What do you think?
Rate this book
The Bruno Stachel series #1
The Blue Max
Bruno Stachel is a nobody, a newly recruited junior officer in a First World War German combat squadron. But he is determined not to remain a nobody for long. He has his sights on the Blue Max - the most coveted of all German decorations - and he will do anything to get it. From the very moment he shoots down his first plane, everything he does is aimed in that bedding his commander's wife, courting publicity at every turn, even arranging the deaths of his competitors
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
7 people are currently reading
160 people want to read
About the author
Jack D. Hunter
27 books9 followersHunter was born in Hamilton, Ohio, on June 4, 1921, the son of Whitney G. and Irene Dayton Hunter. Ironically, while his father, whose long career with the Du Pont Company began as a paint color evaluator because of his sensitivity to colors, Hunter was red-green blind. He graduated with a BA in journalism from Penn State University in 1943.
During World War II, Hunter joined the U.S. Army, but when he could not recognize the color of flares or follow tracer bullets he was transferred to counter-intelligence in a move that spared him the fate of most of the others in his infantry class — death on Omaha Beach during D-Day.
Because he spoke German, having taught himself and then studied it in college, Hunter was sent to Germany just after the war ended. The Allies had discovered that some high-ranking Nazis had gone underground and were waiting until the political atmosphere settled down, at which point the Nazis would infiltrate the new German government. As a 24-year-old lieutenant, Hunter, disguised as a Lithuanian black marketeer, engineered a sting called "Operation Nursery", which resulted in the arrest of over 1000 Nazi plotters in a single night. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
"Operation Nursery," including Jack Hunter's role in it forms the basis of the nonfiction book The Axmann Conspiracy: The Nazi Plan for a Fourth Reich and How the U.S. Army Defeated It, Berkley Books (Penguin), Sept. 2012.
After the war, Hunter worked in various journalistic capacities, as a public relations executive for Du Pont, and as a speech writer in Washington D.C.
His first novel was 'The Blue Max', and the publisher remarked that, as a new author, they would not spend the money to have an artist paint a color cover for his book. Hunter, who often dabbled in water colors, volunteered to paint it himself. The publisher liked it and used it, and Hunter considered that cover painting to be his first "sale". He then turned what was once a hobby into a second career as an aviation artist.
Hunter was the author of 17 novels, his last being 'The Ace', which was published on October 1, 2008. Like The Blue Max, which is still popular after 44 years, 'The Ace' deals with World War I aviation, but focuses on the human costs and chaotic conditions that belabored the Americans in their need to build a world-class air force virtually overnight.
During the 1980s, Hunter served as the writing coach for reporters working at the (now defunct) Jacksonville Journal and for the Florida Times-Union, which still publishes in Jacksonville. In this role, which continued three days a week for 10 years, Hunter provided encouragement, tutelage and support to hundreds of journalists, some of whom went on to work at The New York Times, The Denver Post, The Miami Herald and in many other venues.
He lived in St. Augustine, Florida, until he died at age 87 on April 13, 2009.
During World War II, Hunter joined the U.S. Army, but when he could not recognize the color of flares or follow tracer bullets he was transferred to counter-intelligence in a move that spared him the fate of most of the others in his infantry class — death on Omaha Beach during D-Day.
Because he spoke German, having taught himself and then studied it in college, Hunter was sent to Germany just after the war ended. The Allies had discovered that some high-ranking Nazis had gone underground and were waiting until the political atmosphere settled down, at which point the Nazis would infiltrate the new German government. As a 24-year-old lieutenant, Hunter, disguised as a Lithuanian black marketeer, engineered a sting called "Operation Nursery", which resulted in the arrest of over 1000 Nazi plotters in a single night. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
"Operation Nursery," including Jack Hunter's role in it forms the basis of the nonfiction book The Axmann Conspiracy: The Nazi Plan for a Fourth Reich and How the U.S. Army Defeated It, Berkley Books (Penguin), Sept. 2012.
After the war, Hunter worked in various journalistic capacities, as a public relations executive for Du Pont, and as a speech writer in Washington D.C.
His first novel was 'The Blue Max', and the publisher remarked that, as a new author, they would not spend the money to have an artist paint a color cover for his book. Hunter, who often dabbled in water colors, volunteered to paint it himself. The publisher liked it and used it, and Hunter considered that cover painting to be his first "sale". He then turned what was once a hobby into a second career as an aviation artist.
Hunter was the author of 17 novels, his last being 'The Ace', which was published on October 1, 2008. Like The Blue Max, which is still popular after 44 years, 'The Ace' deals with World War I aviation, but focuses on the human costs and chaotic conditions that belabored the Americans in their need to build a world-class air force virtually overnight.
