical information and his own insights into a well written story that moves along easily over the long time period covered. His discussion of specific battles (e.g. Adrianopole) and brief character studies (e.g. Marius) add personal detail and improve the general story. The book is both educational and entertaining and strongly recommended.
Average customer rating:
- A Review Of Storming Heaven by Kyle Mills
- Not As Good As Rising Phoenix
- Another Must Have!
- I 'read' this novel as a book on tape and found it okay but not great
- save your time, skip this book
|
Storming Heaven
Kyle Mills
Manufacturer: HarperTorch
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
 Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Mills, Kyle
| ( M )
| Authors, A-Z
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Rising Phoenix
-
Free Fall
-
Sphere of Influence
-
Burn Factor
-
Smoke Screen
ASIN: 0061012513 |
Amazon.com
Take one outspoken, sloppy, slightly boozy FBI agent who's too smart for his own good (and never lets the reader forget it) and exile him to a field office in Arizona so he doesn't embarrass the Agency. Tie him to a short tether and bury him in paperwork. Add a double murder and a missing teenager; throw in a little New Age religion (but don't identify it as Scientology, or L. Ron Hubbard's legions will bury you in lawsuits) and you have Kyle Mills's second Mark Beamon thriller. A bit too smug to be likable, Beamon has the case totally figured out before anyone else has a clue. Shortly thereafter, he's pressured to shut down the investigation. When he persists in following a road that leads right to the front door of the powerful Church of the Evolution, he's suddenly targeted by the IRS, labeled a pedophile, and finally suspended. But with the help of an ex-member of the cult, an eager young agent, and a crusty old retired wire tapper, Beamon manages to track down the missing girl and put a crimp in the church's ambitious plans. These include a conspiracy to take over the nation's telecommunications infrastructure and extend the cult's hold over the movers and shakers of the country--including Beamon's boss and other FBI honchos. A tidy little millennial thriller with echoes of Waco, Ruby Ridge, and those comet-happy cultists in San Diego who followed their leader to a higher plane last summer, this should win Mills (author of Rising Phoenix) a legion of new fans. --Jane Adams
Book Description
Punished for his maverick ways, FBI agent Mark Beamon has been exiled from Washington, D.C., to a sleepy Southwest office where he's got one last chance to play by the rules. But that's not going to happen, not when he's on a case that may be too hot even for his unorthodox talents to handle.
A local millionaire and his wife are brutally murdered. Jennifer, their teenage child and sole heir; is the prime suspect -- and she's gone missing. Laying everything on the line, Beamon sets offon a trail that takes him from a remote survivalist's cabin in the Utah mountains, through the labyrinthine headquarters of a cultlike church, into the shadowy, interlocking boardrooms of a powerful high-tech communications empire.
Just when he thinks he's close to finding answers, Beamon discovers the killing of Jennifer's parents is far more sinister than even he could have guessed. Now he isn't just looking for a young girl -- he's got to stop a bizarre conspiracy that could bring America to its knees...
Customer Reviews:
A Review Of Storming Heaven by Kyle Mills.......2007-02-18
Incidents such as Waco, Jonestown, and the Heaven's Gate suicides prove the unique challenge such sects pose to contemporary society because of the threats they represent to both life and liberty while having to balance the need to protect the innocent from this danger yet recognizing these organizations have a right to operate under the First Amendment provided they have not committed what most reasonable people would consider an actual crime. In Storming Heaven, Kyle Mills examines a number of these issues in the form of an action novel.
In "Storming Heaven", FBI Agent Mark Beamon must rescue the daughter of a deceased cult leader before she is sacrificed to ensure that power within the group remains within the hands of those already running the show unbeknownst to even the late sect leader. But even though this race against the clock provides most of the suspense within the novel, readers will also be riveted by the extent to which some will go to seize control in the name of religion.
