As part of my polymathic aspirations and the desire to inspire, I thought I would begin sharing the occasional book review. They probably won’t be news to those who are familiar with my Goodreads profile or occasional Amazon review, but I do hope that you enjoy them.

Today’s review is a modern war memoir recommended by a friend and a British Army officer. There may be a few such memoirs that end up reviewed here, but that is probably because he’s lent me some books and I don’t want to have them on my shelf collecting dust.

Danger Close: The True Story of Helmand from the Leader of 3 PARA by Colonel Stuart Tootal DSO

Review by Matt Bruce, 12 June 2010

This memoir from the commander of 3 PARA, the 3rd Battalion of The Parachute Regiment, details his experiences in Afghanistan during their tour of duty there in 2006, and their eventual return to the UK and his subsequent promotion up and away from 3 PARA. You may remember the author’s name from newspapers in 2007, as he resigned from the Army in response to the mistreatment of soldiers. This book is that story, but conveyed with pride of a job well done, not self-pity.

Unlike most war memoirs, this is written by not only an officer, but the battalion commander. As such, it gives both low level experiences that you would get from an on-the-ground soldier — such as that found in Sniper One — and the higher level picture of trying to do the right thing by your men while dealing with the politics and cost-cutting from above. It’s an unenviable task, clearly executed brilliantly, and written in a very engaging style.

The final chapter, “Fighting the Peace,” is the incredibly moving story of the return of 3 PARA to the UK, particularly the MOD’s treatment of the injured (now that the MOD shares existing NHS facilities rather than using dedicated military hospitals), and fighting to ensure that soldiers who have been disabled or mutilated in the service of their country aren’t just kicked out of the Army. Lastly, and perhaps more amazingly, although we have been aware of post-traumatic stress disorder for decades now, the chapter outlines that the facilities and procedures in place for dealing with it are laughable at best. If even half of it is accurate, it makes me ashamed to think that my votes and taxes are used to treat these people so badly.

In closing, it is worth mentioning that the book’s epilogue states that a number of situations and problems described in it and various newspapers have been, or are being, rectified.

This review can also be found on Goodreads and Amazon UK.

Flickr CC-BY timspalding

Last night I tried to use my Amazon Kindle 2 for the first time in a week or so, but took it out of the case in which I keep it to discover a dreaded new screen with the bold title: Critical Battery.

It said to charge it for a few minutes before I could use it and, as the Kindle only comes with a US mains charger, I use my iPhone’s mains-to-USB adapter to charge it beside the bed. Because the iPhone takes us back to mid-1990s in terms of battery life, I charge that every night and neglected the Kindle while I’ve been reading a couple of dead-tree books. So I put the Kindle on charge for 15 minutes then, when it still wouldn’t do anything, I left it to charge overnight and went back to reading the paperback version of Ernest Hemingway’s remarkable A Farewell to Arms (Amazon|Kindle|AmazonUK).

First thing this morning I discovered that the charging light had gone off sometime overnight (it’s supposed to go from amber while charging to green when fully charged). I did a few online searches and discovered various ways to kick it back to life, but none of them worked. One of the recommendations was to plug it into a computer USB slot and when I did this the USB drive connection came up straight away. A few minutes later the screen flashed a few times, I gave it a few more minutes, unplugged it, held the power switch for 15 seconds and released, then held the Home switch for 15 seconds. Presto fixo!

I’ve since been reading up on why I got such appalling battery life while the unit was switched off. (Manuals, pfft!) Sliding and releasing the power switch only puts the unit into Sleep mode, and it will still connect periodically via 3G to download any subscriptions, update page locations, bookmarks, etc.

To switch the device Off (as in for it not to consume any power), with the device still On you need to slide and hold the power switch until the screen goes blank.

Everything I’ve read indicates that this will maximise battery life while the device is not in use. And, unless you’re one of those people who have daily newspaper subscriptions or have multiple devices that you sync between regularly, who needs to have it synchronising while you’re asleep? It will do that anyway once you switch it back on next time, and will take all of about 15 seconds.

To maximise battery life while you’re using the device, disable the wireless (Menu > Turn Wireless Off). You can always enable it periodically to do a sync. This will give you a few weeks battery life when used with other battery-saving settings (small font to minimise page turning, not using the Kindle Store via the device, etc).

