The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars

This tale's true originality lies in Hennessey's media-saturated reflections on media-shaped campaigns. Here, postmodernism dons desert fatigues. These kids act like a band of brothers in part because they watch Band of Brothers. Prior to one encounter, they prime themselves with the supremely silly Spartans-vs-Persians anime, 300. As for their video montages of real skirmishes, the work of a few hours on standard laptop software, they have changed the way soldiers went to war. When it comes to the soundtrack to Basra, forget Vietnam-era rock: the rampant consumerism of gangsta rap struck a chord with our little oil war. No surprise that hard-core action in Helmand first felt more like being on set than real life. --Reviewed by Boyd Tonkin, Times, Friday, 26 June 2009