Nikademus
Posts: 25684
Joined: 5/27/2000
From: Alien spacecraft
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mynok
Just about done with Shattered Sword. Now I have to ask, Nik: what is so different about this book, which has LOTS of anecdotes and personal perspectives in it, and Neptune's Inferno that causes you to like one and hate the other?
I was not happy with the wording i used in my discussions re: Neptune and this was the #1 reason. I did not mean to imply that 'any' type of ancedotal and/or personal perspectives were bad. My name is not 'Diehl',  whereby "ancedotal" is implied to be a dirty word while "fact" and "data" or worse "statistics" is a golden child because as one poster on another thread wisely saged it....."facts are subjective" As such, so are ancedotes. In the end it all comes down to context so when people accuse a book of being bad because it's "ancdeotal" its largely a straw man. Clay Blair proved that with his Uboat series. Never was a book more chalk full of [alleged] facts and statistics....yet the book is very controversial in it's views and conclusions.
On Neptune vs. Sword
Actually, i'm not totally happy with Shattered Sword either and have said so many times in the past. My biggest complaint re: sword is that in places the authors try too hard to present new data and angles as "relevent" Good examples are "counting the # of ammo carts on Kaga".....or musing about the size of Akagi's bridge. Also in places the author's let their cultural bias and (at least now according to Zimm) lack of understanding of how operational wargaming plays out in proffessional naval circles.
However, Sword differs from Neptune in that the latter is primarily story based, driven largely by accounts from mid level to lower level seamen vs. a more narrative overview at from i guess, for want of a better term, a god's eye view. Sword and Lundstrom for that matter, fall in between. The latter in particular restricts it's "Story telling" component to the US side which does create some skewing effects while Sword balances better with accounts from both sides. Neptune is told almost entirely from the US perspective.
However my biggest complaint against Neptune is not that its ancedotal. Its because its clearly biased against the Japanese. Again its about the context. For example, author will recount the Aug 7-8 air attacks and only mention that the bombers got knocked around badly, then will "support" it with a personal account of an low level eyewitness who talks derisively about the Japanese. This gives a strong impression that the Japanese were incompetant idiots. There is no mention of the slaughter of the Wildcats by the Zero escort and the description of AA downing 'most' of the bombers (during the Aug 7 raid....not the torpedo runs the next day) is so inaccurate as to laugh. When he's talking about Fletcher and why he ran away, there is also no mention of the loss of said fighters that also largely colored his viewpoint so he actually sabotages his own efforts to somewhat exonerate Fletcher. Thats what happens though when you write a few words then 'back it up' with a big ancdotal account. It distorts the context and unless the reader has a more dry book to cross reference it too, it can lead to a skewed viewpoint.
Another example - Savo Island debacle.....while i found it minutely interesting to read about Captain Bode's "history" prior to WWII and his ambitions, I'd trade that in a heartbeat for a more comprehensive account of the battle. Instead, only a couple pages disjointedly describe the action and then suddenly all your reading about is the damage control efforts about the sinking CA's interspaced with lots and lots of ancedotal accounts from low level crewman.
So when i was talking about data/facts etc, i guess what i was trying to say is that unlike Frank's account of Guad.....there's no comprehensive overview of the battles themselves. Instead, its more about the people.....which is Hornfischer's style. He wrote much the same way in Tin can sailors. Sword, Lundstrom and Frank at least give comprehensive overall coverage of the BATTLES. My last major complaint is that like in Tin can sailors, there are some major errors in the book. If nothing else, it puts to rest the notion that just because a history book is 'modern' or newer doesn't mean its better than books of the past.
Does that make it clearer?
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RE: THE THREAD!!! - 
Feeling flush, although I don't know what to spend it on. No doubt Mrs D will not approve of it whatever it is. 
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