Though Mills concludes the novel with a disclaimer implying that his story should not be construed as picking on any one sect, it doesn't take too much effort to deduce that the novel reflects concerns regarding Scientology in that the group in the story has a keen interest in courting the influential and its run ins with the German government are central to the plot.
The fictional religion featured in Storming Heaven is known as the Church of Evolution. According to its doctrine, the messenger of God comes to earth at regular intervals throughout history to update His revelation to mankind as humanity's understanding and comprehension expands.
As such, God's spokesman to the present age is Arthur Knesis, who is dying and plans to take his own life and hand leadership of the church over to his granddaughter. However as with such groups here in the real world, self-proclaimed omniscience isn't what it use to be as Knesis' second-in-command Sara Rensiler has secretly taken control of the church to further her own agenda.
"Storming Heaven" provides a fascinating portrayal of what can happen when the ambitious deliberately turn their backs on enduring values in pursuit of fanatic objectives. The Church of Evolution goes so far to achieve its goals as to set up its own long distance carrier in order to ease drop on and ultimately entrap prominent figures for blackmail purposes and to frame the group's opponents with unfounded accusations such as pedophilia.
Yet it is this sense of skepticism and suspicion that also is also the novel's greatest drawback as the motives of this particular cult's leadership are used to basically call into question all religious movements throughout history without taking the time to test the veracity of any of their claims. Despite being motivated by the noble goals of saving the young girl's life and unfurling the vast conspiracy of the Church of Evolution, other than his own existential wherewithal, one gets the impression that FBI Agent Mark Beamon does not have much of a moral support structure to fall back upon to say that the cult is really wrong in its action since all throughout the story it is insinuated that the real danger is any firmly held belief.
Despite a tendency to employ more profanity than is necessary, readers will no doubt enjoy this thriller providing a perspective on a topic seldom examined by authors in the secular branch of this genre.
by Frederick Meekins
Not As Good As Rising Phoenix.......2006-08-10
It wasn't as fast paced as Rising Phoenix. I'm not going to write a plot summary because those are provided by Amazon and other reviewers. This book gives you some further details on Mark Beamon's career. It's Kyle Mills second book about him. I enjoyed the story and the character development. Did feel that he wrapped the ending up too quickly and that he didn't give a true ending on what happened. Hopefully that will come in the next book. I recommend this book as a good thriller and an interesting concept about the church.
Another Must Have!.......2006-03-15
I do not know why I hesitated. The suspense is there, and I never got bored. The character and the story line development are fantastic. I can't wait to get the next book.
I 'read' this novel as a book on tape and found it okay but not great.......2005-10-18
I was looking forward to hearing this as a book on tape since I had found another of Mills' books, 'Rising Phoenix' to have been most excellent - thought-provoking, challenging and entertaining.
This one was merely most adequate. It was admirably performed by veteran character actor Joe Grifasi but the ending of the story lacked punch.
'Storming Heaven' was a basic thriller, which left me unsatisfied after having had such an overwhelmingly positive experience with 'Rising Phoenix'.
Don't rush out to find this book. Take your time and look around. You'll probably find something else better.
save your time, skip this book.......2004-10-08
This was the best of the three Kyle Mills books that I have read so far. That is not very high praise when you compare this title to such luminaries of mediocrity as `Free Fall,' and `Burn Factor.' `Storming Heaven' was written prior to the other two novels that I mentioned so it is a little disconcerting to see a de-evolution in Mills' work as the years go by. I haven't read it yet, but maybe `Rising Phoenix,' his first novel will turn out to be his best work.
Storming Heaven is most definitely one of those books that it written with out passion by an author attempting to mold himself to the sure fire rout towards the bestseller list. Every tired and over used method to further along an uninspired plot is used here. I felt like I had read these pages many times before. To put this work into the best possible analogy that I can come up with, it was sort of like watching a re-run of one of those 1980's private eye t.v. shows where you know how it will work out before it even starts.
