Series
Publication
HarperCollins (2019), 416 pages
Original publication date
1957
Collections
Awards
Description
Twelve hundred British soldiers isolated on the small island of Kheros off the Turkish coast, waiting to die. Twelve hundred lives in jeopardy, lives that could be saved if only the guns could be silenced. The guns of Navarone, vigilant, savage and catastrophically accurate. Navarone itself, grim bastion of narrow straits manned by a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians, an apparently impregnable iron fortress. To Captain Keith Mallory, skilled saboteur, trained mountaineer, fell the task of leading the small party detailed to scale the vast, impossible precipice of Navarone and to blow up the guns. The Guns of Navarone is the story of that mission, the tale of a calculated risk taken in the time of war�
User reviews
LibraryThing member jeffome
St. Barts 2013 # 10 - How can you not love Alistair MacLean?? Good gripping yarn, full of suspense. The task at hand is impossible to begin with and then every possible thing goes wrong......yet, will they prevail? Not sure why i did not go for 5 stars, but a little something is holding me
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back.....possibly the implausibilty of these beaten guys truly having the strength to maneuver and carry the volume of equipment needed throughout this adventure to accomplish their mission. Ok, maybe i'm too much of a realist......but who cares....I loved it and highly recommend to all lovers of adventure thrillers. This is my second MacLean and I have every other one he wrote on the shelf....I can't wait! Show Less
LibraryThing member stompro
A very enjoyable war/adventure story based in WW2. It had quite a bit of action and the pace was brisk.
LibraryThing member TadAD
I loved the book. Also, it's very rare for me to think a movie is even better, but I did in this case.
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
The novels involves an Allied commando raid against a fortress off Turkey. A team of five men led by Captain Keith Mallory of New Zealand and including the Greek resistance fighter Andreas and an American demolitions expert Corporal Dusty Miller must climb a sheer cliff of 400 feet considered
I've been working my way through a list of suspense novel recommendations, and of the twelve I've read so far, I liked this one the most. I have a friend who calls the thriller genre "dicklit" and goodness, it's true that too many of this sort of novel suffer from testosterone toxicity. Of those dozen novels, even though this is the one without one female character and this is the only real war novel, ironically this is the one without the macho posturing, which is something I found refreshing.
Maybe that's because MacLean as a World War II veteran has known war. Unlike the protagonists in novels I read by Lee Child, Vince Flynn and Ted Bell, his commandos come across as human. They all feel fear. The young lieutenant Andy Stevens particularly struggles with his fear of fear that could prove crippling or shaming. They don't revel in violence--or at least the good guys in this novel don't. They try to avoid taking life if they can, and regret it when they can't. They use their heads not just their fists. Which makes these characters for me both more sympathetic and more heroic than the cool he-man counterparts in the genre I've read so far.
This is also well-crafted and well-written. Not only does MacLean have a fairly strong prose style, he understands that the principle of a good suspense plot is "and then it got worse." It's a suspenseful novel that's a quick read, a real page turner. If I don't rate this higher, it's that in the end this doesn't make me want to pick up more of MacLean, or keep this novel on my bookshelves. But this is a good read, and if you're drawn to military fiction, this is certainly a well-done example of that genre.
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unclimbable, infiltrate a Nazi fortress and sabotage her guns to allow through a British fleet. At stake are the lives of 1,200 British soldiers stranded on an island. The novel takes place in the course of three days during World War II. I've been working my way through a list of suspense novel recommendations, and of the twelve I've read so far, I liked this one the most. I have a friend who calls the thriller genre "dicklit" and goodness, it's true that too many of this sort of novel suffer from testosterone toxicity. Of those dozen novels, even though this is the one without one female character and this is the only real war novel, ironically this is the one without the macho posturing, which is something I found refreshing.
Maybe that's because MacLean as a World War II veteran has known war. Unlike the protagonists in novels I read by Lee Child, Vince Flynn and Ted Bell, his commandos come across as human. They all feel fear. The young lieutenant Andy Stevens particularly struggles with his fear of fear that could prove crippling or shaming. They don't revel in violence--or at least the good guys in this novel don't. They try to avoid taking life if they can, and regret it when they can't. They use their heads not just their fists. Which makes these characters for me both more sympathetic and more heroic than the cool he-man counterparts in the genre I've read so far.
This is also well-crafted and well-written. Not only does MacLean have a fairly strong prose style, he understands that the principle of a good suspense plot is "and then it got worse." It's a suspenseful novel that's a quick read, a real page turner. If I don't rate this higher, it's that in the end this doesn't make me want to pick up more of MacLean, or keep this novel on my bookshelves. But this is a good read, and if you're drawn to military fiction, this is certainly a well-done example of that genre.