During the 1980s, Hunter served as the writing coach for reporters working at the (now defunct) Jacksonville Journal and for the Florida Times-Union, which still publishes in Jacksonville. In this role, which continued three days a week for 10 years, Hunter provided encouragement, tutelage and support to hundreds of journalists, some of whom went on to work at The New York Times, The Denver Post, The Miami Herald and in many other venues.
He lived in St. Augustine, Florida, until he died at age 87 on April 13, 2009.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
October 24, 2023
🌩️ It’s a dystopian novel where the writer focuses on both the sordidness of war and the sordidness of human life and relationships.
The story is centered around the pilots, staff and ground crew of a German squadron. There are about ten aerial combats in the novel with various outcomes. We are taken inside the pilots’ heads a great deal. It’s almost like psychoanalysis. We also sit at different tables where probing questions are asked and discussed. That’s the philosophical aspect of the book.
The main protagonist Bruno is not a good man. He’s vain and vicious, even sadistic and murderous, and quarrels with everyone, including himself and his concept of God. Still, he wants to change, he wants to better himself. But we see only flashes of success. Life disillusions and defeats him. Even winning the coveted Blue Max offers no long-lasting satisfaction. How medals are bequeathed is not how he’d hoped they’d be won. Bravery does not matter.
The book is well-written, but the dystopian bent drags everything down into the muck and mire of flawed human existence and stains even what joy there might be. I did not find the storyline invigorating - it was not meant to be. But the novel does make you think.
☁️[As an aside, I found the film with George Peppard, Ursula Andress and James Mason to be excellent. Its aerial photography and the WW1 aircraft are especially striking. There was no such thing as CGG when The Blue Max was filmed so it’s quite amazing.]
The story is centered around the pilots, staff and ground crew of a German squadron. There are about ten aerial combats in the novel with various outcomes. We are taken inside the pilots’ heads a great deal. It’s almost like psychoanalysis. We also sit at different tables where probing questions are asked and discussed. That’s the philosophical aspect of the book.
The main protagonist Bruno is not a good man. He’s vain and vicious, even sadistic and murderous, and quarrels with everyone, including himself and his concept of God. Still, he wants to change, he wants to better himself. But we see only flashes of success. Life disillusions and defeats him. Even winning the coveted Blue Max offers no long-lasting satisfaction. How medals are bequeathed is not how he’d hoped they’d be won. Bravery does not matter.
The book is well-written, but the dystopian bent drags everything down into the muck and mire of flawed human existence and stains even what joy there might be. I did not find the storyline invigorating - it was not meant to be. But the novel does make you think.
☁️[As an aside, I found the film with George Peppard, Ursula Andress and James Mason to be excellent. Its aerial photography and the WW1 aircraft are especially striking. There was no such thing as CGG when The Blue Max was filmed so it’s quite amazing.]
May 15, 2016
Like many other Goodreads reviewers of this novel, I picked up this novel after having seen on TV during the 1970s the movie adaptation of "The Blue Max", which impressed me a lot.
The novel is centered on Bruno Stachel, a young man of humble origins (his father worked in a modest hotel in the Black Forest), who had transferred from the infantry to the Imperial German Air Service. As a newly minted fighter pilot, he arrives at a Jasta (fighter squadron) situated not far from the Front. It is early 1918, several weeks before Germany would embark on a series of offensives to win the war before the Americans could arrive in strength and help ensure an Allied victory. Stachel is a bit ill-at-ease for he is the new guy at the Jasta, the greenhorn. So he puts up a brave front with his comrades. He wants so much to be the hero and join the pantheon of the great German aces (e.g., Boelcke, Immelmann, and Manfred von Richthofen aka The Red Baron) by earning Imperial Germany's highest award for bravery: the Order Pour le Mérite. Better known as the Blue Max.
But in order to earn the Blue Max -- not an easy feat --- a fighter pilot has to earn his mettle through the crucible of air combat by shooting down a significant number of enemy aircraft. Stachel is on a steep learning curve and has to prove himself. So, his commander, Hauptmann Heidemann (himself a holder of the Blue Max) assigns him a Pfalz DIII, which though graceful in appearance, is one of the unit's cast offs, a marked contrast to the standard Albatros and Fokker Triplane fighters with which the majority of the Jasta is equipped.
As the novel progresses, the reader experiences the ups and downs of life at the Front (with some views of life back in Germany), as well as Stachel's burning ambition to be the best fighter pilot in the Jasta. It is an ambition that alienates Stachel from many of his comrades, who resent his growing arrogance as he grows in experience and skill as a combat pilot.