The saving graces in this book are the protagonist, Mark Beamon who turns out to be better than your average hero type. This is an enjoyable character that is not fleshed out enough in my opinion in this novel. In fact that is the bothersome aspect of all Mill's characters here. It would have been nice to use the decent right wing religious conspiracy angle as a cover to explore a few of these persons in more detail. Instead Mills mistakenly believes that the Hollywood car chase cliché is where the strength of his story unfolds. It is not. Try Lawrence Block's `Scudder' series for some good contemporary tales that put Mills to shame. Or if you have not yet delved into Elmore Leonard, Dashiell Hammett's `Maltese Falcon,' any Raymond Chandler, or a good Jim Harrison, try one of these amazing authors instead.
Average customer rating:
- Dale Brown's best book by far
- Entertaining, though a little too violent
- The Most Thrilling Action Story
- Exciting, but...
- This is one for the trash.
|
Storming Heaven
Dale Brown
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
War
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Action & Adventure
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Chains of Command
-
Shadows of Steel
-
Hammerheads
-
Day of the Cheetah
-
Silver Tower
ASIN: 0425147231
Release Date: 2002-04-02 |
Book Description
War has been declared on America-and it begins with a cargo of explosives at a major U.S. airport.
"The best military adventure writer in the country today." (Clive Cussler)
"Brown is a superb storyteller." (W.E.B. Griffin)
"Brown puts readers right into the middle of the inferno." (Larry Bond)
Customer Reviews:
Dale Brown's best book by far.......2006-08-28
Reading this now five years on from 9/11, I can see why a reviewer might have thought Bin Laden had read this book, and it's also worth checking out Dale's blogs on airbattleforce.com, as a writer myself I know all too well the responsibility an author has to society - in my first book, published a year before the 7/7 London attacks, a terrorist takes a rucksack bomb on to a London tube train and is stopped at - wait for it King's Cross! Scary.
But fictional events coming true - its happened this weekend in Marmaris, turkey, as well - is part of being an author, one of the risks you take. Dale Brown is one of the best at his game and I think with all his knowledge of military and geopolitical affairs he should run for President, he would do a better job than, say, Bill Clinton, whose administration he rips into in STORMING HEAVEN. Hilary, named only as the Steel Magnolia in his narrative, however, he always portrays very well as strong-willed and full of guts. Way to go! I'd vote for her.
In the story, set in 1995, American airport and border security is under threat when a Belgian terrorist Henri Cazaux, out for blood after he was abused by American soldiers as a child, gets assistance from ex-SAS commando Gregory Townsend to launch a bloody attack on America's airlines by crashing planes laden with fuel and explosives into air terminals. First, he strikes Oakland International at San Francisco and causes massive loss of life. Then Cazaux goes for Memphis International in Tennessee, wiping out a cargo terminal. Panic sets in all across the States and reaches the White House.
Action is taken by Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle, who first appeared in HAMMERHEADS - read this, this book is ahead of its time - Patriot missile launchers at airports, talk of chaff (defensive countermeasures to distract surface to air missiles) on airliner wings, unauthorised flights shot down by F-16s or ordered to land, which has happened recently, and then terror hits Washington as Cazaux decides to attack the White House . . . Dale Brown did reuse this scenario well for ACT OF WAR too recently though the strategy was a bit different. The ending as well is not what you think - paved the way for character continuation in THE TIN MAN, which is also well worth a read.
Brown surpasses himself here - this book now was not speculation, it seems like a prediction of events to come. With recent security scare threatening air travel and the tourism industry in general, it all seems like essential reading now. I would love to see this book made into a movie, but I think it might be too shcoking for the nanny state we are forced to live in. But overall, this is a MUST READ. Especially if you are an aspiring author and/or historian! If you are new to this author, then this is a great place to start.
