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| View Larger Image | The Far Reaches (Josh Thurlow Series #1)
by Homer Hickam
| | List Price: | $14.95 | | Price: | $10.17 | | You Save: | $4.78 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 70753 | | Studio: | St. Martin's Griffin | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 320 | | Publication Date: | June 24, 2008 | | Publisher: | St. Martin's Griffin |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
The year is 1943 and World War II in the Pacific rages on, with Americans engaged in desperate battles against a cunning enemy. Coast Guard Captain Josh Thurlow is on hand at the invasion of Tarawa, as the United States Navy begins throwing her Marines at island after bloody island across the Pacific. But nothing goes as planned, and young Americans go up against fanatical defenders.
As blood colors the waters around Tarawa, Josh flounders ashore through a floating graveyard of dead men and joins the survivors. Critically wounded, Josh expects to die. Instead, Sister Mary Kathleen, a pretty Irish nun, nurses him back to health, then shanghais Josh, sidekick Bosun Ready O’Neal, and three American Marines to a group of tropical islands invaded by a brutal Japanese warlord. Josh and his little band must decide whether to help the Sister ?ght the battle she demands, return to Tarawa and the “real” war, or settle down in the romantic splendor of the South Seas.
With an incredible eye for historical detail, edge-of-your-seat writing, and the talent of a master storyteller, Homer Hickam delivers another page-turning tour de force. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 16 reviews)
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Hickam hits Tarawa 
Third Josh Thurlow book focuses more on Ready O'Neal, Thurlow's Outer Banks friend and Coast Guard companion, as they get mixed up in the Marine invasion of Tarawa in the Pacific.
Both men also get mixed up in the tale of Sister Mary Kathleen, an Irish nun who escaped from Japanese capture on another island and came to Tarawa to encourage the Americans to come back with her to free her captive island from Japanese rule. But the sister has a secret that drives the story.
Hickam writes in straightforward prose that usually flows well, with just the occasional turn of phrase or wording in the direction of the maudlin or over-dramatic.
The book ends with a resolution of this story, but leaves the key participants scattered and Thurlow alone on an unknown island, begging the beginning of a fourth novel.
Tarawa suffered from more than gunfire, and has yet to fully recover--see The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific for a modern account of what life is like on the island now.
And of course, you'll want to start with the first two books in the Thurlow series to fully appreciate Hickam's characters:
The Keeper's Son (Josh Thurlow Series #1)
The Ambassador's Son (Josh Thurlow Series #2)
May 11, 2008 | |
A superb novel 
I'm a bit astonished at the one-star reviews this book has received. I just put it down after two days of voracious reading and then looked at it, wishing I could start all over again fresh. Maybe it sometimes gets knocked down because it is not truly a World War II genre book. There is a depth to this book that is layered one upon the other as it progresses. It is the tale not only of Josh Thurlow at the battle of Tarawa but really on what happens afterwards as Sister Mary Kathleen, the Catholic nun who shanghais Josh, Ready O'Neil and three vagrant Marines to the Far Reaches. There, the men find a paradise and even tough old Josh finds love and tenderness with a new family while the sister keeps struggling with the great sin that presses down upon her. I found the pages where Josh loses his new family some of the most powerful writing I have ever read. I suppose it is true that readers are as various as writers and not all are meant for one another. Hickam is a writer that seems at time a simple stylist but he is also an artist who paints with an exceedingly fine brush. Perhaps his novels are not for everyone but I am captured by his writing and will recommend him to everyone who not only likes a good read but also likes to put a book down with a new understanding of the truths of life. I will be thinking about Sister Mary Kathleen, Josh, Ready, and even Colonel Monkey Burr for a very long time.
December 17, 2007 | |
Perhaps the worst book I've ever read 
What else is there to say? I very rarely give up on a book and I fought the urge to give up on this book many times. After finishing the book, I wished I had listened to my instincts. It was awful. The one saving grace was that I didn't actually pay for the book, but checked it out from the library.
I've heard Hickam wrote good historical fiction and expected much better. I doubt I'll give him another try. The characters are pathetically simple and some of the scenarios just plain ridiculous. The main character loses his son and wife and takes a whole sentence to say goodbye to them both. Great writing. Great character development. This book was just way too simplistic. This is literature's equivalent of a grade b movie. Look elsewhere.
December 14, 2007 | |
Sometimes You Really Can Judge A Book By The Cover
Last year I read a terrible novel about the Battle of the Bulge. For some reason, the cover featured a famous photograph of a US Marine on Iwo Jima! "The Far Reaches" isn't quite as bad: the cover shows a well-known photo of US Army troops wading ashore at Normandy on D-Day, but with a bunch of palm trees inserted in the background. The novel was preposterous; cliches piled on top of sterotypes, incredibly stilted dialogue, and unbelievable characters and situations. A young Irish nun and a bunch of Polynesians on TARAWA? Laughable! Not to give away too much of the plot, the author clearly has little knowledge of the US military, World War Two, the Japanese, etc. (i.e., there are no priests in the USMC). Nor could I imagine the business of several characters simply going AWOL in the middle of WW2 and instantly adopting native families as their own. The central premise --- about the child --- made absolutley no sense given the contempt for Westerners held by the Japanese officer corps of the period. I borrowed the audio version from the library and it was painful to listen to. No more Josh Thurlow for me!
September 05, 2007 | |
bullseye again!
I just finished reading this book and came away impressed again. The story moves along at a brisk pace and there are very few slow parts. It holds your attention. The only flaw I found in the book was toward the beginning when Josh Thurlow was shot up pretty bad and survived. A previous poster mentioned he was like rambo and I have to agree with that. That doesn't take away from the book at all for me though. Great summer reading!
Do yourself a favor a pick this one up.
July 28, 2007 | |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
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