New Stuka book

[Jukka Juutinen]

Please tell me when I have insulted Pegg´s person? If your reviewing standards were universally accepted, then book reviewing would become impossible, unless one wanted to produce meaningless "ad reviews" so typical of avmags like FlyPast or Aer.Mo. Funny thing two is that John Weal´s work has been assaulted with far more severe words than Pegg´s work, yet you never assaulted his critics. Which suggests fraudulent behaviour on your part.

[Christer Bergström]

If your reviewing standards were universally accepted

What should be demanded of a serious book reviewer? Knowledge.

A basic standard for book reviewing is that the review does not demand anything impossible. To give you an example, I can write a review on a book on the Lascaux cave paitnings, and I can say that in such a large book there should have been photos to illustrate the paintings. However, I will make a fool out of myself if I demand that there should have been biographies of the artists of the cave paintings in the book, because - as people with knowledge about the Lascaux cave paintings know - it is impossible to find out who made those paintings. If I had demanded the latter, I would have revealed only my own ignorance, and people would suspect me of wanting nothing but to get a cheap shot at the author.

[Ruy Horta]

As host I find it difficult to accept the continued attacks on Martin Pegg's classic work, since it might give the false impression that we endorse the personal views of a community member.

Most of what Christer Bergström and John Vasco have written on this subject conforms with my personal views; although John expressed himself in more graphic terms, IMHO he's not less reasonable (nor his choice of words unacceptable - we are adults ).

There is still room for continued debate, as long as it remains constructive, however this unreasonable vendetta against Martin Pegg must end.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Pegg´s book doesn´t deliver what a book with 340 large format pages should be able to do. There is simply nothing classic about his book excepting the word in publisher´s name. And it is a classic example of seriously overpriced book in relation to its content. If you still insist on praising that one, feel free. Don´t just expect to be treated as real aircraft enthusiasts then.

[John Vasco]

Still stirring the shit, eh, Jukka. And now you would sit in judgement as to who are and are not real aircraft enthusiasts. The old 'book price' rears its head from you again. Let's spell this one out for you: BOOK PRICE IS NOT CONNECTED TO CONTENT. As you may have bothered to read in the past thread, there are a whole host of costs and considerations to be taken into account in arriving at the cost of a book, not least of which is the need for the publisher to remain a viable ongoing financial concern so that they can continue to publish books in the future. Why do I get the feeling that you do not understand (or choose to ignore) this fundamental principle of publishing? I suspect because it does not fit into your way of thinking, and arguing a point.

Keep on stirring, Jukka.

From an unreal aircraft enthusiast.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

what a book with 340 large format pages should be able to do ... Don´t just expect to be treated as real aircraft enthusiasts then.

And where exactly is it written down (a) what a 340 page book "should" be able to do; (b) what the indisputable definition of a "real aircraft enthusiast" is?

What you seem to imply is that you have your own opinion and cannot accept that anyone else's might have equal validity.

You bought (I presume) a book which you found disappointing. We've all been there but it's time to get over it, don't you think?

[Jukka Juutinen]

John, indeed the content has no connection to book pricing in this case. But, 340 large pages in one language have much better possibilities to accommodate detailed data than the 62 biligual pages of the MBI book. Still, the latter has better tech descriptions. That is my point and has been all the time.

Real aircraft enthusiasts are simply more interested in the aircraft than e.g. air force award politics.

BTW Nick, I have your Ghost Bombers book and I like it. It delivers exactly what it promises to deliver.

[John Vasco]

Jukka,
What you have highlighted in your first paragraph is that different works have different content, largely driven by the author's approach, and each work brings different things to different people. The many works on the Battle of Britain clearly show that. You can read ten books on the Battle of Britain and gain different information from each of them. If someone else had done a work on Erprobungsgruppe 210 instead of me, then the end result would undoubtedly have been different. I think this leads us on to your second paragraph. Aircraft enthusiasts are a real varied bunch. You will not get two who will agree 100% on any single subject. And that, I believe, is a good thing, as it stimulates debate and makes people think. We can at least agree that Martin Pegg's 129 book has made you think, and has stimulated debate among several contributors to this Forum. I think also that his 129 book has at least contributed something to our overall knowledge of the Luftwaffe in WW2 in some small way, even if that has not been to all people's satisfaction. I feel the same about several other books myself. But I appreciate that the author has brought something out that would otherwise not have been available. There is value in just doing that.

[Christer Bergström]

Jukka, as you can see, since you failed to inform us exactly where it is possible to find the material which you specifically demanded should have been in Pegg's book, I am afraid that most people here now think that John Vasco is right that you are just a jealous fool who babbles about things you know nothing about only in order to get a cheap shot at the serious researcher and author Martin Pegg.

Dénes, John, and Nick - it seems we've formed an authors defence bloc against cheap shots at our books.

As one of you once told me when we talked about this, we all seem to have our "anti-fans" who are obsessed with what we write and do. It's nice to see that we come together and defend one of our colleagues who isn't present here.

[Franek Grabowski]

What a wonderful show of Western civilization and tolerance! Hitler should learn from you!

Actually, I happen to differ with Jukka on several aspects, like what is pro scanning, etc.
In this particular case I have to agree with him.
While Martin Pegg's book was groundbreaking on operational issues, it is not a monography of Hs 129. If the title was 'Hs 129 Panzerjaeger - an operational history', then perfectly OK.
Perhaps most of you are not interested in technical details, your choice. But your claim that because of that you find it boring, Jukka should not demand them, does not say very good about you.
You do not even find the difference between history enthusiast and aircraft enthusiast. This is a key difference, although none of the parts can be separated. That happens that the aircraft and its employment is combination of political, technical, tactical, and whatever you can imagine, reasons. See at Me 262 - there is a discussion if the delay was caused by political (Hitler) or technical (lack of proper engines) reasons, thus affecting further tactical use of the aircraft.
You do not like it, go on, but do not wrtite that you authored aircraft monographs and do not claim obvious technical nonsenses concerning eg. Soviet aircraft.
Finally for Denes. Hs 129s were captured by Americans, Britons and Soviets. There were certainly detailed technical descriptions. If there is no surviving performance data, it may be quite accuratelly calculated from another data.