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Title: Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone ISBN: 0-395-86025-3 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 02 April, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (35 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A great American novel
Comment: I first read "Dog Soldiers" when I was a teenager and was deeply impressed by it. But judging from the reviews here this is a book that you will either love or hate with no in between. So be it. Stone is probably out of reach of most mainstream readers. The only bad thing I have to say about Stone is that he sold the film rights of "Dog Soldiers" to the wrong people. It was made into a very terrible movie called "Who'll Stop the Rain" starring the highly overrated Nick Nolte.
Rating: 3
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: I'd read a lot about how prescient Stone was about the drug trade and American involvement abroad, so I picked this book up, excited about a literary author who actually seemed interested in getting the reader's blood pumping. In any case, I was disappointed: I'm not sure how novel this was when it appeared in the 70s, but many of its scenes have become standard cliches of the movies - the torture scene, the bags of drugs, the shootouts in precarious and picturesque locations.
Perhaps it isn't fair to criticize a book for how much it's been imititated, but a genuine work of art shouldn't lose much of its lustre just because of mediocre followers, and I found myself genuinely bored by a great deal of Dog Soldiers. The only scene that showed the talent of the author was the surreal conversation between the central character and his slightly crazy mother. I haven't read A Flag For Sunrise or any of Stone's other books, but I'd certainly try those before this one.
Rating: 4
Summary: A unique take on the Vietnam era
Comment: After reading Tim O'Brien's "Going After Cacciato", I was sort of in a Vietnam-themed reading mood. I heard that Robert Stone, who had apparently been a companion of Keruoac, had written a dark adventure novel called "Dog Soldiers" that won the National Book Award. After reading the Biography.com description of Robert Stone and his "carefully crafted" books, I decided to give it a try.
For the most part, the book lived up to my expectations. It is indeed very exciting and pessimistic, but I did have trouble with some parts. One of the characters actively practices Zen at great length, but I didn't know much about that subject so much of that character was difficult to understand. Also, much of the discussion of drugs is written in a vernacular I'm not very familiar with, so a great deal of that was also difficult to understand. Aside from these shortcomings (which I know were largely my own), I would give the book five stars.
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Title: A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone ISBN: 0679737626 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone ISBN: 0395860288 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: DAMASCUS GATE by Robert Stone ISBN: 0684859114 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 04 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Bay of Souls : A Novel by Robert Stone ISBN: 0395963494 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 22 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone ISBN: 0395938945 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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