Multi-Country Thriller

Published in 2018 by Ted Halstead.
Read by Cody Banning.
Duration: 15 hours, 4 minutes.
Unabridged

Ted Halstead's The Second Korean War is a multi-country thriller in which North Korea tries a desperate gamble to force South Korea to submit to North Korean rule.

The book starts out on an military base on the far eastern part of Russia. North Korea has found out that Russia has a small nuclear "backpack" weapon (a battlefield nuke) dating from the early days of nuclear weapons that has been lost from the inventory over the years. North Korea acquires the weapon so that they can start a two-pronged effort to force South Korea to surrender and force the United States to withdraw from South Korea without fighting.

But, things don't go as smoothly as they hoped, people die and a Russian police detective starts putting things together. The question is, will he put things together fast enough?

The last thing I want to do is write out a bunch of spoilers, so I won't tell how everything breaks down. Some of the twists and turns were nicely done. I especially liked how the Russians were the good guys and honest brokers throughout. There's a lot of technology (radar-eluding planes, submarines) and geo-political intrigue in the vein of Tom Clancy. It's not as good as the best Tom Clancy, but that is a high bar. I found the North Korean plan for South Korea to be exceedingly implausible simply because of their hardheaded insistence on using a specific vehicle. I get it, the stereotype of military dictatorships is that they are ultra-orthodox and inflexible.

I listened to The Second Korean War as an audiobook. It was not a particularly good production. The reader, Cody Banning, has a clear voice. But, his rhythm is just not there. At times, it sounds like he is trying to imitate William Shatner, with odd long pauses at commas. According to my research, this is just his second audiobook, so that explains a few things. There's a lot of potential there.

The audiobook was poorly edited, though. Multiple times you can hear the reader clear his throat, shake papers and sometimes start over as he botched a line. Botched lines happen - but this is Also, the editor/producer should have caught the fact that Banning mis-read the word "emphatically" as "empathically" throughout the book. This is my 467th audiobook review and this one stood out for its rather poor editing. Too bad.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5, despite the production/editing work. It was a unique take on a potential Korean conflict.

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Great storyline, didn't want to put it down.

The story was great, and kept moving. Didn't want to stop. Great, fast pace across continents and oceans. would have liked more about the "Korean War though. Other than the one small tank/drone battle, coverage of the "war" was non-existent.

Narration was hard to handle, but the good story overcame it. Many places where the story changed characters/locales within a chapter (and there probably was a double space in the printed version), the narrator did not pause or break tempo. Also, for a story which prominently featured Korea and Koreans, you'd think the narrator would have looked up word pronounciations. Well over half the Korean words and names were pronounced wrong! This was very distracting.

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A “What If” Imagining a 2nd Korean War

The synopsis doesn’t give you too much (which in a way doesn’t spoil anything like some can) – but going into this I imagined that I was going to get introduced to a story where… a second Korean War was started.

I can tell that Halstead put a ton of heart and research into this book. He is able to write something that makes you think and feel.

Overall, I thought that Halstead did a good job imagining a what if situation and telling it to us from a ton of points of view – probably too many, but that’s just my opinion. I kept going from breezing through scenes to ones where I just felt like I needed a break. If you’re a fan of military fiction, lots of characters, and an original idea and plot – I do think you’ll enjoy The Second Korean War.

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2 people found this helpful

Great story

This was a great story, however it felt like a big wind up to nothing.

While happy endings are nice it felt like all the protagonists were bumbling idiots instead of professionals.

There were many editing errors, at times the narrator could be heard repeating, being edited out by the author, or what sounded like snapping fingers.

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Totally gripping

The Second Korean War.
Totally gripping and non stop action. A brilliant storyline with amazing characters.
This book is going into my read again pile.
I'm starting book 2 in the series as my holiday read.
I received a free copy of this audio book at my own request and voluntarily left this honest review.

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A Surprising Gem

This book turned out to be fairly entertaining. It was a fun twist to have so much of the story from a Russian perspective. The story flows well with enough detail to keep the listener informed without being bored. The events push the boundaries of belief in some cases, but overall it isn’t too far fetched.

The narration is a bit rough especially at first, but it improves as the book progresses.

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basically good

overall, a good story decently developed characters. my main contention is the editing of the performance. There seem to be mistakes that were left in the overall performance repeats pauses etcetera

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Poor mastering and editing

Good story but narration skips from one chapter to the next as if still on the same sentence. Audio levels are so inconsistent it does not make for a pleasant listen.

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Narration Failure

The narration put me off from the start. The stiff delivery was just impossible to ignore. The editor also placed the chapter breaks right on top of the last sentence of the preceding chapter. The content of the story was fat on technical.details and skinny on character development even of the protagonists.

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1 person found this helpful

Great performance from the Reader cannot say the same for the story.

This author has some skill but his idea of military technology is very limited and military baring of the characters is not believable at most times. Not to mention the random head hopping and no good Segways for transitioning the narrative from one character to the next. I am highly disappointed in this book.

However the audio artist is a fantastic reader, and is engaging despite the horribly contrite story being told.

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