Friendship Games Earns MWSA Bronze Medal Award

Last month, the Mililtary Writers Society of America (MWSA) held their annual banquet in Newbury, Connecticut, and announced their award winners.

Friendship Games won the MWSA Bronze Medal Award.  From their reviewers:

Reviewer 1:

"This book was totally engrossing with fast-paced action from beginning to end. The author did a great job on character development and descriptions of people, places, and warfare. I did not find redundancies or repetition in this all too real WWIII scenario.

The author did a remarkable job in the setting and plot of the story. Mr. James kept all the characters as integral parts of this completely
credible literary puzzle.

The ending caught me by surprise and I had to re-read the whole thing. With the entire book seeming so realistic, the ending differed - fantastical is how I'd put it. However, I put the book down, satisfied with the read.

Great job!"

Reviewer 2:

"Interesting story on modern global tensions.  Certainly a lesson in not underestimating one's adversaries."

Reviewer 3: 

"The hypothesis was intriguing ... I felt there should be more questions as to why or how the ship exploded leaving more doubt for the concluding page. 

I did like the hypothesis. Good message.

Frequent moving about in locations required a close following on Google Earth to understand
where the action was occurring. Many-many Arabic place names and individual names were used, which made reading very difficult--understandable due to principal location."

My response:

You can see why it's a Bronze Medal and not a Silver or Gold.  As the author, I find others' interpretations fascinating.  But their take is very much subjective and not consistent - a lesson learned.

I left out a couple of critiques by Reviewer 3 - they weren't sure that the Chinese stealth planes could carry eight 1,000 pound bombs, or that you can see incoming missiles.  

First, it is fiction; second, I do research. The FC-31 Gyrfalcon can carry up to eighteen thousand pounds of bombs and missiles.  Second, incoming warheads will heat up in the atmosphere as they descend, creating a falling star effect.  It is physics.  Anyone who remembers the First Gulf War remembers seeing Iraqi Scud  missiles descend on Saudi Arabia and Israel.  They were not invisible.

Nevertheless, I do very much appreciate all three of the reviewers' comments.