This is a novel that I -- as a student of World War I air combat -- thoroughly enjoyed reading. It's packed with adventure, excitement, raw human emotions, and tragedy. And it's well-written. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
The novel is centered on Bruno Stachel, a young man of humble origins (his father worked in a modest hotel in the Black Forest), who had transferred from the infantry to the Imperial German Air Service. As a newly minted fighter pilot, he arrives at a Jasta (fighter squadron) situated not far from the Front. It is early 1918, several weeks before Germany would embark on a series of offensives to win the war before the Americans could arrive in strength and help ensure an Allied victory. Stachel is a bit ill-at-ease for he is the new guy at the Jasta, the greenhorn. So he puts up a brave front with his comrades. He wants so much to be the hero and join the pantheon of the great German aces (e.g., Boelcke, Immelmann, and Manfred von Richthofen aka The Red Baron) by earning Imperial Germany's highest award for bravery: the Order Pour le Mérite. Better known as the Blue Max.
But in order to earn the Blue Max -- not an easy feat --- a fighter pilot has to earn his mettle through the crucible of air combat by shooting down a significant number of enemy aircraft. Stachel is on a steep learning curve and has to prove himself. So, his commander, Hauptmann Heidemann (himself a holder of the Blue Max) assigns him a Pfalz DIII, which though graceful in appearance, is one of the unit's cast offs, a marked contrast to the standard Albatros and Fokker Triplane fighters with which the majority of the Jasta is equipped.
As the novel progresses, the reader experiences the ups and downs of life at the Front (with some views of life back in Germany), as well as Stachel's burning ambition to be the best fighter pilot in the Jasta. It is an ambition that alienates Stachel from many of his comrades, who resent his growing arrogance as he grows in experience and skill as a combat pilot.
This is a novel that I -- as a student of World War I air combat -- thoroughly enjoyed reading. It's packed with adventure, excitement, raw human emotions, and tragedy. And it's well-written. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Want to read
June 1, 2009The mid-'60s George Peppard film version of this 1964 novel, once such a popular and oft-mentioned guy flick, seems to have strayed off the radar. But it was a rollicking good entertainment, and a quick skim of the novel bodes well, too. Soon...
August 11, 2015
Like many readers of this novel I came to it via the George Peppard film adaptation which I remember seeing back in the Seventies. This is an excellent example of a so-so book making a better movie. Peppard's Bruno Stachel is a more sympathetic character than the book version though, as described, he is as handsome as the movie star in his prime.
To be honest, I found it very refreshing that Hunter felt absolutely no need to soften Bruno's edges in any way to make him remotely likeable. That isn't to say Bruno is not sympathetic. He is, eventually, but it takes a heck of a long while to get there. For most of the novel I could quite cheerfully have seen him crash & burn in his plane with nary a hint of a tear of regret or sorrow. An out an out cad, a selfish, arrogant bundle of insecurity with a big chip on his shoulder as a chap of humble background serving with snooty upper class types who regard the likes of Stachel as vulgar upstarts barely fit to wipe their boots. Stachel might be an anti-hero but he isn't the charismatic kind of Bad Boy, more a despicable heel. Probably more realistic but not so much fun for the reader.
And then, late into the novel Bruno himself points out he is just 19 years old and you realise what a naive boy he is really, placed into a wartime situation in which grown men crack up and behave as badly if not worse. Bruno takes to drink and, really, it is perfectly understandable he does so. Unfortunately, he is one of those nasty, violent, unpredictable drunks with low tolerance for alcohol and quickly his life slides off the rails, though he wins the coveted “Le Pour le Merite” medal known as the Blue Max.
Even the way Bruno uses women, in context, can be seen as understandable, though modern sensibilities will cause those not willing to think in terms of social attitudes in 1918 to seethe with fury at perceived misogyny and sexism. To be honest though, Bruno is equal opportunity when it comes to relationships, just as boorish and manipulative with males as females in his orbit. In any case, he's a whizz flying ace who gets results, i.e. downs enemy airmen with ruthless determination and that is what counts in times of war not who has the nicest manners and tops popularity polls. Of course aristocratic types believe this should be done with honour and style whereas Bruno will do anything to achieve his goal using fair means or foul. And anyway, those around Bruno, including the women, are just as cynical and ruthless in using him for their objectives. He becomes a hero but one for his times, tarnished and ignoble, somewhat appropriate for the first industrialised war in which mass slaughter became the norm.
No, it isn't Bruno per se that sours this novel for me, it's the inconsistencies and downright baffling switches in characterisation as the story develops. Not just with Bruno, either. So characters act as they do because it is required by the plot, leaving the perplexed reader wondering "Where did THAT come from?!" Bruno's 'drunk'scenes make for very difficult reading and I couldn't help wondering how he manages to keep upright never mind fly an aeroplane into combat. It also seems far fetched those above him in rank wouldn't notice just how completely 'out of it' Bruno is from the effects of drinking before-during-after flying. The smell alone surely would give him away?
