MASH Goes to Moscow

M*A*S*H #14

by Richard Hooker, William E. Butterworth III

Vintage TV tie-in paperback

Genres: Fiction, Humor

175 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1977

About the author

Richard Hooker is the pseudonym of Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr. who was born February 1, 1924 and died November 4, 1997. He was an American writer and surgeon. His most famous work was his novel MASH (1968). The novel was based on his own personal experiences during the Korean War at the 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. It was written in collaboration with W. C. Heinz. The novel took 11 years to write. In 1970, and then again from 1972-1983 it was used as the basis for a critically and commercially successful movie and television series of the same name.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
Richard^Hooker

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointing conclusion to the series, but seeing as how the last few entries have degraded so, an understandable one. Hawkeye and Trapper and pushed to the sidelines, the new characters are wholly uninteresting, and since there's never an effective foil set up or an obstacle to overcome (even the expected objections from Boris never appear) everything just kind of ... ends.

[Christopher Rush · Rating 4 out of 5]

One gets the feeling Butterworth knew around Montreal and Moscow the end was near, though had he known for certain Moscow would be his final contribution to the series, perhaps he wouldn't have felt compelled to create more new characters and would have focused on bringing to a nice completion some of the storylines and characters this world already had. As annoying as Boris has been at times, his total absence in Montreal was a bit of a letdown; giving him more of the focus in Moscow was a nice touch, though having him in it more would have been even better. Not having Hot Lips at all is very odd, since she has been in all of them since New Orleans. It was nice to have Radar and Kristina back, even if only over the phone; Mulcahy's return was likewise welcome, as well, surprisingly enough, was Pancho's. It was also very nice to have Angus show up again, though he seems to have been forgotten by the end of the book. The thought that the gang gets together regularly for poker, though, like in the ol' Swamp days, is a nice thought to end this series. The main letdowns of the book, again, are the new characters, especially the overabundance of time they have in the story. Jim-Boy is in it too much; Shur-lee Strydent is definitely in it too much. Again we have another character type creation that didn't need to exist: this world already has an over-hyped television star in Patience, just as there was no need to make new Senators in Texas and here (though it was nice to have at least a little closure to Smiley Jackson's career). The ending of Montreal left us wanting closure for Esther, as well as hopefully a restoration of Matthew and his girl, but we didn't get it here. As nice as it was to have reminders of so many old friends, that should have been the focus. Just as with Hollywood, we don't even see the gang actually in Moscow, which is also a bit disappointing (even though the stories are resolved nicely, for the most part). Why Hawkeye and Trapper are angry with Boris to begin with is never explained, either, but the brief moments at home (even though dulled with the religious character stereotypes - some of Butterworth's worst work, along with Sitting Buffalo) with Mary and Lucinda help make up for some of it (though the whole soap opera thing never really pans out - is Patience staring in it? is Shur-lee, despite her early objections?) Butterworth returns to some early staples of the series as well, especially the telegram device, which was in an odd way a welcome return, though used differently here. Though Hassan's character is different from usual, it's nice to see him do something other than blindly adore Boris, just as it was nice to see the 4077 gang (especially Mulcahy) more involved in wrapping up the story. This, along with the too-brief reminders and visits from some of this world's characters, makes Montreal a decent finish to this part of the series.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating 2.5

Marginally better than the previous 2-3 titles in the series I thought. Not by very much though tbh.
But it had the least to do with the characters of MASH and really only focused (if that word could be used in reference to this novel) on the non-MASH characters created during the series.
It also had the by now standard problem which is ‘where is the rest of the story?’ . The novel just stopped when it reached a required word/page count - not a new issue it must be said as the same thing happens to multiple titles in the series.
Not so much a satisfying ending to the story more a headlong run into a brick wall.

Thankfully I only have a reread of ‘MASH Mania’ next month to complete the series (I may just read it ahead of the end of the month as it is better than the majority of the series). One book a month hasn’t been that bad really but blimey the quality of the titles has certainly dropped.

[Jeff Mayo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another disappointing MASH novel. Hawkeye, Trapper, and Radar make appearances, but as is usual with the Butterworth penned titles, they were just there to introduce a forgettable, boring cast.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glad I'm finally finished with Butterworth's entries in the series. Trapper and Hawkeye deserved so much more pages than they did.