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langurmonkey posted:I think I had better go through the Nina and Eddie ones in sequence, unless the stand alone? I got the impression that there is significant character development that I don't want to miss Yeah I would go through them chronologically as there are some revelations in some books that are progressive from earlier ones. Quite like A.McDermotts book if I want to lose myself in brainless fiction for a couple of hours.
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Jan 7, 2014 16:09
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Siggers posted:Yeah I would go through them chronologically as there are some revelations in some books that are progressive from earlier ones. Quite like A.McDermotts book if I want to lose myself in brainless fiction for a couple of hours. But not just yet.
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Jan 7, 2014 17:21
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Payndz posted:One of these days, I'll try to write some brainful fiction. Have you proved your point to your publisher yet? 
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Jan 7, 2014 18:16
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Payndz posted:One of these days, I'll try to write some brainful fiction.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:07
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SubponticatePoster posted:Isn't the idea that you'll put out fun, lighthearted fare that sells well and then once you're sitting on a fortune you can shut yourself up in the study to pen a masterpiece?
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Jan 14, 2014 14:57
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I spent some time in Italy and it was hard to find books in English. The one store I could find that had an English section had literature classics (meant for teaching English courses), and also an entire rack of Clive Cussler novels. And nothing else.
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Jan 14, 2014 16:49
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Payndz posted:That would be cool, but somehow I can't quite see myself writing a Foucault's Pendulum or Midnight's Children after I finish Wilde/Chase 17. I know my limitations. Surely could could at least manage a Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana or Fury though!
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Jan 14, 2014 22:30
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I am reading through the new Jack Reacher book and I find it odd that Reacher has used the term "raghead" a couple of times to describe the Taliban. It seems really out of character for him to be racist or am I over thinking it?
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Jan 15, 2014 17:06
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He's pretty racist about the middle east in general from what I remember. It's what made me stop reading them actually, the author has a weird hangup about middle easterners and terrorism.
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Jan 15, 2014 17:15
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I don't remember anything really racist from the Reacher books. Nothing along the lines of what I remember from Vince Flynn, Brad Thor or others in that genre.
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Jan 15, 2014 17:33
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crowfeathers posted:He's pretty racist about the middle east in general from what I remember. It's what made me stop reading them actually, the author has a weird hangup about middle easterners and terrorism. I'd noticed this but Reacher never used derogative words like "raghead" before, I am disappointed.
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Jan 15, 2014 17:39
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"...raghead" Reacher said nothing. I haven't read most of the books, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. About 98% of all airport fiction books are gonna end up being about muslims, terrorists, or muslim terrorists somehow and even then, most of the writers tend to go for the lowest common denominator.
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Jan 16, 2014 00:33
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:"...raghead" Sacred Stone by Cussler had a gang of Muslim terrorists in it who formed the first half of the plot antagonists even after most of them get killed to poo poo, but the main villain of that book was actually trying to destroy Islam outright, which formed a strange sort of balance. Both groups are equally extreme and have equally horrifying goals in both scope and maneuver. Apart from that, though, terrorists don't usually feature in major roles for him. The only other book I can think of that involved them as major antagonists was Treasure. Cussler's usual villains are giant corporations recently.
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Jan 17, 2014 00:38
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:"...raghead" The most baffling example of that was one of the Reacher books. The setup was that he hitched a ride with a murderer by accident and had to figure out what to do. But the at the end he literally just walks down a staircase and starts mowing down Muslim terrorists in a secret base which was also a bank that prints TERROR MONEY backed by dirty bombs and I just had no idea what the hell was happening.
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Jan 17, 2014 00:49
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Redeye Flight posted:Sacred Stone by Cussler had a gang of Muslim terrorists in it who formed the first half of the plot antagonists even after most of them get killed to poo poo, but the main villain of that book was actually trying to destroy Islam outright, which formed a strange sort of balance. Both groups are equally extreme and have equally horrifying goals in both scope and maneuver. Cussler had a bit of an anti-asian streak for a few books. I think Japan and China were both villains at some point. It seemed more like ignorant dad racism than maliciousness though. Just lines like "whatever passed for music to the orientals" I think the most unpleasant shock was rereading the Patrick Robinson books. Suuuuper right wing.
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Jan 17, 2014 10:32
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One of the Patrick Robinson books has the (loathsome) main character literally carry out a coup d'état on the President of the United States, with the full support of the Secret Service. The justification? The (Democratic, naturally) president didn't believe his crazy story that one lone nut could destroy the entire eastern seaboard with a tsunami. So he marches into the Oval Office and takes over. The weird thing about Robinson is that while he and his Mary Sue are both hard-right ultra-hawks, they both have a massive boner for Teddy Kennedy, who in the books can do no wrong.