However, the novel is entertaining enough and will interest anyone who enjoyed the film or has an interest in a slightly different take on the First World War from the usual trenches of the Western Front. It's pulpy, though, rather than classic war fiction. For what it is, that's good enough for me. I liked it well enough to order the two follow-up novels, to see where Hunter takes Bruno Stachel beyond 1918. Somehow I imagine Bruno will fit well into Weimar Germany and the Nazi era beyond.
To be honest, I found it very refreshing that Hunter felt absolutely no need to soften Bruno's edges in any way to make him remotely likeable. That isn't to say Bruno is not sympathetic. He is, eventually, but it takes a heck of a long while to get there. For most of the novel I could quite cheerfully have seen him crash & burn in his plane with nary a hint of a tear of regret or sorrow. An out an out cad, a selfish, arrogant bundle of insecurity with a big chip on his shoulder as a chap of humble background serving with snooty upper class types who regard the likes of Stachel as vulgar upstarts barely fit to wipe their boots. Stachel might be an anti-hero but he isn't the charismatic kind of Bad Boy, more a despicable heel. Probably more realistic but not so much fun for the reader.
And then, late into the novel Bruno himself points out he is just 19 years old and you realise what a naive boy he is really, placed into a wartime situation in which grown men crack up and behave as badly if not worse. Bruno takes to drink and, really, it is perfectly understandable he does so. Unfortunately, he is one of those nasty, violent, unpredictable drunks with low tolerance for alcohol and quickly his life slides off the rails, though he wins the coveted “Le Pour le Merite” medal known as the Blue Max.
Even the way Bruno uses women, in context, can be seen as understandable, though modern sensibilities will cause those not willing to think in terms of social attitudes in 1918 to seethe with fury at perceived misogyny and sexism. To be honest though, Bruno is equal opportunity when it comes to relationships, just as boorish and manipulative with males as females in his orbit. In any case, he's a whizz flying ace who gets results, i.e. downs enemy airmen with ruthless determination and that is what counts in times of war not who has the nicest manners and tops popularity polls. Of course aristocratic types believe this should be done with honour and style whereas Bruno will do anything to achieve his goal using fair means or foul. And anyway, those around Bruno, including the women, are just as cynical and ruthless in using him for their objectives. He becomes a hero but one for his times, tarnished and ignoble, somewhat appropriate for the first industrialised war in which mass slaughter became the norm.
No, it isn't Bruno per se that sours this novel for me, it's the inconsistencies and downright baffling switches in characterisation as the story develops. Not just with Bruno, either. So characters act as they do because it is required by the plot, leaving the perplexed reader wondering "Where did THAT come from?!" Bruno's 'drunk'scenes make for very difficult reading and I couldn't help wondering how he manages to keep upright never mind fly an aeroplane into combat. It also seems far fetched those above him in rank wouldn't notice just how completely 'out of it' Bruno is from the effects of drinking before-during-after flying. The smell alone surely would give him away?
However, the novel is entertaining enough and will interest anyone who enjoyed the film or has an interest in a slightly different take on the First World War from the usual trenches of the Western Front. It's pulpy, though, rather than classic war fiction. For what it is, that's good enough for me. I liked it well enough to order the two follow-up novels, to see where Hunter takes Bruno Stachel beyond 1918. Somehow I imagine Bruno will fit well into Weimar Germany and the Nazi era beyond.
May 28, 2021
I probably should have read the back cover of THE BLUE MAX before I started it. I was expecting a story very similar to the famous film which was based on it, but Jack Hunter’s purpose in penning this novel was quite different in agenda from the men who wrote and produced the movie. “The Blue Max” (film) was the story of a callow and ambitious young man determined to win military glory at any cost so as to overcome the class barriers of Imperial Germany and earn the respect his modest birth denied him. THE BLUE MAX (the book) is, and I quote, an answer to the question Hunter asked himself after WW2: “What happened in their youth that enabled those apparently civilized men – the Nazis – to become such monsters?”
Hunter had reason to want to know. He served in U.S. military intelligence in WW2 and was a key player in Operation Nursery, a sting operation designed to smash the underground “Fourth Reich” movement which sprung up in Germany after the war ended. Well, Hunter’s answer is revealed in the form of the book’s protagonist, Bruno Stachel. In the last year of WW1, Stachel arrives at a fighter squadron on the Western Front – a young man of uncertain personality, whose only salient characteristics seem to be social awkwardness, a mercurial temperament and raging alcoholism.
