The Commander Series Forum

What is with this book? I saw a copy awhile back on amazon.ca for $160CDN...and it was a paperback!!!

Is this some rare, Holy Grail piece of Cold War/WWIII literature?

No, its a very well written piece of imaginary cold war BAOR based fiction - much better in my opinion than Team Yankee or similar. The tactics seem pretty good - there is the usual amount of optimism re the quality vs quantity arguments at first but it has a much more realistic/dark side to it. The characters, as far as this type of fiction goes, are relatively well fleshed out and the ending to my mind has a genuine shock value to it.

Its not Tolstoy but its not Dan Brown either Somewhere in between.

Worth a few quid but not that amount - I sold a copy for £17.50 about a year ago and that seemed reasonable having seen competing prices. Having said that it is very difficult (but obviously no impossible) to find, never as far as I know having been reprinted.

Not worth $160 CDN, but I'd pay £25 for a copy. Must have read it 6 or 7 times back in the day.

The Battlezones modern scenarios book by TTG has a few scenarios based on the British and US stories from Chieftains.

I could not believe my eyes, some UK dealer had it on for 95 quid.

Well, there is no listing for it currently...wonder why...but, i will keep an eye out for a more reasonably priced copy in the future.

It was published 1982 (and not on best quality paper either)and not reprinted since so it does have a genuine rarity value -

but of course just because someone is 'selling' a copy for £210 or whatever on Amazon doesn't mean anyone is actually 'buying' it for that price.

There are lots of things like that on Amazon et al - some of the 'hail mary' prices are for books the seller doesn't have, but knows where he can get a copy for half that price if some punter buys 'his' copy at the very high price -not strictly Kosher but it goes on a lot.

A few years ago I would have said charity shops were your best bet to find a reasonably priced copy but many are checking internet prices, believing them to be the 'going rate', and putting their copies up for similar inflated rates.

It's a great book - I'll have to look after my copy now that I know it's so valuable!

Thanks now i'm aware of another book that i want but can't afford. Like "Old Gimlet Eye"

For $160 for a paperback he should also send a load of whatever funky stuff he's smokin' as well.

Now on Amazon as an 'E' Book for around £5!

Andy

Some hard copies available from around £15 too:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/070882...

Where do these people come from? $30 bucks, not bad...$155 WTF!

Just check out some books at random on Amazon - go down to the end of the listings and fall over in amazement. There are all sort of theories why books that 90% of sellers are retailing at under £5/$10 are on offer for £50+ (hundreds in some cases) These range from automatic pricing systems gone haywire, finger trouble by minimum wage listers for the big companies, hacking (there was a rash of military books apparently written by Enid Blyton a few years ago) and more interestingly the conspiracy theory end of the market - money laundering for drug dealers - 'sell' penny books for hugely inflated prices as a cover for the books when the feds take a quick look (doesn't sound very watertight to me - even the cops must know you don't pay £400 for a book you can buy in Smiths or Waterstones for £7.99).

Chieftains had/has a cult status - it is a very good book on a hypothetical WWIII scenario - the more so in the UK as it is about British troops unlike most of the US based stuff like Team Yankee. But it was always ridiculously priced. I sold my copy about four years ago for £17 and felt guilty about it (the next cheapest I could see was about £50 at the time though).
The higher priced offers are from sellers who either haven't cottoned on to the fact it has been released in digital format or don't care for any or all of the reasons above.
Good luck to 'em.

Digital format!? Where?

Amazon UK at least - Kindle. Not sure it is any other digital format.

Good book, not wishing to give any spoilers, but soft ending I thought.

I have the Kindle edition btw.