Comment Re:Chilling (Score 1) 182
RE, "House to House" on Amazon, I had read Bellavia's book several months ago, but today I looked it up again on Amazon to refresh my memory about some of the facts of time and place in it. Following is the first, most prominent review for Mr. Bellavia's book to be found on Amazon's page:
From Publishers Weekly Staff sergeant Bellavia's account of the fierce 2004 fighting in Fallujah will satisfy readers who like their testosterone undiluted. Portraying himself as a hard-bitten, foul-mouthed, superbly trained warrior, deeply in love with America and the men in his unit, contemptuous of liberals and a U.S. media that fails to support soldiers fighting in the front lines of the global war on terror, Bellavia begins with a nasty urban shootout against Shiite insurgent militias. Six months later, his unit prepares to assault the massively fortified city of Fallujah in a ferocious battle that takes up the rest of the book. Anyone expecting an overview of strategy or political background to the war has picked the wrong book. Bellavia writes a precise, hour-by-hour account of the fighting, featuring repeated heroic feats and brave sacrifice from Americans but none from the enemy, contemptuously dismissed as drug-addled, suicidal maniacs. Readers will encounter a nuts-and-bolts description of weapons, house-to-house tactics, gallantry and tragic mistakes, culminating with a glorious victory that, in Bellavia's view, will go down in history with the invasion of Normandy. Like a pitch-by-pitch record of a baseball game, this detailed battle description will fascinate enthusiasts and bore everyone else. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Looking more closely, this is an "editorial review". If you want to read other "editorial reviews", you have to find and click on "read all editorial views" because the rest of them are hidden. The hidden ones are good to enthusiastic. Included in the PW review is "Sept" - so I don't know if it's been in place since September or what.
Customer reviews are much much further down on the page so that you need to scroll down several times to find them. The top customer review is dated September 2007 and then they seem to get newer the more you read. In other words, oldest on top, newest hidden several hundred down. Skimming through the customer reviews, they are all good/excellent and very enthusiastic.
I read this book last fall, and I remember researching it on Amazon before going for it. Of course, good reviews at that point would have helped to convince me. I don't remember the "progessive" reaction written by Publisher's Weekly from then, but maybe I didn't read all of it or senility since then has erased the memory.
I know that bookstores across the country (who are universally starting to face the specter of bankruptcy) will not carry books that they disagree with, but you'd think that Amazon would be above that sort of Big Brother progressivism, and would not allow such an outrageously slanted and subjective review. Or would at least give it second or third place instead of being #1. And if it's been in place since September, would switch it out occasionally.
It's just not right, though, that that particular review has pride of place, and may have been at the top of the heap, the rest of which is buried out of sight, for six months. I wonder how it has affected Mr. Bellavia's book sales, but I also wonder how it affect's AMAZON's sales.
From Publishers Weekly Staff sergeant Bellavia's account of the fierce 2004 fighting in Fallujah will satisfy readers who like their testosterone undiluted. Portraying himself as a hard-bitten, foul-mouthed, superbly trained warrior, deeply in love with America and the men in his unit, contemptuous of liberals and a U.S. media that fails to support soldiers fighting in the front lines of the global war on terror, Bellavia begins with a nasty urban shootout against Shiite insurgent militias. Six months later, his unit prepares to assault the massively fortified city of Fallujah in a ferocious battle that takes up the rest of the book. Anyone expecting an overview of strategy or political background to the war has picked the wrong book. Bellavia writes a precise, hour-by-hour account of the fighting, featuring repeated heroic feats and brave sacrifice from Americans but none from the enemy, contemptuously dismissed as drug-addled, suicidal maniacs. Readers will encounter a nuts-and-bolts description of weapons, house-to-house tactics, gallantry and tragic mistakes, culminating with a glorious victory that, in Bellavia's view, will go down in history with the invasion of Normandy. Like a pitch-by-pitch record of a baseball game, this detailed battle description will fascinate enthusiasts and bore everyone else. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Looking more closely, this is an "editorial review". If you want to read other "editorial reviews", you have to find and click on "read all editorial views" because the rest of them are hidden. The hidden ones are good to enthusiastic. Included in the PW review is "Sept" - so I don't know if it's been in place since September or what.
Customer reviews are much much further down on the page so that you need to scroll down several times to find them. The top customer review is dated September 2007 and then they seem to get newer the more you read. In other words, oldest on top, newest hidden several hundred down. Skimming through the customer reviews, they are all good/excellent and very enthusiastic.
I read this book last fall, and I remember researching it on Amazon before going for it. Of course, good reviews at that point would have helped to convince me. I don't remember the "progessive" reaction written by Publisher's Weekly from then, but maybe I didn't read all of it or senility since then has erased the memory.
I know that bookstores across the country (who are universally starting to face the specter of bankruptcy) will not carry books that they disagree with, but you'd think that Amazon would be above that sort of Big Brother progressivism, and would not allow such an outrageously slanted and subjective review. Or would at least give it second or third place instead of being #1. And if it's been in place since September, would switch it out occasionally.
It's just not right, though, that that particular review has pride of place, and may have been at the top of the heap, the rest of which is buried out of sight, for six months. I wonder how it has affected Mr. Bellavia's book sales, but I also wonder how it affect's AMAZON's sales.