Nobody knows what to make of this fellow, but Stachel soon reveals a fourth quality – his incredible, obsessive, ruthless thirst for personal glory, which both alienates his squadron mates and draws the attention of his squadron commander, Otto Heidemann. A stern, uncharismatic, by-the-book Prussian, Heidemann sees in Stachel an opportunity to advance his own secret ambitions...but to do so, he must ensure that Bruno becomes a famous ace and wins the coveted medal the Orden Pour le Merité , the famous “Blue Max.”
This is easier said than done, because the only thing that Stachel is good at aside from putting away liquor and people is getting into the worst possible kinds of trouble. Before the story is half-finished, he’s been blackmailed, assaulted several of his squadron-mates, committed a cold-blooded murder, seduced the wife of one of the few men who has his best interests at heart, and generally behaved like the selfish, exploitative bastard he is. Yet beneath all this muck there are polyps of decency. Stachel knows he’s a rotter and a user and despises himself, and part of him longs to be the “good fellow” he periodically can be. And that, in the end, is the crux of THE BLUE MAX. Which way will Stachel turn? Which side of his Jekkyl & Hyde (mostly Hyde) personality will he embrace? He knows the glory he’s chasing is illusory, that no amount of money, fame, medals, women or alcohol will fill the void in his soul…but he also knows that surrendering to evil is easier than fighting it. And in some ways, more comforting as well.
THE BLUE MAX is a strange novel. Hunter’s dialogue is very good, almost noirish in its crackling cynicism, and his fluent understanding of the German language allows him to write in English yet convey the subtleness of German in a way very few writers have ever done. His prose style is picturesque in many ways, even lurid, yet usually pleasing to read, and he has a keen understanding of alcoholism and the loneliness that underlies it (“It was the same as always. He had known it would be as soon as he had scented the keenness of the brandy. The first one was a liberation, a salving shift of the melancholy and aloneness. The second was nothing special, the clicking sharpness in the chest having fled with the diminishing first. The third and fourth and fifth and the others were wooden repetitions, a mechanical process that went on simply because it couldn’t be denied or shut off. Now, as it had been from the earliest time, the inevitable dullness was there. Why couldn’t he win and retain the soaring awareness of life, the singing sense of power and cleanliness and rightness in himself, the identity of that self with the etched-crystal world all around? Why did the miracle always die so quickly, to leave nothing but the dullness and the involuntary reflex: eyes to the ceiling, emptily, the liquid sound in the dark?”
Yet the book’s theme is muddy and the novel itself is ill-named. In the movie version, Bruno is obsessed with the Blue Max; his very quest for it reflects the emptiness of himself as a human being (all the more tragic because Bruno himself is ignorant of his own flaws), and his receipt of it sets up the film’s devastating climax. In the book there is no such emphasis and no such graceful symmetry of storytelling. Indeed, the transitions in the book are very bad and the pacing is way off, too – too many characters die too soon, leaving the second half of the book somewhat bereft of people.
What’s more, though it is set in a fighter squadron and there is plenty of aerial combat, it is not really a war novel in the conventional sense – it is really about a self-loathing drunkard with decidedly psychopathic tendencies, and unless you revel in the moral chaos of noir, that’s a tough protagonist to swallow.
I should say in closing that while I have mixed feelings about this novel, I did order its sequel, THE BLOOD ORDER, which further chronicles the protagonist’s evolution into a Nazi. Hunter may not be the best storyteller, but sometimes the parts are more interesting than the whole, and the parts of THE BLUE MAX were interesting enough to keep me reading.
Hunter had reason to want to know. He served in U.S. military intelligence in WW2 and was a key player in Operation Nursery, a sting operation designed to smash the underground “Fourth Reich” movement which sprung up in Germany after the war ended. Well, Hunter’s answer is revealed in the form of the book’s protagonist, Bruno Stachel. In the last year of WW1, Stachel arrives at a fighter squadron on the Western Front – a young man of uncertain personality, whose only salient characteristics seem to be social awkwardness, a mercurial temperament and raging alcoholism.
Nobody knows what to make of this fellow, but Stachel soon reveals a fourth quality – his incredible, obsessive, ruthless thirst for personal glory, which both alienates his squadron mates and draws the attention of his squadron commander, Otto Heidemann. A stern, uncharismatic, by-the-book Prussian, Heidemann sees in Stachel an opportunity to advance his own secret ambitions...but to do so, he must ensure that Bruno becomes a famous ace and wins the coveted medal the Orden Pour le Merité , the famous “Blue Max.”
