The Second Pearl

By: Mike Bentley

Narrated by: Edison McDaniels

Length: 22 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

The Communist Chinese leadership decides to move up their timetable to become the world’s sole superpower from 2049 to the present. Part of this is to unify Taiwan by force. They believe the best model for accomplishing their wider goals is to copy the comprehensive moves by Imperial Japan in 1941-1942. The CCP/PLA thinks they can replicate the successes of the Japanese, while at the same time eliminating the failures. By means of subterfuge, they strike their East Asian neighbors, Western Pacific sea lanes, and the key American naval bases in Hawaii, Japan, Australia, and the United States. They rely on advanced missile and drone technology and are initially successful.

This novel is a cautionary tale that warns us of the current comprehensive threat that is Communist China today.

©2021 Mike Bentley (P)2022 Mike Bentley

Good book - subpar narration

Interesting storyline underserved by mediocre narration. The ending was rushed and highly unrealistic given the plot.

Good story line but could done better

Being former navy, I found one thing in story that sinks it. There would have been alarm bells going off once a group of a PLAN SSBN or SSGN were position off the coast
One or two but not six

Good Story - Bad Performance

The story was well detailed in every way (sometimes maybe too detailed). It was plausible given current geo-political realities and a long, but enjoyable, story.

HOWEVER - the narrator was horrible. Every time I heard him pronounce "Vietnam" (correctly pronounced Viet-nahm) with a nasal "Viet naaaaam", it felt like fingernails on a blackboard (does anybody remember what that sounded like anymore?). Additionally, it was hard to distinguish any change in his narration performance when listening to him narrate a male or female voice or (worse) an American vs a Chinese or Japanese voice....just horrible.

Sorry for this review but the book could have been so much more enjoyable with a better narrator.

Tímely Concept

Ending to me was weakly plausible. Concepts were good though . A lot of activity for a five day war

ok overall.

positive was the author's interesting idea how the Chinese could create surprise in an attack on the west. positive also was the Chinese reason for attacking their neighbours, we see the cracks on their economy now. negative was the story telling, the book jumped around in a way that was jarring. the war ended with a. magical SF raid which I think would be extremely hard to pull off in really life. and lastly I don't think declaring war and attacking is a crime against humanity, you would not expect the death penalty in this instance.

Great food for thought on china

One of best forward looking predictions on the future of American-Chinese political relationship and an eye opening thought as to what can be done.

Interesting to listen to but needs a little more to make it sound plausible

I liked the story and the factual analysis however my problem with this was based on the following

The different characters should all have been played by individual people - NOT the same person - I say this as quite often the person narrating sounded like cartman out of Southpark and it was very distracting and almost comical which is a shame as the impact of that was to distract the listener from the extremely important message that the book is imparting

Just WOW!!

This audiobook was 22 hours long. Not since Red Storm Rising have I ever been so invested in a book! This book was both scary and spot on! Unfortunately I went to find others from the Author but this is the only one. I hope he continues as this was the greatest book I have read in YEARS! The characters were amazing as was the story.

A solid 3 stars

SPOILERS !! First of all I loved the premise that the USA was caught flat footed, again. The author then went into mind numbing detail of the china plan and when the action finally started there was way too little and the ending was abrupt and rushed. There were so many spots where the LONG AWAITED action could have been brought out but wasn't.
Thats why its a 3 star and not more.

This was a pleasant surprise.

A book I was listening to ended while driving so I quickly pulled over to get another book and had to choose quickly so the title to this one seemed interesting .

This is actually a great story. The author goes to great lengths to include many details. While some of the story may be somewhat implausible at tiny points I must admit that I enjoyed this. It’s a slow burn but worth a listen.

I had some issues with the narrator at the beginning but he grew on me. It’s not bad but it’s far from RC Bray.