Entertaining, though a little too violent.......2005-07-16
So, I haven't reviewed a book for nearly a year. And what's the first genre I review after a year's break from Amazon? Yes, it's a military book. Storming Heaven is a tale of how one very evil mastermind, the Belgian Henri Cazaux, abused as a child, and with overwhelming hatred for fellow humans, invests every breath in his body into finishing the USA's infrastructure with sheer firepower. In fact, the ex-B52 navigator Brown goes into such explicit detail of the savageness of Cazaux's attacks that I will, for once, let the reader find out what happens. Of course, the retired military chief Ian Hardcastle, being the typically macho hero Brown describes him as, tries to go in all fires-blazing, with helicopters and weapons of small-scale mass destruction, with the aim of finishing Cazaux once and for all. As is natural in such shocking, though entertaining novels, the military soon enough falls out with the security services, thinks that they have killed Cazaux when he actually is planning his worst atrocity yet...
If you really aren't into bloodthirsty military novels, I sincerely recommend you to stay away from Storming Heaven. I've read and reviewed many books in my time on Amazon, and this is easily the most dark and deadly novel yet.
Mr Brown, have three stars, on the basis that you lay off from the violence and gore you have shocked me with!
The Most Thrilling Action Story.......2004-05-28
When it comes to the real thriller rather than aero techno thriller, Another Brown's perspective took the side inner country where the enemy have been there planning what we were not expecting. The Most Thrilling Action Story. Brilliant!
Exciting, but..........2002-02-15
I was glued to my chair by this book. I thought it moved well and I liked the military technology and jargon. However, I was turned off my Mr. Brown's thinly veiled dislike of the Clinton administration. Mr. Brown should keep his politics out of his books.
This is one for the trash........2002-01-30
Review of "Storming Heaven" by Dale Brown.
It seems almost impossible to buy a well-written action novel. They all seem to be written by people who haven't learned how to write a book with characters, real characters who stand up off the page. "Storming Heaven" is, regrettably, no exception.
"Storming Heaven" is yet another of those books written by men who like to have their photos taken standing on military vehicles wearing baseball caps. This book is written in 'head hopping' mode, which is usually reseved for romance novels. The writer hops about from character to character. After a few pages the unfortunate reader feels quite dizzy.
One might hope that the publisher could advise this writer on learning how to write in a focussed viewpoint. This would be a slim hope as the book seems to have been published from its first draft and without benefit of an editor. An example of the nonsense:
(The viewpoint for the moment is supposed to be with Vincenti, a fighter pilot)
The stress in the controller's voice was painfully obvious and Vincenti knew why. As soon as he heard a break, Cazaux interjected . . .
In the above, it should be 'Vincenti interjected' not Cazaux, who is fleeing from the fighter. Evidently the writer can't remember which viewpoint he's in, so there's not much hope for the reader.
The text is chock full of acronyms, all of which are lovingly explained - not once, but over and over. 'The Air-Force E3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning And Communications System)' . . . 'The WAO, or Weapons Assignment Officer, was the overall supervisor of the section of the command center that controlled the fighters from takeoff to landing and monitored the entire intercept." . . . (yawn) and if I see one more time, 'The HUD (Head Up Display) I shall scream. Boring, boring, boring. If the author really needs to soak in acronmys then let him include a glossary of terms. Better still let him write nonfiction. He should have had plenty of practice since this book is written like a stuffy nonfiction weapons manual.
Apart from the above, the writing style is extremely dull. When Brown introduces a character he stops the story dead, with large passages of exposition concerning who this is, where they went to school, and so on, instead of gradually releasing such information a little at a time while keeping the story alive. E.G:
' Hardcastle was tall and lean, with gray hair, a bit longer than he wore it in his Coast Guard days, swept gracefully back from his forehead. "Character lines" were deeply etched around his narrow blue eyes, giving him a hawklike image to match his politics. He wore lightly tinted glasses now . . "
- and on and on and on, nearly two pages of this boring tripe. This description begins on page five. You'd think that Hardcastle, from his two solid pages of yawn-making, 'was', and 'were', and 'what he was wearing' must be a crucial character, but Hardcastle then disappears as a character and still hasn't reappeared by page 105, which is the point I was unable to continue reading this pulp and consigned it to the trash. Which is where it belongs. 'Nuff said.
