RaveThe Christian Science MonitorKarl Marlantes anchors Matterhorn in 1969, the year after the world seemed to be shaking on its foundation. The novel is a superb piece of military fiction that deserves a place on the shelf of any reader with even a passing interest in the lore of Vietnam … Matterhorn is most memorable in fusing the horror of combat with the horror of surviving far from the front lines. The bitter racial divides, the soul-rending search for meaning in a war that offers none, the feeling of being powerless at the hands of superiors who view death as a cost others must bear so they can be promoted, are every bit as vivid as what the marines experience in their exquisitely chronicled clashes with the enemy. Anxiety does not let up at base camp … It’s as if when Marlantes fixes his literary lens on Vietnam, he leaves it slightly askew.