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LibraryThing member stuart10er
Good solid novel - read it mostly as an exercise in plotting. A select group of climber-soldiers must scale an unclimbed cliff face on an island off the coast of Turkey to blow up a German gun battery before a scheduled Allied fleet makes its way past the island. A few twists, but not many. Mostly
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just a straight ahead war novel. Predictable - but still an enjoyable (and instructive) read. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
I fondly remembered this film when I was younger and gave the original novel a try. I can picture MacLean laying out his 3x5 note cards, one for each major scene, going in sequence, then dreaming up tight spots and spectacular escapes to transition between each. Sort of like Star Trek where there's
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never any real danger of characters dieing except the sacrificial red-shirt lamb (Stevens). Basic stuff but it had its high moments (climbing the cliff), and places where it dragged (stuck in a cave). The ending is surprisingly anti-climatic (single white light in the distance). A mega-explosion in loving detail should have been the boss ending reward for finishing the book. The movie got it right. Show Less
LibraryThing member fuzzi
I have enjoyed watching the movie "The Guns of Navarone" on numerous occasions, but never read the original book, not until now.
And as much as I like the movie, I equally like the book, which is different from the film in many areas.
The author drew me into the story, immersed me deep within the
I am definitely going to try other books by this author.
And as much as I like the movie, I equally like the book, which is different from the film in many areas.
The author drew me into the story, immersed me deep within the
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players, and kept me turning page after page, even though 'technically' I already knew the ending. I got lost, for a time, on a small island, some 70 years ago.I am definitely going to try other books by this author.
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LibraryThing member scottcholstad
I wasn't sure what to expect with this novel, as many of MacLean's books tend to be a bit "fluffy" for me, but I wasn't disappointed with his efforts on this one. Of course, like many, I'd seen the film when I was a kid, but I'd only now picked up a copy of the book to read and I'm glad I did.
The
Enter Captain Keith Mallory. He is a famous New Zealander rock climber who has survived behind enemy lines for months at a time. He's going to lead this little expedition. His close Greek friend and killing machine, Andrea, is coming along. So too, Stevens, good at linguistics and rock climbing, Brown, a saboteur, and Miller, a brash American who is a medic and a demolitions man. They have three days to scale the sheer 400 foot cliff walls on the southern side of Navarone, destroy the guns, and escape before the British navy arrives.
The climb nearly kills them. As luck would have it, a German spy back at HQ had alerted the Germans to their presence, so everyone's looking for them everywhere, making it virtually impossible to go anywhere, get anything done. They do hook up with two resistance fighters and the reader spends the next few days in a frenzy with these men, anxiously trying to enter the fortress and destroy the guns and then escape. It's a pretty exciting story.
This book reminded me a lot of Where Eagles Dare. In fact, it seemed like a complete rip off. I don't know which was published first, probably this one, but there are a ton of similarities. The cold, the high altitudes, the climbing, the near inhuman strength our protagonists must display, the injuries and deaths our heroes encounter, the "elite" status of the German troops, the back stabbings and betrayals. Very similar. But they're both still good books. I'd read each again. My primary complaint is in MacLean's boilerplate formula for his protagonist heroes. They always seem to know the right things to do and say. They always seem to fight through exhaustion with superhuman strength and, indeed, have superhuman strength. And that just doesn't seem too realistic to me. It makes them out to be more superhero than anything to me, but perhaps that's just my viewpoint, I don't know. Anyway, not a bad book. Now I want to see the movie again. Recommended.
The
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setting is somewhere in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey after Italy threw in the towel in WWII. The Germans control a series of islands and the shipping lanes through them, although I don't know how historically accurate this would have been, because they do so through their feared air force, complete with hundreds of Stukas. I would have thought their air force would have been non-existent by then, but then I'm not a WWII scholar, so I'm willing to be wrong. Anyway, 1200 British troops are trapped on one of these islands and are awaiting rescue, but the problem is, it's got to be by boat and that can't be done because the mythical guns of Navarone rule the area, huge, monstrous guns protected by natural and man-made defenses, making it a virtual impregnable fortress. It'd be a suicide mission for anyone to attack it and yet, the British navy has to sail right by it within days to rescue these troops. Enter Captain Keith Mallory. He is a famous New Zealander rock climber who has survived behind enemy lines for months at a time. He's going to lead this little expedition. His close Greek friend and killing machine, Andrea, is coming along. So too, Stevens, good at linguistics and rock climbing, Brown, a saboteur, and Miller, a brash American who is a medic and a demolitions man. They have three days to scale the sheer 400 foot cliff walls on the southern side of Navarone, destroy the guns, and escape before the British navy arrives.
The climb nearly kills them. As luck would have it, a German spy back at HQ had alerted the Germans to their presence, so everyone's looking for them everywhere, making it virtually impossible to go anywhere, get anything done. They do hook up with two resistance fighters and the reader spends the next few days in a frenzy with these men, anxiously trying to enter the fortress and destroy the guns and then escape. It's a pretty exciting story.
