Good read - somewhat raw but obviously it's deliberately so. ( )

Derek Robinson's RAF and RFC books are all cut from the same cloth, so if you've read one you know more or less what you're going to get from the others. But sometimes the mix in his formula isn't quite right. War Story is an example of this, and the weakest of the six books I have read from this author.

This is entirely because Robinson's regular weaknesses are there, but his regular strengths are not operating at a sufficient level to save the book. War Story is, in its entirety, like that difficult first half of Piece of Cake, when there's no war on and we're just hanging around a bunch of sour, upper-class bastards on an airbase. This is War Story: we follow Paxton, a posh schoolboy caricature, as he is bullied by everyone in his squadron, and it seems as though the author expects us to side with the bullies. This is because Paxton wants to 'get stuck into the Hun' and gets misty-eyed for King and Country, and whilst this might sound like standard anti-war fare, Robinson does not give us much opportunity to see Paxton's subsequent disillusionment. There's little combat or war-related story (unless you count the author's relentless assault on an army of straw-men) and when it does finally come (in the last third of the book), it's too late. Most readers will have tapped out by then.

And this is a shame, not only because Robinson's obsession with miserable cynics requires endurance even in his better books, but because it doesn't allow him to deliver much of what makes him readable in spite of his flaws. He usually provides on the historical fiction side of things, particularly in battle tactics and the technical performance of the planes, but I finished War Story knowing very little about the British or German planes, or the sort of missions they flew. When the fighting does start up – the reader had almost forgotten there was a war on – Robinson soon ends the book. It is almost perverse reading this author: he is excellent at writing aerial combat, and providing tone and texture to a war zone, but spends most of his time doing other things. ( )

War Story by Derek Robinson is set in World War I and is about a squadron of pilots who are stationed in France and are being sent up against the Hun on a daily basis. At first it seems that it’s all banter, games of cricket on the airfield, and Etonian old boys reunions but it isn’t long before the cracks show through. These are men that have given up hope, can’t see an end, other than death or disfigurement, to this war. A newly trained lieutenant, a little too earnest and pompous, eager to prove himself to king and country, arrives and can’t understand why or how the craziness is allowed. His CO sets his plane on fire, his bunk-mate hates him on sight because he recently lost his friend and can’t accept his death, everyone else either ignores him or calls him by a wrong name.

War Story is a frightening look at what was happening to the young men who thought they were in for a heroic but short adventure. As the CO spirals out of control and eventually commits suicide by flying his plane directly into a German one, our naive main character becomes as disillusioned as the pilots around him.

Derek Robinson excels in stories about war, both with War Story which is part of a WW I trilogy and also his trilogy about WW II. His descriptions of aerial combat are compelling and place the reader in the sky alongside the pilots. The dialogue rings true, and the atmosphere feels authentic, and there is plenty of black humor but it is his portrait of young men barely hanging onto their sanity that the reader will carry away with him. ( )

After about 5 chapters, I felt no need to go on. I will donate to the work bookshelf and also eventually bookcross.

Didn't expect this to be as good as it is. It steadily grew on me....as does the transformation in the central character's outlook on the futility of their war. Almost reads like a WW1 'Catch 22' in many ways.

Written with well-formed and believable characters throughout, the steady loss of which throughout the narrative conveys the tiniest of senses (if it were at all possible) to the reader of what that tragic generation must have endured. This book will stay in my mind for some time, and I will definately read others by Robinson. ( )