The book compiles together many sources on a relatively unknown part of the war. While most histories of the Pacific War would usually skip past the New Georgia Campaign or only mention it in passing along with Operation Vengeance, Cox focuses the book in great detail on them. When done right, not only is the information new and enriching, but it’s also entertaining and gripping. His details on the naval battles of New Georgia really do take you in the heart of the action, and I would say that those parts are a really good read regardless of your knowledge on the campaign.

But I have three problems with the book. The first is a lack of maps. While the naval battles get their own map, it comes at the cost of the picture gallery (there’s only 4 pages of photographs in total). The land battles don’t receive any, and that can make it hard to track the details.

Second, Cox spends over 100 pages dedicated to summarizing his previous two books. A couple pages would’ve sufficed, but two entire extended chapters are dedicated to them instead. I read all of Cox’s other books and noticed that the summarizing is often just lifted straight from the Guadalcanal books. That just stinks of laziness to me. Not only did he spend almost 100 pages on the previous two books, but he also didn’t spend any time in actually rewriting them. He just spends those chapters retreading on old grounds.

But I would say the biggest problem with the book is the writing itself often. Cox’s writing is often punctuated with sarcasm or unrelated tangents. His rambling on how sequels are rarely better than the original just feels off-kilter to me. Worse still are the points where he just belittles every participant when possible. I mean there’s a section where he just mocks the US Navy for failing to sink more barges. I don’t mean criticize, I mean mock. For a campaign that costed thousands of lives, you would expect some respect to be given. Instead, it’s basically him calling people “stupid”, repeatedly using groan worthy repetitions, or being incredibly smug when mocking participants for not knowing something that they had no way to learn about. At many points, you have to force yourself to continue reading the book. It does not hook your attention for long.

In fact, this book reads often like a transcript from a one-way conversation, instead of a full book. That includes declarative sentences that are fragmentary. I get that Cox wants to write a narrative history, but I feel like his writing structure is often too fractured. A simple sentence could be broken up into three or four pieces for seemingly no reason. It just seems like for his fourth book, Cox has less to prove so he just writes something akin to an opinionated piece. There’s often very little respect given to those involved. It’s a shame because when the writing is objective, it’s makes a great read. For example, the prologue about the massacre of the German missionaries deals with the subject matter without cracking any jokes or sarcasm. It just reads like a straight forward narrative, and no surprise, makes it really gripping. But other times, Cox just writes something akin to ‘The Allies are doing this or that. And they succeeded in their mission. Except they didn’t. They actually failed. Or did they? Because the Allies might’ve won a victory after all’. The weird prose often just takes you out of the situation.

In summary, I really do like the book’s material. A lot of information I’ve never heard about is uncovered, and certainly sheds new light on an often-neglected part of the war. The thing that’s making rate the book only three stars however is the writing style and lack of maps. In his first three books, Cox is far more objective, making this novel-style prose far more gripping. But this book has Cox being far lazier, reusing the same sentences from his previous books and just breaking up his new sentences into pieces. Many great historians create tension by describing the scene of battle and using first hand accounts. Cox creates artificial tension by blatantly misdirecting the reader. Had his writing been as a respectful and objective as the prologue, I still would’ve given the book five stars. I just don’t get why there are so many positive reviews calling this book “well written” or “entertaining”. For me, the author just comes across as incredibly smug.

Brand	N/A
Rating	4.4 (144 ratings)
Price	$0.99
Category	Australia & Oceania

Dark Waters, Starry Skies: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March–October 1943