- Joined
- May 19, 2007
- Messages
- 7,745
Just wanted to do a quick review on this book. Picked it up the other day after dinner out with my wife, since the movie we had hoped to see was on a very inconvenient time I figured we could hit the chapters and starbucks before heading home (haven't been able to go out much this summer with me on 24hour standby weekdays and her working weekends) I got the ultimate edition with the DVD, so it was plastic wrapped, opened it up with a buck hartsook on my keys.
I also own Jon Wiseman's SAS guide (which I've read to death) so I'll be making most of my comparisons to that book.
First impressions, the photos are amazing, while it is hard to capture a skill with just a photo, here are a great many of them, and they are all well done, most featuring Les.
Writing style, I can almost hear Les speak as though he is just dictating the book, very simple, to the point language, with a lot of focus on the big why's and not the little details. There is a lot of info on the psychology of survival, and how to prepare for that aspect of things.
Skills, Les definitely put fewer skills in this book than Jon does in his, but that said, I've always gotten the impression that Jon wiseman put a lot of skills in that require a lot of training or even things that "should work" and while Les mentions some of those skills, he also explains why training and practice are important, and why no technique is fool-proof. He also explains the why's so that a beginner won't get hung up on imitating his technique, but find a way to make the method work for them.
All in all, there were very few techniques in this book that I have not already at least heard of if not actually tried. But as a fast reference, and as a starting point for teaching others, this book is very worth while, and will be replacing the SAS guide as my go-to book.
I also own Jon Wiseman's SAS guide (which I've read to death) so I'll be making most of my comparisons to that book.
First impressions, the photos are amazing, while it is hard to capture a skill with just a photo, here are a great many of them, and they are all well done, most featuring Les.
Writing style, I can almost hear Les speak as though he is just dictating the book, very simple, to the point language, with a lot of focus on the big why's and not the little details. There is a lot of info on the psychology of survival, and how to prepare for that aspect of things.
Skills, Les definitely put fewer skills in this book than Jon does in his, but that said, I've always gotten the impression that Jon wiseman put a lot of skills in that require a lot of training or even things that "should work" and while Les mentions some of those skills, he also explains why training and practice are important, and why no technique is fool-proof. He also explains the why's so that a beginner won't get hung up on imitating his technique, but find a way to make the method work for them.
All in all, there were very few techniques in this book that I have not already at least heard of if not actually tried. But as a fast reference, and as a starting point for teaching others, this book is very worth while, and will be replacing the SAS guide as my go-to book.