I very much like my Kindle 2 and, while it’s not perfect, it is another step towards an interesting future for publishing.

Update (7 April 2010): Since writing this article almost eight weeks ago — after which I switched the wireless off unless I was actually downloading content via wireless or USB (which I did 3-4 times) and switched the device Off (as above) when not in use — I have been using the Kindle almost daily and haven’t had to charge it. The battery meter was gradually decreasing from 100% and got down to about 70% full until last night when it gave me a Battery Low popup, then five minutes later gave me the dreaded Critical Battery screen. I plugged it into the mains charger that came with it (via a US-to-UK plug adapter) and it restarted happily a few minutes later, after which I left it to fully charge overnight without problems. Aside from the sudden change from 70% charged to Battery Low to Critical Battery — making the charge level indicator worthless — I’m very pleased that I got nearly eight weeks of regular use from the Kindle between charges.

The availability of audiobooks has grown from your local library’s well-worn books on tape to online shops such as Amazon (US | UK) and now there are sites such as Audible (US | UK) that exist solely to provide you with all your audiobook desires. Prices vary from free at your local library (free in the sense that your property tax pays for it) up to the cost of a normal book, and anywhere in between, and some sites use a subscription model to maintain income and encourage your ongoing use of the service. The major downside is that some — not all — of these systems use DRM, which limits you in a number of ways.

There is another type of audiobook that has been gaining popularity in recent years and the authors of them are blazing new trails at the forefront of yet another emerging Internet technology: podcast books. Using the distribution system of traditional podcasts (audio files wrapped in an RSS feed), it delivers chapters of audiobooks to the listener. It’s not really a new idea, as it’s a re-working of the old radio serial format, but it’s a clever application of it to the reasonably untapped medium of the Internet.

Most of the authors using this technique are unpublished amateurs seeking to get their stories out there, gain recognition, break ground on a new technology and, if they have any vision, build a loyal fanbase that will be there to support them when they are finally recognised by a traditional publisher. They are typically read out by the author, rather than professional voice actors, which adds something as you get inflections and emphasis exactly where the author intended it. What’s more — the vast majority of these books are free — both in cost and DRM. Nada. Zip. Nix.

The term “podcast audiobook” is sometimes shortened to “podiobook”, which leads to one of the pioneers of the medium, podiobooks.com, who provide an Audible-style network, hosting and portal for the distribution of free podcast audiobooks.

My first encounter with podcast audiobooks was with 7th Son by J.C. Hutchins and Earthcore by Scott Sigler. I found them by stumbling across the podiobooks.com website and searching the Science Fiction section. Theirs were the two that jumped out at me first, and I’ve not regretted it for a minute. Those books, and their sequels and subsequent novels, have been excellent. And both authors have grasped the importance of using the Internet as not only a vehicle to move their books, but also in marketing, video trailers and teasers, and working on gaining and maining a loyal fan following. Hutchins and Sigler have even worked together, providing crossover cameos and references to raise awareness of each others’ books and to keep the fans coming back for more. It works well.

Of interests to the traditional writers reading this will be the fact that both authors now have agents, books in print and film deals under discussion. There is no doubt whatsoever that making use of this emerging medium and using ingenuity, imagination and entrepreneurial spirit have allowed them to go from guys sitting in a closet or basement talking into a microphone to having agents and publishers managing their brands and printing their books.

Also of interesting is that even though Sigler has written books across genres, his agent is only accepting very specific books and is refusing others. Not because they’re rubbish, but because they don’t match with how the agent is trying to brand him. I suppose this is similar to if Stephen King were to write a romance novel or if Anne McCaffrey were to write a modern military novel, in which situation the nom de plume has traditionally reigned supreme. Sigler speaks about this in depth in this interview on Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast.

So if you like listening to audiobooks, I suggest you look at sites like podiobooks.com and explore the marvellous and diverse range of works that both aspiring and successful authors have worked hard on and then made available for free. If you like writing novels and are willing to explore a new medium, particularly if you are having problems finding a publishing home for it, then you could do worse than turning it into a free audiobook.

Always remember that the print and electronic rights are different animals. You should find that even if you offer a free audio version of your work, you should still be able to sell the print rights. Sigler and Hitchens have done just that.