Jihad al-sayf

this looks good from the start- great plot, narrative, dialogue, style- it's all here. l'm afraid l must back and give 6 stars******
read SEASONS...

I absolutely love the first chapter. Gives us lesser mortals an insight into the complex life of a US president and the intricacies of diplomacy.

A compelling, fast-paced read. For the most part well-researched and believable. A few things -
In your prologue, I'm not sure telling us what the bomb is helps the story. It might be more of a hook to hint at that it isn't what the martyr thinks it is without saying exactly what he's planting.
Your writing gets significantly better in the last half of the book - I think it just took a while to hit your stride. You might go back to your notes and rewrite an earlier chapter from them without looking at what you've written, then compare it to what you originally wrote and see what elements you like from each.
You have a brief style that fits this work very well, but at times comes across as a little too dry.
Wonderful humor & wit throughout.
The president could be developed a little more - you give enough of his personal life to make him interesting but not enough to see the character development from the bumbling charismatic leader to the man we see at the end. There are indications that he will make the decision that he does but the reader certainly doesn't follow the transition.
Impeachment threats of the nature used against him are a little heavy-handed and unbelievable, since historically many presidents have made worse decisions and despite negative opinions stayed in office, only one has actually been impeached to my knowledge (could be wrong I guess) and the impeachment process is long and refers to the trial, not the verdict. Seems like he still would be able to pull out of it with some major PR. You're the political expert here, see what you come up with as other threats.
Characters - there are just plain too many important characters for this length of work. It is difficult for the reader to keep all of them straight. It's nice to have your soldier and analyst get together and continue the plot while developing a romance, but that introduces a whole new realm to the story and you end up including an entire episode (one of the searches and all of the lingo thrown in and explained) almost entirely to further the romance, not the plot - she or someone else could have found the drop site either way - either expand their story quite a bit or cut it way back. We don't even necessarily need to know who finds the stuff in the images, etc. If you do expand their story, make sure to expand another portion accordingly since I don't think you want it to be a romance:) It also took quite a while to figure out who the woman with breast cancer was. While I like reading about her voyage with her son it's also something that should either be expanded or cut. If expanded, it needs to link to something else so she's not just out there with only her link to the president tying her in. He could receive the letter without us having any of the background and just have the background in her letter or subsequent correspondence if necessary - if they were on intimate terms it might be natural for her to share her feelings and what led to the decision to write him.
Bottom line, pick some characters to minimize or spend more time making sure each has good treatment. Since one of your strengths is putting a lot into a few words I'd move more towards minimizing characters. Good luck with this!

Good narrative, weaving it together, backed.

Jihad Al-sayf

Hi Hal,

This is tautly written and works well in terms of compelling us to read on. The premise is strong and I liked very much about it, my only suggestion relates to the title, Jihad is fine, penetration of that word is deep enough, we kind of know what it means, but I wonder if a book with this title would be marketable if it was not easily pronounced, it might put people off. An impressive piece of writing that hits many of the spots of a modern novel in the thriller genre. You deploy description sparsely and focus on aspects of the object or person being conveyed and you build your characters traits from how they react to what occurs to them.

Best wishes and good luck, will do my best to turn that red arrow green and support your book
Andrew W
(Sanctuary's Loss)

Thanks Ron. I'll try to clarify how they got a crew to run the ship and how they could disable the "friend or foe" device.

Hal L.

What a shock, a bunch of Arabs that 90% can’t drive a car, is driving a nuclear powered vessel, running radar and sonar, and has the ability to lunch encrypted high yield weapons at all us paper white peace loving Christians that only want to get along in the world.

Try getting tossed out of your home and encamped for sixty years. See if you’re a peace loving man when you’re issued a gallon of water a day for your kids. Have a choice of Hamas (Gaza) were there are no soldiers moving into your home and you get no settlements. Or Fatah (West Bank), were you get both. What’s your vote?

The list of dead people and civilizations devoted to sharing the good news is long and sad. We’ll convert those damn dirty brown sand people yet.

If we ever have a problem with a single boat, simply call me. I have a drill.

Thanks for your kind words, and I appreciate any suggestions.

HL

Hi Hal,

I found your book very interesting. I yet to finish my reading and once done will give you more comments. I have added this to my watchlist.

RL

Hi Hal,

I found your book very interesting. I yet to finish my reading and once done will give you more comments. I have added this to my watchlist.

RL

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your kind words and suggestions. I'll have another go at this and consider your suggestions in a day or two when I get some other things I have to do out of the way.

HL

Hey Hal,
This is a good plot.
My observations after a few chapters: Don't use exclamation marks.
Your introduction is well done in that you tell us what is planned with the explosives (too many on here go straight into the action and we don't have a clue what's happening) Then, of course, the double cross.
There are some phrases you could do with tightening up. Just say all the parts of the (new) bomb were precisely machined (rather than repeating it for each item). ' the shots were mostly inaccurate,' (do you mean 'the shots whistled near him' or something
In the prologue: Do we need one or two names here? You will know if they are important later on. My feeling is that they were.
CH 1: I'm not convinced by the action here. A warship this size; the vision is of a lot of people left aboard, so you need to say it was deserted (but would all of the crew have gone to this mysterious banquet?). After the 'intruders' (this is a 'soft' word, then they become 'the searchers' - just say Arabs or whatever they are), have killed two people, shot at a third - a warning klaxon sounds without any affect. Then, before we are told that these 'intruders' only seem intent on getting rid of the pork from the kitchen. It is supposed to be dark, yet the 'intruders' can see sharks in the water. Then, some of the 'intruders' calmly sit down and start eating while all hell is let loose on deck. You would have to re-write this to make it credible. It would help if you mentioned the number of people raiding the ship otherwise all the action is undefined.
Sorry I can't be more positive at this stage.

Best of luck,

JOE CAPELLO (Beyond The Pale).
You don't need quote marks for what someone is thinking (indirect speech). 'Marsh still speechless with surprise'...(but who would he have to talk to other than himself from his POV).
With some