Friendship Games

By: Mark James

Narrated by: Sean Walpole

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

An American aircraft carrier blows up and sinks in the Persian Gulf.

Was it an accident? A terrorist attack?

Does it matter?

Maybe not.

Not after decades of hostility and brinkmanship between the United States and Iran. And certainly not after a known Iranian-funded and supported terrorist organization launches an attack on an American naval facility in the middle of rescue operations.

Iran is convinced that the United States is about to embark on a full-scale war and seek nothing short of regime change.

They aren’t wrong.

Iran strikes first. And they have some tricks up their sleeve.

But nothing goes to plan, for either side.

This book is a warning.

The next war may be like no other in American history.

©2023 Mark James (P)2023 Mark James

Brilliant empathy, detailed world building

Friendship Games plunges the reader into politics of war in the gulf when an American ship is blown up. James creates vivid images very well. For example, the plume of smoke from the explosion is described as “a rising Godzilla,” which stuck with me throughout my time reading.

The story tackles the event from different perspectives. The narrative switches between the point of view of the Americans, the president, the soldiers, the Bahraini government, and the Iranian backed religious fanatics. James portrays all characters, even the antagonists, with dignity, humanity, tremendous detail.

The particular way that James describes people, ensuring the reader notices this person’s little tendency or facial features, was particularly impressive in his world building. It’s respectful.

An interaction I particularly enjoyed involved an ambassador father feeling happy that his daughter, studying to be a pharmacist, found a love interest. It was just a human way of describing someone who I thought it was going to be a bad guy.

Sometimes when I read books I enjoy, I construct an image of who I think the author might like be in my head. I didn’t need to read James’s bio to know that he was probably in the navy and probably had some form of higher education which made him mentally develop tremendous detail. His thoughts are so clean.

Because I read this book, I better understand how crisis international politics bounces back and forth like a ping pong game. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand contemporary war.

Great book!

Friendship Games starts with an explosion aboard an American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.
It’s a major disaster and the USA blames Iran. Iran denies it but in the middle of rescue operations,
an Iranian-backed terrorist group goes rogue and independently attacks a US Navy base in Bahrain.
A US war against Iran is imminent and Iran launches a desperate pre-emptive strike. It’s nonstop
action from start to finish. I couldn’t stop it.
A ragtag group of sailors and Marines escape the initial Iranian onslaught but must fight their way
out as they make their escape. American VP Daddy Longlegs and Iranian Admiral Hash Ghavam
are fun (and funny!) characters. Poor young sailor Thew Bryson, “the lowest guy on the totem
pole,” endures getting bombed, shot at, and even nuked, all the while being dragged along by the Navy
SEALs for his protection as they escape the Iranians. Friendship Games is scarily plausible but such a
fun read. That ending … wow. Brilliant! Five stars! I hope Mark James follows up with a sequel.

Disappointed in story.

A long time to go nowhere. Very incomplete story while intended to be that way.