Customer Reviews:
EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.......2007-02-06
Please note this review is for RISING PHOENIX only.I have not yet read the other novel.
RISING PHOENIX is a highly enjoyable,reasonably plausible thriller.the plot is a super-televangelist hatches a plot to poison the illegal drugs that come into the USA.To engage his vision he hires a sociopathic ex DEA
agent.When the plot begins to bear fruit and many people begin to die horrible deaths--enter MR MILLS regular protaganist, FBI agent MARK BEAMON.The ensuing twists and turns involving Columbian drug lords,New York Mafia,Baltimore ghetto gangs,ect involve detailed and very believable
characters.I especially enjoy the MARK BEAMON protaganist because,for a change a thriller's main "good guy" is NOT a quasi-superman who instantly makes women swoon and uses his intense fighting skills to destroy crowds
of antagonists every other chapter or so.(not to say this novel lacks action sequences--they are here in spades and very well done)AGENT BEAMON's primary skills involve uncanny investigative skills and an abilty to piss off his superiors.
A GREAT THRILLER,HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Average customer rating:
- The Horrors of Militant Godlessness.
- Good reference source....
- Godless in the Soviet Union
|
Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless
Daniel Peris
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Japan
| Asia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Russia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Marxism
| Political Doctrines
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Atheism
| Spirituality
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
History
| Religious Studies
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Theology
| Religious Studies
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Religion & Spirituality
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0801434858 |
Book Description
A member of the first generation of scholars allowed access to formerly closed Soviet archives, Daniel Peris offers a new perspective on the Bolshevik regime's antireligious policy from 1917 until 1941. He focuses on the activities of the League of the Militant Godless, the organization founded by the regime in 1925 to spearhead its efforts to promote atheism and he presents the League's propaganda, activities, and personnel at both the central and the provincial levels. On the basis of his research in archives in rural Pskov and industrial Iaroslavl', as well as in the central party and state archives in Moscow, Peris emphasizes the transformation of the ideological agenda formulated in Moscow as it moved to its intended audience.
Storming the Heavens places the League within the broader context of a Bolshevik political culture that often acted at cross purposes to undermine the regime's stated goals. The League's lack of success, argues Peris, reflects the bureaucratic orientation of Bolshevik political culture, particularly in how it pursued the radical social vision of 1917. His book provides a framework for undertanding secularization in revolutionary contexts as well as contributing to the on-going reassessments of the Bolshevik era.
Customer Reviews:
The Horrors of Militant Godlessness........2007-08-14
Nonreligious man in the pure state is a comparatively rare phenomenon, even in the most desacralized of modern societies. The majority of the "irreligious" still behave religiously, even though they are not aware of the fact . . . The modern man who feels and claims that he is nonreligious still retains a large stock of camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals.
- Mircea Eliade, _The Sacred and the Profane_.
_Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless_, published by Cornell University Press in 1998, by Daniel Peris, is an academic account of the creation and development of the Soviet League of the Militant Godless and its actions in Russia. The League of the Militant Godless constitutes a little known aspect of the Soviet state in its persecution of religion and especially the Holy Russian Orthodox Church. This persecution of the churches was carried on by Marxist fanatics beginning in 1917 when the Bolsheviks gained power until the late 1930s when the League was revitalized. In addition to much of the needless bloodshed and economic horrors inflicted upon the Russian people by communists, the crimes of the League of the Militant Godless and militant atheism among the Soviets against the Russian peasant and his religion constitute one of the outstanding criminal acts against both God and man of the Twentieth century. Make no mistake about it, many modern day atheists would like to see the same events recur again in their desire to see the churches suppressed totally and dominated by the state! This book traces the growth of the League of the Militant Godless as a bureaucratic organization within the Soviet regime. The book is academic in tone and thus it may be difficult for some to follow (including footnotes in Russian); however, for all students of history it represents an important achievement in our understanding of Soviet Russia.