This is easier said than done, because the only thing that Stachel is good at aside from putting away liquor and people is getting into the worst possible kinds of trouble. Before the story is half-finished, he’s been blackmailed, assaulted several of his squadron-mates, committed a cold-blooded murder, seduced the wife of one of the few men who has his best interests at heart, and generally behaved like the selfish, exploitative bastard he is. Yet beneath all this muck there are polyps of decency. Stachel knows he’s a rotter and a user and despises himself, and part of him longs to be the “good fellow” he periodically can be. And that, in the end, is the crux of THE BLUE MAX. Which way will Stachel turn? Which side of his Jekkyl & Hyde (mostly Hyde) personality will he embrace? He knows the glory he’s chasing is illusory, that no amount of money, fame, medals, women or alcohol will fill the void in his soul…but he also knows that surrendering to evil is easier than fighting it. And in some ways, more comforting as well.
THE BLUE MAX is a strange novel. Hunter’s dialogue is very good, almost noirish in its crackling cynicism, and his fluent understanding of the German language allows him to write in English yet convey the subtleness of German in a way very few writers have ever done. His prose style is picturesque in many ways, even lurid, yet usually pleasing to read, and he has a keen understanding of alcoholism and the loneliness that underlies it (“It was the same as always. He had known it would be as soon as he had scented the keenness of the brandy. The first one was a liberation, a salving shift of the melancholy and aloneness. The second was nothing special, the clicking sharpness in the chest having fled with the diminishing first. The third and fourth and fifth and the others were wooden repetitions, a mechanical process that went on simply because it couldn’t be denied or shut off. Now, as it had been from the earliest time, the inevitable dullness was there. Why couldn’t he win and retain the soaring awareness of life, the singing sense of power and cleanliness and rightness in himself, the identity of that self with the etched-crystal world all around? Why did the miracle always die so quickly, to leave nothing but the dullness and the involuntary reflex: eyes to the ceiling, emptily, the liquid sound in the dark?”
Yet the book’s theme is muddy and the novel itself is ill-named. In the movie version, Bruno is obsessed with the Blue Max; his very quest for it reflects the emptiness of himself as a human being (all the more tragic because Bruno himself is ignorant of his own flaws), and his receipt of it sets up the film’s devastating climax. In the book there is no such emphasis and no such graceful symmetry of storytelling. Indeed, the transitions in the book are very bad and the pacing is way off, too – too many characters die too soon, leaving the second half of the book somewhat bereft of people.
What’s more, though it is set in a fighter squadron and there is plenty of aerial combat, it is not really a war novel in the conventional sense – it is really about a self-loathing drunkard with decidedly psychopathic tendencies, and unless you revel in the moral chaos of noir, that’s a tough protagonist to swallow.
I should say in closing that while I have mixed feelings about this novel, I did order its sequel, THE BLOOD ORDER, which further chronicles the protagonist’s evolution into a Nazi. Hunter may not be the best storyteller, but sometimes the parts are more interesting than the whole, and the parts of THE BLUE MAX were interesting enough to keep me reading.
November 30, 2018
Loved the movie so much I worked for years to find a copy of the novel -- and it turns out the movie was much better!
November 24, 2018
Read this cause the film captured me as a child. I'm gonna have to watch the film again now.
Want to read
April 29, 2019Synopsis: Stachel is a junior officer in a WW1 German squadron. He wants the Blue Max award and even arranges the deaths of competitors.
May 5, 2012
A good WW1 air story however as I have read a lot of real accounts and biographies I found that like many such books there were problems. Technically the scenes are painted well but the characterisation and the somewhat contrived plot both combine to cause the story to just not 'feel right'
One of the very few books I have read where I felt the movie was better than book - despite the movie's faults
One of the very few books I have read where I felt the movie was better than book - despite the movie's faults
July 30, 2015
I have always understood that: The Blue Max is a classic...
It is a read that ties old European eccentricities that carried over to the Nazi war machine. It is the placement of the Pilots into an old world society within the insanity of an economically driven war all driven around the coveted Blue Max.(less)
It is a read that ties old European eccentricities that carried over to the Nazi war machine. It is the placement of the Pilots into an old world society within the insanity of an economically driven war all driven around the coveted Blue Max.(less)
April 22, 2019
I picked this up after seeing portions of the movie of the same name - I didn't get to see enough of it to get a good feel for Peppard's character and wanted to know more.
The book was an interesting study of an unlikable, yet at the same time sympathetic, character. He's deeply ambitious, in a military machine that moves slowly and, unless there are concrete reasons like confirmed downed enemy planes, rewards aristocrats before middle class. And everyday, just by getting into an airplane, he risks his life - long before he engages the enemy. So Bruno Stachel has almost nothing going for him.
Except he has the ability to fly, even drunk; he has that ambition, which serves him well in the military, and most of the time he has no bothersome conscience. He's also smart - smart enough to say the right things to the right people, most of the time. And when his conscience does bother him, he can usually drink it away. Or clean things up later by saying the right things to the right people - or the right women. Women seem to find him very attractive.
