Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

THE WHITE TIGER (2012)

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THE WHITE TIGER (2012) is a Russian war film based on the novel TANKIST by Ilya Boyashov about a Red Army tank commander obsessed with finding and destroying a mysterious German Tiger tank that appears out of nowhere to wreak havoc on the Soviet forces. I thoroughly enjoyed this one as virtually unique among war films.

Normally, I take Russian war movies with a grain of salt, as they’re often over the top and ridiculously gung-ho. Probably the best I’d seen was TANKERS (2018), which had a lot of good elements and a grounded, lived-in atmosphere that pulled me in. WHITE TIGER is even more detailed, grounded, and immersive visually but takes a completely different approach to the storytelling, focusing on a fantastical element as the central plot: a Russian tanker and Nazi ghost tank seemingly created by the war and bound to each other as enemies.

The film begins with the aftermath of a horrific tank battle. In a burned-out T34, a Russian tank driver is discovered horribly burned but somehow alive. He miraculously recovers from his wounds unable to remember who he is and able to “talk” to tanks. Meanwhile, intelligence officer Fedotov learns about the White Tiger and that the Germans themselves don’t know what it is or who commands it. To counter the White Tiger, he gives the driver his own tank, beginning a mythic fight set against the backdrop of the war.

Visually, the film is incredible, with amazing sets, diorama views of the Russian advance, and an enormous attention to detail. The action is solid. The characters are engaging if not particularly deep, and the plot if very simple and somewhat inconclusive, with plenty of attention given to other things going on in the war, such as the German surrender at its end. This may put off some viewers but I enjoyed the juxtaposition between the eternal, mythical fight between the Russian tanker and the White Tiger (similar to Captain and the White Whale in MOBY DICK) and the grounded, realistic depiction of the actual war.

The complete film is watchable on YouTube, which I normally wouldn’t encourage, but I couldn’t find it anywhere else. Check it out if you enjoy war movies and are open to something different and strange.

ARMOR Audiobook Now Available!

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Available at Amazon, Audible, and iTunes, ARMOR: The Complete Series chronicles the journey of a tank crew through the Second World War, from North Africa to Berlin. Action-packed, authentic, and filled with flawed but tough men of the Greatest Generation, ARMOR drops you straight into the horror, brotherhood, and triumph of armored warfare. Enjoy the complete series as an audiobook available now–22 hours of entertainment–narrated by Garrett Michael Brown, who did an amazing job with the narration, characterizations, and a sprinkling of martial sound effects.

Listening to this book, you’ll fight alongside the crew as they go head-to-head with Tigers at Kasserine Pass, race to Palermo in Sicily, land during the horrific first assault wave at Omaha Beach, crash against the Norman hedgerows, make a stand against Hitler’s last blitzkrieg in the Battle of the Bulge, and batter their way into the heart of Nazi Germany. All the while, you’ll live with the crew in the cramped, noisy, and vulnerable fighting machine that was the American Sherman tank.

ARMOR: The Complete Series puts together for the first time all five episodes in my historical military fiction action & adventure series: The Battle of North Africa, The Fight for Sicily, Fortress Europe, The Bulge, and Reich’s Fall.

The eBook will launch June 26, and the omnibus paperback will launch around the end of the month. Thanks for reading!

Check it out here!

ARMOR #5: REICH’S FALL Released!

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The fifth and final episode of ARMOR, my WW2 tank warfare series, is now available to read in Kindle and paperback!

In ARMOR #5: REICH’S FALL, the Allies have contained the Ardennes Offensive and resume their drive across the Siegfried Line, while the Red Army batters its way toward Berlin.

Having survived the horrors of the Bulge, five veteran tankers manning an Easy Eight Sherman fight to the Elbe River and beyond in the war’s final months. They know the only way home lies through Berlin—or in a box. One by one, they will meet their destinies in the slaughterhouse of the falling Third Reich.

Get it here!

Check out the complete ARMOR series here. The omnibus and audiobook drop in June.

