WEB Griffin and Alexander McCall Smith

It took me rather a long time, but I have finished W.E.B. Griffin's In Danger's Path. It was very clearly a Military Adventure book, as defined by Joyce Saricks Genre Study. The interesting thing was that I didn't find much of it to be "fast-paced action," quite a bit of it was meetings and military orders. It left me thinking that it was just as neccesary to know the enemy within (other members of the service) as it was to know the enemy without (the actual adversaries in the war.)

It was interesting to read as a way of getting familiar with that particular sub-genre, but I don't feel the need to read any others by this author. The Marine moral code was big, and there was a lot of lower ranking officers being proven right over the wrong-minded higher ranking officers. Lots of who has the right to give who orders, lots of "the correct answer to that is "yes sir!"

It's made it hard for me to parent this week...I wouldn't mind (but would probably faint with shock) a little unquestioning obedience around here.

I probably could have gotten away with just skimming and sampling, but felt I needed to read the whole book. But it was a bit of a slog for me. The one story line I was most interested in, that of one of the Marines and his russian wife, was only touched on very briefly. It made me want to go down the street and knock on the door of one of my neighbors who I'm pretty sure was a Marine ("Semper Fi!" on the gate), hand him the book, have him read it and give me briefing on how accurate and how enjoyable it was to him.

As a treat, I read The Sunday Philosophy Club today after I finished the Griffin. I liked it, and found some nice pithy quotes in at as I do in The #1 Ladies Detective Agency but didn't find the ending as satisfying as the other series. But I expect it will grow on me. Tomorrow it's back to the Five Book Challenge. I think my next one will be Wilbur Smith Birds of Prey. At least that's what I've got sitting here next to my chair. 17 year old new captain intent on avenging his father's "horrific torture and execution," while sharing "lusty pleasures" with multiple women. Multiple beautiful women. Lots of swashbuckling. The last pirate experience I had was the movie "Pirates of the Caribean" which was more swishbuckling than swash, so I'm looking forward to this one. I think I'll enjoy it more than the Griffin...I'm just not much of a military reader.