Both APOD and FFO suffer from the agendas of the authors concerned, but then most works of fiction do.
Before the split, it was the latter's agenda that most put me off - there was an admitted motivation of somehow trying to repair perceived damaged French pride from the historical course of events. If you ask me, that is a particularly silly reason to write a French wank.
I also had a feeling at times that both were pretentious in the sense that they were saying their work was so well researched that the butterflies and such went beyond simply being plausible and into the realm of being the most likely consequences of events.
On the whole, there have been some great works over at the Naval Fiction forum and here that leave these two for dead due to their faults, but parts of APOD and FFO, where there was actually some character and plot development, were a good read.
Before the split, it was the latter's agenda that most put me off - there was an admitted motivation of somehow trying to repair perceived damaged French pride from the historical course of events. If you ask me, that is a particularly silly reason to write a French wank.
I also had a feeling at times that both were pretentious in the sense that they were saying their work was so well researched that the butterflies and such went beyond simply being plausible and into the realm of being the most likely consequences of events.
On the whole, there have been some great works over at the Naval Fiction forum and here that leave these two for dead due to their faults, but parts of APOD and FFO, where there was actually some character and plot development, were a good read.