Captain Blackman by John A. Williams

Captain Blackman Reviews

• 
  Joachim Boaz

  Full review:
  https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
  
  "John A. Williams’ spins a fever dream of an injured black Vietnam War soldier hurled via hallucinatory time-travel into all of America’s conflicts. While hospitalized, Abraham Blackman, who teaches a military seminar to his troops, plays the archetypal role of black soldier from the Revolutionary War to a near-future Cold War conflict. In each conflict, white men preach the promise of [...]"
• 
  Evan

  Ugh. one of Williams' misses -- and it misses hard. An attempt to celebrate the african american contribution to military experience turns into a repetative, shallow novel that has a few good moments overshadowed by a lack of real exploration. perhaps it was too ambitious to try and cover every war in US history? Perhaps, also, it fails to do some basic work in developing the characters (who change slightly in every war that the main character appears in). Williams seems uninterested in clearly informing the reader whether the main character simply appears in each conflict or if he lives through the times of peace in between. no one seems to notice/care that a modern man keeps showing up from nowhere.
  
  In the end, it seems to all be a mortal-injury related dream. but by then it doesn't matter.
• 
  Eric

  A black, military Orlando. I'm all about that. What a bummer if it's no good!
• 
  Oliver

  Functional
  
  Its just like reading a physical book. The quick menu options make chapter surfing easy. But what the program lacks is PAGE NUMBERS. For a program that seeks to make reading efficient on a tablet, its completely COUNTERINTUITIVE to not have page numbers!! This makes quoting impossible for academic purposes. Overall its a working product though.