The Introduction to this book traces the development of the League of the Militant Godless as a bureaucratic organization beginning in 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power. This introduction explains the notion of "godlessness" and how it applied to many of the Marxist atheists at the time. The League's chief enemy which it sought to utterly eradicate was the Russian Orthodox Church (though it opposed all Christian churches generally, as well as all religions) which was the traditional religious institution of the Russian people. The Russian Orthodox Church claimed close to 100 million believers and included priests, monks, and nuns as well as others who had devoted their life to the service of Christ. Following the introduction, the author turns his attention to policies, confusion, and cadres within the League of the Militant Godless from 1917 to 1925. The author mentions the role of the League and its attempt to "make Holy Russia godless". The author compares the League to similar instances of militant godlessness in revolutionary France and Mexico, where crimes against the Roman Catholic churches there remain most prominent. The author notes the strategy of the bezbozhnik, i.e. the godless, in attempting to "divide and conquer" by separating the church from the state. The author also notes the attempts by the "godless" to increase "education", i.e. propaganda emphasizing "science", and literacy, while at the same time desecrating sacred relics, participating in church services as subversives, and denigrating sacred objects within the churches. Following this, the author turns to organized atheism within the 1920s. The author notes the attempts by militant atheists to organize to present a united front against the religious. The author makes notes of the publications of the propaganda put out by the League. Following this, the author turns to a discussion of Soviet atheism, noting how militant atheism comes to take on religious aspects of its own (referencing the works of Eliade in this respect). Thus, it can be seen that no matter how hard the atheist tries to escape the confines of religion, he will always end up promoting ideas that are religious in nature himself. (Such can also be seen in the development of modern scientism, where many "scientists" claiming to be atheists at the same time advocate ideas which are religious in nature.) The author notes the role of propaganda, illiteracy and atheist anti-intellectualism generally, and print propaganda. The author also notes the role of anticlerical propaganda (the book itself includes several illustrations from posters featuring various forms of anticlerical propaganda used by the League). In particular, priests were linked with kulaks and perceived to be parasites and exploiters living off the people (while in reality the communist elite managed to fully exploit the people and the peasants of whom the communists, including Marx himself, despised). Further, the regime sought the creation of a new Homo soveticus, a sort of Soviet Ubermensch, and included anti-religious propaganda in the creation of such a man. The League continued to desecrate churches, destroy icons (as well as issue particularly virulent propaganda against the use of icons, often maintaining that the kissing of icons was leading to an outbreak of syphilis), and replacing Orthodox rites, holidays, rituals, and theology by Soviet versions. Following this, the author turns his attention to the claims of Marxism regarding the demolishment of religion upon reaching socialism. The author maintains that while officially it was considered that religion would disappear when socialism was reached, that a conflict developed between those who sought to actively oppose religion and those who sought to allow the alleged natural development of socialism to take its course. The author notes for example how debates were staged between atheists and priests, and often when the ignorant atheist would lose to an educated priest in debate they would simply send the priest away to the camps. Following this, the author turns to the role of the League in Iaroslavl' and Pskov between 1925 and 1933. The author makes notes of the various conflicts between League, Party, and State, as well as the various bureaucratic developments within the League. The author also notes the role of the League within Bolshevik political culture, showing how Soviets attempted to replace religious activities with Soviet ones, such as the "canonization" of past revolutionaries or the preservation of Lenin's body. The author also notes the role of godlessness and the League with Soviet leaders including Josef Stalin. In addition, the author makes note of the role of cadres within the League and their importance for antireligion. Finally, the author discusses the "second coming" of the League and its revival in the mid-1930s. The book ends with an epilogue and conclusion tracing the role of the League among the Soviets.
