The Afghan by Frederick Forsyth Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Afghan
Book Review: Crash course in Al-Qaeda studies!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great adventure that will keep you reading on till late at night if you are used to the plots and characters of Forsyth. His writing style is a bit different from other writers, and he is very meticulous with his character descriptions. To some this might be a put off, especially for those just wanting a good story without all the complex details. This is a book you must read in full concentration to really enjoy. I would not describe it as a bedtime story.
What I really liked about this book is that it relates to current events, so you feel like you are reading non-fiction. There is a lot of factual information. This book will tell you all there is to know about Al-Qaeda. It can be regarded as a crash course in Al-Qaeda studies.
There are many characters, but this tends to be confusing at times. Retaining the names of the different characters is also hard since they are names in different languages.
The plot of the book is as follows: British and American intelligence learn that Al-Qaeda is planning something big; really big; much bigger than September 11. Will the attack be nuclear this time? Or will the attack be Biological? The Intelligence agency is not sure, as they often are. The only way to find out is if someone can infiltrate Al-Qaeda, a nearly impossible and suicidal task. Retired SAS British intelligence officer Mike Martin (THE FIST OF GOD) is the man chosen for this job, for he speaks Arabic and can pass on as an Afghani (to some this might be a little unrealistic). He pretends to be an Afghani (Izmat Khan) that has been detained in Guantanamo for the past five years. He is later told by Bin Laden himself of the plot. Kind of strange Bin Laden couldn't tell an Afghani from a British! But this is fiction after all, so no need to make a fuss about it.
This is a book that will surely become either a movie or a TV mini series, and will probably be enjoyed more in that format by most readers unfamiliar with Forsyth. However, give the book a try!
Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
In general, I'm a Freddie Forsyth fan, but I found this one disappointing.
Freddie does his homework superbly well, in fact better than any other thriller writer I can think of. Problem is, he appears sometimes to confuse his outstanding homework with the novel whose basis it supposedly forms, so that the novel ends up as a long litany of fascinating facts and explanatory asides, with a bit of story shoved in. Now I find his homework very interesting, but it eventually becomes a drudge and every now and then I find myself screaming, "GET A MOVE ON!!" This is such a Forsyth.
Of course, poor Freddie bungled badly - his first book, "The day of the Jackal", was the best political thriller ever written and the only way to go from there was down. But hopefully not THIS far down...
On the jacket of my copy, the UK's "Daily Wail" is quoted as saying, "Forsyth's finest novel since The Jackal." Poppycock. This one of his worst. The characterisation is non-existent, the story highly improbable in parts, and it doesn't even have Freddie's trademark twist in the tail at the end. Freddie is cashing in on post-9/11 US paranoia, with a tip of his hat to the British Army's SAS, for which he clearly has a high regard. For me it just doesn't work.
Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
Generally, I like Forsyth's work a lot: The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File are among the greatest thrillers of all time. But I'm afraid I didn't care much for this one. The story isn't very tightly plotted, and so with the lack of character development that has always been a weakness of Forsyth's, the narrative drags along intolerably at times. There is too much coincidence for the plot to be credible, and the wealth of technical details overwhelms rather the educates the reader. Even with all of these weaknesses, this novel is serviceable enough as beach or airplane reading. Still, The Afghan is disappointing when you realize what brilliant books Forsyth turned out in the past.
Book Review: Enjoyable but not brilliant
Summary: 3 Stars
I really wanted to love The Afghan. The plot was taken straight from the headlines with a British agent assigned to infiltrate Al Quaeda to thwart a plot which would make 9/11 pale in comparison. The story was very readable but lacked passion. It was a bit like watching a chess match. The good guys train their mole to impersonate an Afghan held at Guantanamo Bay. The bad guys put a clever plot involving exploding ships in motion. In the end, the build up really didn't pay off. After explaining how impossible it would be to infiltrate Al Qaeda, our hero does so without much difficulty. When the true nature of the AQ plot is revealed, it is indeed horrendous. However, the terrorists are so matter of fact that it lacks excitement. This reads more like a computer simulation than something which could have really happened.Book Review: Even great writers have a dud.
Summary: 2 Stars
I am a fan of Forsyth. I would not have read this book, was it not for his reputation. I also wanted to get a closer view of the world at the present time, keeping that it is fiction, but nevertheless Forsyth has always been able to inject realism into his work. Afgan has moments of credibility on that score. As usual, it is well written,suspenseful, and at first even its incredibly unbelievable plot seemed to make sense.
However, had I not even known how unlikly a F-15 would break up, but the idea that one of the engines would fall precisely on the camp in the Casades, and that even a dedicated prioner, who had not experienced RECENT cross country efforts, the rest of the book became a 2d rate action story that even I could have written.
As a USAF veteran who attended survival camp in the same areas described in this novel, the idea that one could travel even a short way on Cascade winter snow is a fable. Even wtih snow shoes, and certainly no 4 legged animal could carry anyone any distance in any distance. Those are facts. The F-15 story is akin to wining the Irish sweepstakes two years in a show. Possible but so unlikely any story on such a subject would be a farce. The F-15 engines could hardly be damaged by a misplaced wrench". Had such a phantom wrench existed, the high "g" forces would have dislodged shortly before the authors insertion. Had a fire started in one of the engines, stopping fuel to the engine would have stopped the fire (without fuel, no fire can sustain itself). Because of the possibiliy of one engine destructing, as once happened to myself, there are serious structural protections for the good engine. Double systems of hydraulics, electronics and fuel would have allowed the other engine to easily handle a descent and landing. Should the scenario described by the author be allowed by the uniformed reader, the idea that one of thes engines would fall exactly on the cabin, and do precisely the damage done, seemed to give the reader a few more chapters to read Frosyths excellent prose. In today's communication world, I don't know where the villian found a public telephon.