We meet the men in Stachel's Jasta, who, although they find Stachel a puzzle and unlikable, seem more likable themselves - or maybe we just don't learn their deepest thoughts and foibles. We do learn about his commanding officer, and his interaction with Stachel, and from there comes much of the book.
And we experience much of the flying, both of the training trials between Germans and of the Germans when engaging English and Americans. We learn of the equipment shortages, challenges in new development, food and product shortages.
I can't say I found the book absolutely riveting, but I always wanted to know where it was going. I found it to be an interesting story of where ambition - mixed with alcohol - can go, planted in the fertile ground of the German military during WWI.
The book was an interesting study of an unlikable, yet at the same time sympathetic, character. He's deeply ambitious, in a military machine that moves slowly and, unless there are concrete reasons like confirmed downed enemy planes, rewards aristocrats before middle class. And everyday, just by getting into an airplane, he risks his life - long before he engages the enemy. So Bruno Stachel has almost nothing going for him.
Except he has the ability to fly, even drunk; he has that ambition, which serves him well in the military, and most of the time he has no bothersome conscience. He's also smart - smart enough to say the right things to the right people, most of the time. And when his conscience does bother him, he can usually drink it away. Or clean things up later by saying the right things to the right people - or the right women. Women seem to find him very attractive.
We meet the men in Stachel's Jasta, who, although they find Stachel a puzzle and unlikable, seem more likable themselves - or maybe we just don't learn their deepest thoughts and foibles. We do learn about his commanding officer, and his interaction with Stachel, and from there comes much of the book.
And we experience much of the flying, both of the training trials between Germans and of the Germans when engaging English and Americans. We learn of the equipment shortages, challenges in new development, food and product shortages.
I can't say I found the book absolutely riveting, but I always wanted to know where it was going. I found it to be an interesting story of where ambition - mixed with alcohol - can go, planted in the fertile ground of the German military during WWI.
January 25, 2022
I thought this book was phenomenal. The reviews you see from others are having trouble separating the book from the movie and for some reason giving the book a worse review than it deserves.
The character dev is great, the imagery is vivid and the plotline is very captivating. You get into the mind of a depressed alcoholic who tries to fill his desires with materials and ends up succeeding and failing at the same time. It's a well written story that doesn't deserve the "flak" (lol) that it's getting.
The character dev is great, the imagery is vivid and the plotline is very captivating. You get into the mind of a depressed alcoholic who tries to fill his desires with materials and ends up succeeding and failing at the same time. It's a well written story that doesn't deserve the "flak" (lol) that it's getting.
February 24, 2022
Found out that the author of this book hails from Hamilton, Ohio and since I enjoyed the movie I figured that I would give the book a go. The book has a lot more depth than the movie did, as is almost always the case, but the novel goes in a different direction than the movie as well. Not better or worse, just different. The aviation scenes ring true to form and now that I now that this is a series I will have to try to see if I can find the other books.
May 29, 2022
One of the seminal anti-hero novels of the second half of the 20th century, it follows the exploits of morally bankrupt WW1 German flying ace Lt. Bruno Stechel in his pursuit of the coveted Blue Max medal, awarded to German pilots who have shot down 20+ enemy aircraft in combat. The pilot's pursuit of naked ambition with no regard for consequences adds a dramatic psychological layer to this otherwise humdrum war adventure saga.
October 22, 2021
Never seen the film, but expectations low as I've read some of the other books in this series, reprints of novels made into popular war films, and not found them good.
But it was actually rather good, and took by surprise at several points, right up to the twist filled final chapter, and the final page.
But it was actually rather good, and took by surprise at several points, right up to the twist filled final chapter, and the final page.
June 29, 2023
Superb — a real page-turner but with intelligence, wit and plausibility.
Exceptionally well-plotted and with shrewd psychological insight.
The flying scenes are extremely well written and the dialogue is crisp and realistic.
Better than the Derek Robinson series, far superior to Gann’s In the Company of Eagles
Exceptionally well-plotted and with shrewd psychological insight.
The flying scenes are extremely well written and the dialogue is crisp and realistic.
Better than the Derek Robinson series, far superior to Gann’s In the Company of Eagles
August 11, 2019
It was not what I expected. But nonetheless well worth reading. I dont know what to make of it. Kind of a Catch 22 without the humor. Statchel's near-climb out of depravity only to be sucked back in is disheartening to say the least. Definitely something to be heard anyway.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2017
A very good book. It made me believe I was alive in 1918, and on a Jasta airbase. A bit slow to start but the pace built up gradually until I was totally absorbed and believed I was Bruno Statchel.