ARMOR #4: THE BULGE Released!

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The fourth episode of ARMOR, my WW2 tank warfare series, is now available to read in Kindle and paperback!

In ARMOR #4: THE BULGE, the Allies have chased the Wehrmacht across France, where the grand advance stalls due to supply problems and prepares for winter. But Hitler has in mind one last gamble to end the war on Germany’s Western front: the Ardennes counteroffensive, the last blitzkrieg.

Worn out by years of difficult campaigning, the veteran tankers manning a Sherman Easy Eight depart the siege of Aachen for rest, refit, and training. As panzers burst through the American lines in the Ardennes Forest, these men will enter a desperate fight against both the German Army and the brutal winter—a fight in which victory is defined as mere survival. The Battle of the Bulge.

Get it here!

Check out the complete ARMOR series here. The omnibus and audiobook drop in June.

ARMOR #3: FORTRESS EUROPE Released Today

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The third episode of ARMOR, my new WW2 tank warfare series, is now available to read in Kindle and paperback!

In ARMOR #3: FORTRESS EUROPE, the Allies have captured Sicily and invaded Italy, and are now ready to assault Hitler’s Atlantic Wall in France.

Landing on D-Day, five veterans of armored warfare brave the horrors of Omaha Beach only to find themselves caught in the deathtraps of the Norman bocage. In the desperate assault against Fortress Europe, they will no longer fight for victory but simple survival against an entrenched, determined enemy—and an even greater enemy in their midst.

Get it here!

The complete ARMOR series consists of five episodes and is releasing between February and May. Check out the complete series here. The omnibus and audiobook drop in June.

1917 (2019)

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Technically ambitious and completely immersive, 1917 (2019), co-written and directed by Sam Mendes, is a uniquely powerful war film that says, yeah, war sucks, but during war, people go above and beyond simply because they must.

It’s the last year of WWI, and the film opens with two young British soldiers assigned a dangerous mission by their commanding general. As communication wires have been cut, they must hand-deliver a message to a front-line unit that tomorrow morning will make a doomed attack, and stop it from going forward. Multiplying the stakes for these soldiers is the fact one of them has a brother serving as a lieutenant in the doomed unit.

What follows is a story told with the appearance of a single take, following the soldiers from their trenches across no-man’s land to abandoned enemy positions to bombed-out ruins, each of them a horrific set-piece of half-buried corpses and snipers and murderous Germans and burning towns. It ends up feeling like DUNKIRK with similar stakes as SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but without all the yanking on the viewer’s emotions.

The single-take visual effect is amazing, making theater viewing worthwhile, and providing an immersive experience while lending an additional atmosphere of realism to the film. The world-building is incredible. Morally, the story hits the right notes–that heroism isn’t in killing and conquering but accomplishing the mission regardless of personal cost, and that in war, men owe debts to the dead and the living. You don’t cheer when one of the soldiers kills a German, you do when they survive and get the job done. I also really enjoyed another moral of the story, which is each act of heroism makes its small contribution but overall may not make a major impact on the war itself, which remains brutal and unforgiving and tomorrow, may undo all the good that was done today.

The film had a few negatives for me. A minor complaint was using stars for cameos, when minor actors would have been great throughout to better respect the immersive technique. Another minor complaint was a character running through explosions that are almost right behind him. My biggest complaint was the one-take approach had a tradeoff, which was long stretches of walking around until I grew restless watching it, and the realism of the dialogue meant I never really got to know the characters very well, which made me far less invested in them emotionally. I get it the movie didn’t want to be emotionally manipulative but instead invest the viewer honestly, but it could have traded just a *little* of that so we could get to know the characters and empathize more.

Overall, this is a powerful movie, true to its vision, realistic to a fault, and technically brilliant. I enjoyed it enormously, though I’m not sure yet if I loved it. In the end, 1917 completely satisfied my brain even if it didn’t capture my heart. I hope there are more war films like it and DUNKIRK, films that put you in war and let you think and feel for yourself.