This book provides an excellent historical study of the Soviet League of the Militant Godless and the crimes of that organization against the Russian churches. In particular, the Russian Orthodox Church bore the brunt of the brutality of militant atheism during the Soviet era. These crimes should be duly noted by all those who seek understanding of the horrors unleashed upon the world by the totalitarianisms of the Twentieth century. The role of godlessness in the creation of those totalitarian regimes is not to be under-estimated. May we never forget those religious who suffered at the hands of the "godless" in Soviet Russia.
Good reference source...........2005-05-24
I thought I would add my user name to this review and some anecdotal information.
Be warned, this volume reads like a doctoral thesis. Lots of facts and footnotes, but not much excitement. Daniel Peris presents a Soviet Union, great on sloganeering, but not much in the action department. This should be a warning to our leaders here in the U.S., you cannot attack a situation by creating a bureaucracy, one need only look at our so-called "war on drugs." But I digress. The author focuses solely on the Soviet regime's efforts to remove Russian Orthodoxy from the life of the typical Soviet peasant or worker. I would like to have known more on how this organization approached Islam and other non-Christian religions in the hinterlands. As we approach the millenium, U.S. society has managed to accomplish, what a Soviet bureaucracy couldn't, the eradication of religion from the public square. The difference being is that we, as a people, simply appealed to society's base insticts.
My mother and other family friends visited the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev era. Their observation was that when an important family event occured it seemed important that the parents of a baby or bridal party visit the neighborhood or town monument to the great patriotic war. So the Soviet leadership just replaced religious icons with icons from their own history.
In closing this book should be in the library of anyone interested in the history of the Soviet Union.
Godless in the Soviet Union.......1999-09-01
Be warned, this volume reads like a doctoral thesis. Lots of facts and footnotes, but not much excitement. Daniel Peris presents a Soviet Union, great on sloganeering, but not much in the action department. This should be a warning to our leaders here in the U.S., you cannot attack a situation by creating a bureaucracy, one need only look at our so-called "war on drugs." But I digress. The author focuses solely on the Soviet regime's efforts to remove Russian Orthodoxy from the life of the typical Soviet peasant or worker. I would like to have known more on how this organization approached Islam and other non-Christian religions in the hinterlands. As we approach the millenium, U.S. society has managed to accomplish, what a Soviet bureacrcy couldn't, the eradication of religion from the public square. The difference being is that we, as a people, simply appealed to society's base insticts.
Average customer rating:
|
Storming Heaven
Lately Thomas
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LX304O |
Amazon.com
This is the kind of book you want to carry in your bag and read at respites on buses or in coffee shops, letting it roll around in your brain, seep into your soul. Poems and short essays--such as Mary Karr's quest for a church in which her son could, in his words, "see if God's there," and Nancy Mair's coming to understand charity and mercy at the soup kitchen Casa Maria--sparkle with the sincerity of each writer's search for spiritual fulfillment. Because religion is personal, and because few people grow up with exposure to more than one or two faiths, there is seldom opportunity to discuss the wide varieties of spirituality that are out there. In Storming Heaven's Gate, 61 women authors come clean with their stories--Kathleen Norris's time in a Benedictine monastery, Daa'iyah Taha's journey to Mecca--and it all comes off like late-night coffee shop talk, with the reader sipping quietly, soaking it all in. Men welcome also.
Books:
- Sula (Oprah's Book Club)
- Summer of the Sea Serpent (Magic Tree House #31)
- Tales from the Time Loop: The Most Comprehensive Expos of the Global Conspiracy Ever Written and All You Need to Know to Be Truly Free
- The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers
- The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library)
- The Fallen Man (Joe Leaphorn Novels)
- The Fencing Master
- The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
- The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
- The Great Gatsby CD
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Communicating for Results: A Guide for Business adn the Professions
- War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944
- Simply Accounting Practice Sets
- The Health Care Value Chain: Producers, Purchasers, and Providers
- The Sims 2: Open for Business
- Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera
- Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture
- Bars and Restaurants, IRS Audit Protection and Survival Guide
- The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s
- In the Hand of Dante: A Novel
Unquiet Earth
The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising
River of Earth
Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory
Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did