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Jan 17, 2014 11:40
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Vince Flynn's first book Term Limits is doozy. Fylnn's heroes get fed up with how the never-explicitly-said-but-obviously-democrat government are running the country and start assassinating politicians, promising to stop when the White House starts passing the legislation they want. The best thing about the book is that the Rapp novels take place in the same universe. And in the Rapp books it's revealed that the party the defeats the ruling party from Term Limits in the election that happens in-between that book and first Rapp book is the Democrats. I don't believe for a second that this is attempt to introduce some much needed ambiguity into what is an absolutely reprehensible far-right diatribe. I'm certain Flynn did it because he needed to have some liberal strawmen for his characters to yell at. High Warlord Zog fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 00:08
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I wonder how many explosions you'd need to disguise a liberal message in an airport book.
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Jan 18, 2014 00:57
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I'm a leftie, and my books have a lot of explosions, so...
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Jan 18, 2014 10:47
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Do you think the latest lot of revelations about the NSA will affect your storylines? I noticed that they were referenced a bit in The Persona Protocol which I assume was written before all the leaks etc.
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Jan 18, 2014 13:56
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I just read through this thread because I just re-read Hunt for Red October and am currently re-reading Sum of All Fears. Tom Clancy could write himself one hell of a book until 9/11 broke him.Paragon8 posted:I think the most unpleasant shock was rereading the Patrick Robinson books. Suuuuper right wing. Payndz posted:One of the Patrick Robinson books has the (loathsome) main character literally carry out a coup d'état on the President of the United States, with the full support of the Secret Service. The justification? The (Democratic, naturally) president didn't believe his crazy story that one lone nut could destroy the entire eastern seaboard with a tsunami. So he marches into the Oval Office and takes over. Ugh Jesus Christ, Patrick fuckin' Robinson. I don't get how I devoured technothrillers at a young age (Robinson's Nimitz Class and Hunt for Red October at the ages of 7 and 8) and turned out as left-wing as I am. BrooklynBruiser fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 15:30
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langurmonkey posted:Do you think the latest lot of revelations about the NSA will affect your storylines? I noticed that they were referenced a bit in The Persona Protocol which I assume was written before all the leaks etc.
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Jan 18, 2014 16:17
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BrooklynBruiser posted:I just read through this thread because I just re-read Hunt for Red October and am currently re-reading Sum of All Fears. Tom Clancy could write himself one hell of a book until 9/11 broke him. It was having a democrat in the white house that broke him. As soon Bill Clinton got elected he made Jack Ryan president.
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Jan 18, 2014 21:42
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BrooklynBruiser posted:I just read through this thread because I just re-read Hunt for Red October and am currently re-reading Sum of All Fears. Tom Clancy could write himself one hell of a book until 9/11 broke him. I think middle school me managed to survive it by mostly reading the navy seal bits and glossing over the politics. I still can get quite a bit out of rereading a Cussler. My all time favorite airport books are the Wingman series which is so OTT you can't really take it seriously. The bad guys escalate to white supremacist vikings with submersible longboats at one point.
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Jan 19, 2014 11:39
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High Warlord Zog posted:It was having a democrat in the white house that broke him. As soon Bill Clinton got elected he made Jack Ryan president. I think what broke Clancy was a combination of Democrat in White House, Soviet Union going bye bye and Jack Ryan's promotion structure making his romps to fight communists and the forces of evil more and more insanely convoluted. Now let's face it, what he SHOULD have done was go to Clark and Chavez vs terrorists because that would have been awesome. But he wanted to keep up with the Ryan story which resulted in Terrorists nuke the Super Bowl, War with Japan, Ebola plague and Iraq war 2.0 (the badass version), and of course Bear and the Dragon a/k/a Japanese Sausage and I don't know China but I'll write it.
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Jan 25, 2014 18:09
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Well Clark and Chavez ended up fighting deranged liberal environmentalists so I'm not sure if I trust Clancy to put them in situations grounded with realistic opposition. We'd probably end up with them gunning down welfare cheats after some faceless democrat drags the united states into socialism.
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Jan 26, 2014 13:21
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True, But let's face it, Clancy plots aren't exactly grounded in realisim most of the time. IRA attacks the Prince of Wales (can you say High Treason a capital crime back then) Invading Colombia and shooting down drug planes. Terrorists Nuking Denver and the Superbowl nearly starting ww3, plus the worst designed peace in the middle east strategy since EVER. War with Japan Iran and Iraq not only unifying but then a WMD attack on the US And of course Environmentalists decide genocide is a great way to get the world on their side. I do think he would have done better concentrating on terrorists, and less on geopolitics.
