" Mixed bag. I was happy to find a novel, written by an Iraq vet, focusing on the experience of non-combat soldiers, the Fobbits (Forward Operating Base) of the title. It was a part of the Vietnam story that was pretty much ignored until Doug Bradley's DEROS was published last year, and it's good to have it in the mix from early in the fiction the recent/current wars. Abrams makes no secret of his debt to Catch 22; the tone of Fobbit is darkly satirical and sometimes the humor works in a Helleresque manner. The portrait of military incompetence--familiar enough in the literature of Vietnam and other wars--is particularly withering. Abrams does a good job satirizing the military's attempt to "spin" stories in ways that have zip to do with reality. Borderline unbelievable, but in this case, Abrams convinced me that that's because the reality is borderline unbelievable. Often, though, you can feel Abrams straining for effect. Which is to say, Fobbit's a first novel and sometimes it shows. The use of e-mails and journals distances us from the characters and is fairly clearly a way of inserting editorial commentary at some points. The biggest problem with the book, though, had to do with Abrams' tone in regard to his rear-echelon characters. At times, it felt like he just didn't like them and was portraying them with open contempt. That may be a realistic reflection of how the soldiers who handle the missions feel about those living inside Saddam's palace (as the major characters here do). But I doubt that the fobbits themselves see themselves in one-dimensional terms. Just wanted more depth of character.
Worth reading and for now, the best book on its subject. "
— Craig, 2/3/2014