This book reminded me a lot of Where Eagles Dare. In fact, it seemed like a complete rip off. I don't know which was published first, probably this one, but there are a ton of similarities. The cold, the high altitudes, the climbing, the near inhuman strength our protagonists must display, the injuries and deaths our heroes encounter, the "elite" status of the German troops, the back stabbings and betrayals. Very similar. But they're both still good books. I'd read each again. My primary complaint is in MacLean's boilerplate formula for his protagonist heroes. They always seem to know the right things to do and say. They always seem to fight through exhaustion with superhuman strength and, indeed, have superhuman strength. And that just doesn't seem too realistic to me. It makes them out to be more superhero than anything to me, but perhaps that's just my viewpoint, I don't know. Anyway, not a bad book. Now I want to see the movie again. Recommended.
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
A seemingly impossible military mission to take a target that is supposedly impregnable. Good set up and wonderful suspense.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
A very good thriller. The attitudes of the characters are very 1950's, the ethos that also gave rise to the James Bond stories. Our hero is a skilled climber, plucked from a relative backwater to perform a desperate mission. The locals are helpful, bt engaged in their own politics, and the villain,
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a former professional rival. A satisfying escape. Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
According to Wikipedia,
"The Greek island of Navarone does not exist and the plot is fictitious; however, the story takes place within the real historical context of the Dodecanese Campaign, the Allies' campaign to capture the German-held Greek islands in the Aegean Sea in 1943. The story is based
I have seen the film version a few times but found the book more interesting, in part because the reader is given the thoughts of various characters along the way which changed my feeling about some of them. In the book, all the characters are male - I can understand why the 2 natives of Navarone were changed to women in the movie but the story makes more sense this way. Of course, having seen the movie removed some of the tension from the book as I knew what was coming; I admire the way MacLean gives the reader clues to what will come very subtly, almost like Agatha Christie!
"The Greek island of Navarone does not exist and the plot is fictitious; however, the story takes place within the real historical context of the Dodecanese Campaign, the Allies' campaign to capture the German-held Greek islands in the Aegean Sea in 1943. The story is based
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on the Battle of Leros, and Leros island's coastal artillery guns – among the largest naval artillery guns used during World War II – that were built and used by the Italians until Italy capitulated in 1943 and subsequently used by the Germans until their defeat."I have seen the film version a few times but found the book more interesting, in part because the reader is given the thoughts of various characters along the way which changed my feeling about some of them. In the book, all the characters are male - I can understand why the 2 natives of Navarone were changed to women in the movie but the story makes more sense this way. Of course, having seen the movie removed some of the tension from the book as I knew what was coming; I admire the way MacLean gives the reader clues to what will come very subtly, almost like Agatha Christie!
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LibraryThing member Kindleifier
Perhaps it is a mistake to revisit books I enjoyed in my uncritical teens.
I read a lot of MacLean way back then but now I find his style cloying in its over-use of superlatives. Now, too, I find the attitudes and responses of the wartime soldiers quite incredible - for example, the character who,
The only characters that really came to life for me were Andrea and the fearful young Lieutenant, with Louki as a good runner-up. Mallory, the principal character, was given to too much maundering introspection for a man leading a dangerous act of sabotage.
I wasn’t enamoured of the narrator on this occasion. At times there seems to be over long gaps followed by a gabble of words, which was distracting. I disliked intensely the accent given to Miller, the American, and like another reviewer I found myself constantly correcting the narrator’s pronunciation of Andrea’s name.
Overall this recording of this book failed to draw me in.
I read a lot of MacLean way back then but now I find his style cloying in its over-use of superlatives. Now, too, I find the attitudes and responses of the wartime soldiers quite incredible - for example, the character who,
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hearing his team leader plan an ambush of an approaching group of enemies in a kill-or-be-killed situation, protests “You can’t do that. It would be murder!”The only characters that really came to life for me were Andrea and the fearful young Lieutenant, with Louki as a good runner-up. Mallory, the principal character, was given to too much maundering introspection for a man leading a dangerous act of sabotage.
I wasn’t enamoured of the narrator on this occasion. At times there seems to be over long gaps followed by a gabble of words, which was distracting. I disliked intensely the accent given to Miller, the American, and like another reviewer I found myself constantly correcting the narrator’s pronunciation of Andrea’s name.
Overall this recording of this book failed to draw me in.
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LibraryThing member aeceyton
I didn't think i would enjoy it as much as I did but just lost interest about three quarters thru and had to fight to finish. You get bored of a cast of super talented uber males
LibraryThing member ikeman100
Pretty good book by MacLean. I've read better WWII fiction but it was worth reading.
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0008337292 / 9780008337292
Physical description
416 p.; 7.8 inches
Pages
416