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Jan 29, 2014 03:14
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It's hard to have terrorists without geopolitics these days.
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Jan 29, 2014 03:53
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Speaking of terrorists and geopolitics, my first non-Nina & Eddie novel, The Shadow Protocol, came out in North America yesterday. (It was released as The Persona Protocol in the UK last year, but my US publishers changed the title because reasons.) I'm just hoping that the lacklustre performance of a certain Clancy-based movie with 'Shadow' in the title won't have any negative halo effects. 
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Jan 29, 2014 14:20
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I was actually shopping a week ago and saw it for sale in Iceland. I bought it for my mom because she has been looking for something new to read and wasn't a fan of Jo Nesbř. "Hey, the blurb kinda sounds like a Bourne kind of deal, it's at least a spy thriller." I'll probably look at it later since she got two books on her reading list already and she takes things slow.
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Jan 29, 2014 14:58
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Payndz posted:Speaking of terrorists and geopolitics, my first non-Nina & Eddie novel, The Shadow Protocol, came out in North America yesterday. (It was released as The Persona Protocol in the UK last year, but my US publishers changed the title because reasons.) This is over six months old at this point, but I thought you'd like to know that my former local D.C.-area Barnes & Noble was reasonably well-stocked with your titles, at least as of mid-June:  I ended up picking up The Hunt for Atlantis out of that cache, taking it with me when I moved to Seattle, and reading it once I got here. I have to admit though, at a certain point about halfway through, I couldn't take it any more, and just skipped around a few more places from there until the end of the book. Sorry. minidracula fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 11:59
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minidracula posted:
Don't tell me you skipped the payoff for that one guy's fear of helicopters. It was the greatest thing 
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Feb 2, 2014 06:05
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I am in holiday now so plenty of time for airport fiction. Just finished the Persona Protocal which reminded me of Where Eagles Dare right at the end. Now I am onto Andy McNab's Silencer then next in the queue is The Hunt for Atlantis. This thread has made me hyped to read it so it had better be good!
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Feb 2, 2014 16:19
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I am reading all the Jack Reacher books because they are easy to read, fairly interesting, and I have nothing else to read at the moment and I happen to have them. I've liked most of them but I really had to find somewhere to complain about "Nothing to Lose". Spoilers of course. I am absolutely fine with Reacher punishing bad guys for hurting his friends/innocents and what not but what the gently caress? He discovers the plot by the bad guy then blows him and his 2 lackies up with a loving dirty bomb that they built????????????????????????? how does this make sense. He effectively renders a 3 mile radius in the middle of colorado uninhabitable to get back at 3 guys he could have easily just killed with his bare hands. It seemed really out of character for Reacher to do something with such crazy consequences. I hated the end of this book and most of the actual book to be honest. Little of it made sense. Did anyone else find a disconnect in the ending with the previous books? Also this is one of the books where Reacher is like a straight up creep to a woman. When the wife of the vegetable soldier says she doesnt wanna gently caress anymore Reacher literally says "Shut up. Yes we are." What the hell, Reacher?
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Feb 23, 2014 08:46
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If there' s a nuclear bomb in an airport novel, then it either has to go off, or be stopped from doing so seconds beforehand. Them's the rules; anything else is a letdown. Reacher acting like a creep, though, I can't come up with any reason for except that maybe Child was having a bad day. 
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Feb 23, 2014 09:44
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Paragon8 posted:I think middle school me managed to survive it by mostly reading the navy seal bits and glossing over the politics. Can you be more specific? Amazon didn't know what "cussler wingman" was.
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Feb 23, 2014 14:22
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Finished up The Eye of God by James Rollins, the latest in the Sigma Force series. It's interesting, and combines Quantum Physics, Genghis Khan, and St. Thomas all in one big book. It's just not really as action/adventurey as the other books in the series. The last book was the mormon/indian/nanotech book so I was hoping we'd get back to crazy poo poo and explosions, but the overall feel of the book is just kinda "meh". I dunno what it is, but it just seems to drag on. I dunno if Rollins just kinda phoned it in while he worked with some other authors on collaborations, but this just doesn't seem like his best work. Hoping he gets back in his groove for the next book.
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Feb 24, 2014 16:01
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I like Rollins non-Sigma Force stuff better actually. Especially the truly insane ones like Subterranea and Ice Hunt.
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Feb 24, 2014 16:33
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Yea, but when the series started it was kinda the same batshit as the other non SF books he wrote. Now it's just kinda... 
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Feb 24, 2014 17:29
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 You've reached the big time man. Local wal mart this morning. MIDDLE TOP SHELF. Take a bow my friend, take a bow.
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Mar 2, 2014 15:02
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