Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

About to hit the shelves. This is the paperback version of the original book with corrections and some new photos. By the way, if you have not got the first edition, Amazon reviews were generally 5* apart from this one:


"I was expecting something like 'Aces of the Reich: The Making of a Luftwaffe Pilot' where there is more of a story and some accounts of dog fights etc. In this book its literally a list, or sometimes just the number, of shot down planes, the list covers the entire career which is confusing as I thought it would concentrate on just the Battle of Britain. There are some good pictures that sometimes have descriptions, but not always? The whole this seem a strangely put together inconsistent mess of a book??? Where do you go for a good book on Luftwaffe aces, surely a great subject matter that is under served in books I can find, loads on the RAF, which is great, but..."


You have been warned! Perhaps next time look at the cover blurb?

Re: Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

Amazon reviews today are often very odd, especially after they dropped the possibility of commenting the reviews. There are numerous 1-star reviews because "my copy was battered by the postman". There was even one 1-star review with the text "This is an excellent book!"

Re: Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

I have had some strange reviews such as:

"Better books out there" (there are none on that subject apart from one published 40 years ago)

"Returned book as he refers to Me 110 as Bf 110"

Strange what people expect!

Re: Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

Before the internet, book reviews appeared in credible publications. They pointed out the good and the bad. People went to their local shop and bought what interested them.

Amazon began by selling only books at a discount. Reviews were usually somewhat thoughtful. People could comment on reviews. But Amazon ended that. I'm sure they saved money on storage for an ever-growing number of reviews.

Today, depending on subject, so-called reviews are what people can dash off in a few minutes. For specialist books like this, reviews continue to go downhill. I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future. For me, I am relying primarily on a book's description.

Re: Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

Exactly! Some of those comments on the reviews of the books were pretty ferocious but ,man, they made GREAT reading.

Re: Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

Not only that, there are many books that seem to automatically have one-star reviews, almost like they are done by a bot, without any explanatory review.

Amazon should not allow people to leave star gradings without a review that explains whay they have rated a book so low.

Re: Luftwaffe Aces in the Battle of Britain
 

Same with those 4 and 5 star reviews for what I take to be idiotic books.