May 12, 2021
Great Book!
June 25, 2021
Amazing
October 27, 2023
Fascinating character study of an ambitious fighter ace in WW1. Would recommend.
March 18, 2017
Historically accurate and well characterised, Hunter's book is, in my opinion, better than the film. Stachel is a well-drawn anti-hero with whom it is possible to feel sympathy. Recommended to all those interested in Ww1 aviation.
February 10, 2017
3.5 stars for me. The Blue Max tells the story of a German pilot in WW1, and his quest for glory. We get battle action, drama, politics, blackmail, humor and more all wrapped in a nice character focused story. Recommended for aviation buffs and those who like war stories.
January 25, 2015
For the record, this is the 1965 paperback edition, but not listed by Goodreads. It has lain fallow on my shelf until recently. It still has all 280 pages, with a similiar cover. The book is less an air combat adventure than a psycological examination of the participants. The hero, or protangonist, a German pilot in World War I, has what we today call "issues." He's alcoholic and has few scruples over how he achieves his ambitions. The members of his jasta (the author will toss a number of German terms at you throughout) are also described in terms of their personalities and peculiarities. Bearing this in mind, the book is an interesting read, although a little wordy in places when describing the twists and turns of our hero's thoughts and feelings. Careful reading is needed in these places, but the reader is rewarded with the just, if ironic, turning out of events and misdeeds. The movie is based on the book, but is definitely not a retelling.
April 28, 2022
I was drawn to find this, a battered original hardcover dragged from the bowels of my local library, by my exposure to the movie. Little needs to be said of this, with its private airforce, legendary flying sequences and great performances from George Peppard, Jeremy Kemp and Karl Maria Vogler.
The writing is good and despite the abrupt changes in pacing it clearly illuminates Bruno Stachel's near-psychopathic thirst for glory and recognition denied to him because of his humble origins. His self loathing, dread, and degenerate alcoholism are all vividly portrayed and the differences with the movie, while jarring, seem to make sense in that this is the first of a trilogy whereas the movie was always meant to be a one-off.
Jack Hunter's expertise in the German language, his experiences in US intelligence in WW2 and his fascination with vintage aviation all combine to make this readable and exciting.
The writing is good and despite the abrupt changes in pacing it clearly illuminates Bruno Stachel's near-psychopathic thirst for glory and recognition denied to him because of his humble origins. His self loathing, dread, and degenerate alcoholism are all vividly portrayed and the differences with the movie, while jarring, seem to make sense in that this is the first of a trilogy whereas the movie was always meant to be a one-off.
Jack Hunter's expertise in the German language, his experiences in US intelligence in WW2 and his fascination with vintage aviation all combine to make this readable and exciting.
August 30, 2010
After watching the George Pappard DVD recently I vowed to pick up the novel and give it a reread. I had originally read the novel when in college when I was supposed to be reading such trivial works as Leviathan by Locke and The Prince by Machiavelli and other light reading that History majors always seem to receive. I remember not being all that impressed with the book and in a rare instance when the book is placed next to the movie the movie is of a better quality. With that knowledge and knowing I rate the movie as a classic I approached the novel with a resolve to treat the novel as a separate entity and this time came across as a quick and entertaining read. I found Bruno Satchel difficult to understand but yet sympathetic in some ways. This book may not be a classic but it is a nicely paced read and developed the characters nicely.
November 1, 2012
This is an intense look at a pilot with psychological and drinking problems. I think he is a man with low self esteem who turns to drink to help him deal with his anxiety. The more this man achieves, the more he turns to drink until on the day of his most brilliant victory, he doesn't remember anything.
I found learning more about WWI pilots to be fascinating and the combats scenes exciting.
I listened to this book and the narrator did a good job with the different characters and accents.
I found learning more about WWI pilots to be fascinating and the combats scenes exciting.
I listened to this book and the narrator did a good job with the different characters and accents.
July 15, 2011
I have always understood that: The Blue Max is a classic...
It is a read that ties old European eccentricities that carried over to the Nazi war machine. It is the placement of the Pilots into an old world society within the insanity of an economically driven war all driven around the coveted Blue Max.(less)
It is a read that ties old European eccentricities that carried over to the Nazi war machine. It is the placement of the Pilots into an old world society within the insanity of an economically driven war all driven around the coveted Blue Max.(less)
September 3, 2013
Hunter did an awesome job with this novel. It's one of those so filled with realistic action and emotional reactions that once I started it, I couldn't put it down. And, I've been back to re-read it twice. This doesn't read like a history book, it reads more like I've been transported there and I'm living the horror and terror for myself.
September 11, 2011
Hunter's best.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews