Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

Hi Neil,

thanks for your mail and the review - I really appreciate it. And yes, the decision to print the city names in italics might be strange, the reason simply was that I have decided to leave them in their original German spelling and thus mark them as "German" words... like I did with many others... something I will rethink in the future, thanks for the feedback!

Andreas

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

My copy arrived today and on first look seems excellent. The quality of self published works has improved dramatically in the last couple of years. This is great news as it allows works like this that might be passed over by larger publishers to see the light of day. Appreciate the effort you put into this work !

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

But why present tense war diary?

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

Hm, good question - maybe a matter of "foreign language speaker" but personally, to me "present tense" reads more lively than the more "reporting" past tense... I will reconsider for future works, appreciate the feedback!

Andreas

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

Andreas, it is not more "lively", very much the opposite. Apparently some fiction authors decided it is "artsy". But in 99 % of cases it fails in fiction and in 100 % it fails in non-fiction: it gives the impression of artificiality and uncertainty (present tense=action that is still going on and is thus unfinished). I know several history books in Finnish which are basically ruined by the partial/full use of present tense. To me it is a deal breaker.

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

Andreas, I bought your book too. Jukka’s is opinion with no more force or authority than that of any other individual reader. However, he has worked hard at establishing the public persona of someone who can find fault with every conceivable aspect of the books he encounters.

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

Jukka & Nick,

let's put it this way - first, everyone if entitled to their own opinion, and I am not one that is easily frustrated when other people see things differently. That said, my own opinion counts as well :)

Jukka was not the only one with the comment on the "present tense" and picking up his definition of "present tense=action that is still going on and is thus unfinished" I would like to amend this by the definition of the "historical present": "the historical present or historic present, also called dramatic present or narrative present, is the employment of the present tense when narrating past events. It is widely used in writing about history in Latin (where it is sometimes referred to by its Latin name, praesens historicum) and some modern European languages. In English, it is used above all in historical chronicles (listing a series of events)."

It comes down to a matter of taste, I guess - although I have to agree with Jukka that it is the more "unusual" form - nonetheless, I have decided to use it on purpose to emphasize the "narrative" part of the book.

But again, this is a matter of taste and - as we say in German - "taste is something you cannot argue about" :)

Thanks for everyone's feedback and as I said: I will rethink this in future works.

Everyone has a great year's end and may 2020 look at all of you in good favour!

Andreas

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

Nick, if anything is considered perfect, it's evolution stagnates. And such stagnation has similar destructive effects as does revaluation have for economic life.

And honestly, do you want to read about history in present tense? Did you write your books in present tense?

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

(A) None of which explains (for example) your antipathy to sans serif fonts, or ragged right margins — these complaints more resemble quirks of personal taste than any selfless pursuit of literary excellence.

(B) I have in fact tried the present tense on my website for a piece which consisted of a sequence of signals rather than a narrative. It doesn't work for everything but nor would I dismiss it in all circumstances.

Re: "The Jet Night Fighters" now available
 

I've finished it today. I really enjoyed it. It's good to see such piece of research published, whatever the means.