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NosmoKing posted:I haven't read Coyle in quite some time, but I'll pick this one up. Team Yankee was pretty darn good, and I also liked The Ten Thousand. It's actually Against All Enemies now that I bother to look it up. It's not great by any means, but after reading through that Unexpected Consequences thread in TFR, it's certainly a breath of fresh air. quote:Clancy started out great, then shifted more and more and more to crap. I couldn't finish The Bear and the Dragon and the last book I finished of his is the one where Ryan is the President and there's a long drawn out scene about a late term abortion in China. Agree, although to this day I can still pick up Without Remorse and start reading. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm off to the airport today...
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Mar 25, 2010 14:47
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Syrinxx posted:I'll be picking up your first book in this series for my old man's (and my) Kindle soon, thanks. I did this a couple days ago, I'm about a quarter of the way through, and it's everything he says it is. Atlantis? Nazis? Oh for gently caress's sake... 
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Mar 25, 2010 16:14
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LooseChanj posted:I did this a couple days ago, I'm about a quarter of the way through, and it's everything he says it is.  Oh well, can't please everyone.
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Mar 25, 2010 18:02
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LooseChanj posted:I did this a couple days ago, I'm about a quarter of the way through, and it's everything he says it is. You say two words and i'm already hooked on the idea of buying this book...
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Mar 25, 2010 18:13
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kalleth posted:You say two words and i'm already hooked on the idea of buying this book... Just finished the first and I'm now going for the whole series...
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Mar 25, 2010 18:55
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Payndz posted:You don't like it? Are there physical copies in bookshops that i might be able to find in the UK?
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Mar 25, 2010 19:16
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Hunterhr posted:
This is definitely my favorite of Clancy's novels: a minimum of political wankery, an unusual number of over-the-top sex scenes and a remarkably satisfying revenge story.
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Mar 25, 2010 19:22
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LooseChanj posted:Atlantis? Nazis?
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Mar 25, 2010 20:38
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Payndz posted:Would it be poor form to plug my own books? Oops, too late. They definitely fall into the category of 'airport fiction', and unashamedly so. Dude, you really need to get a better photo for your amazon author page, the current one makes you look like you have a bit of a five-head going on. Still, better than looking like the mugshot of a serial rapist like most fantasy authors. PS, Added the first book to next month's shopping list, even though I have a pathological hatred of the name "Eddie".
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Mar 25, 2010 21:01
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Flatscan posted:Dude, you really need to get a better photo for your amazon author page, the current one makes you look like you have a bit of a five-head going on. Still, better than looking like the mugshot of a serial rapist like most fantasy authors. EDIT: Should I just use my avatar and see if anyone notices? kalleth posted:Are there physical copies in bookshops that i might be able to find in the UK? and Smiths, plus most independents and probably larger supermarkets too. They're pretty widely available.
Small Strange Bird fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Mar 25, 2010 |
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Mar 25, 2010 22:35
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Payndz posted:You don't like it? I like it, it's hilarious since I know it's not really meant to be taken seriously. Atlantis though, is just one of those things that makes me roll my eyes.
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Mar 25, 2010 23:17
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I don't know if here's the place for it or not, but I've got a solicitation letter to publishers for a book concieved "in 1988 as the author, with medieval sword in hand, looked westward from the roof of the bombed-out U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon". The book was then written on paper "by candlelight, in a remote Colorado cabin"". The man himself can't write for toffee, but his publicist is a genius of author biography.
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Mar 26, 2010 16:14
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Is westward the most powerful literary cardinal direction? Nobody ever looks northward.
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Mar 26, 2010 17:09
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Syrinxx posted:Sold! How about nazis in the jungle? Read Temple by the esteemed Matthew Reilly. IRQ posted:While I never had any doubt that he was a raging conservative, he managed to not get too preachy for the most part. Until 9/11. Then it all went to hell for awhile. Yeah he was pretty much out of ideas after Debt of Honor anyway, and Rainbow Six was hilariously anti-environmentalism, and loving I love Tom fuckin' Clancy but this is absolutely correct. Anyway, the modern gun and tech porn is far less interesting, and he doesn't handle it as well.
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Mar 26, 2010 18:07
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I used to like Tom Clancy, when I was 10. I still like Red Storm Rising, and Patriot Games though. If I want a thriller now I'll go to Frederick Forsyth who is awesome. When assholes like Dan Brown claim to be off doing research while they're really doing coke and sending condescending emails to Umberto Eco, Forsyth actually does his homework, often a little too well. He's also inspired some rather crazy people. While he does have some issues (Climate change skeptic) he far outclasses Clancy and any other airport author.
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Mar 27, 2010 04:35
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Lincoln Child and/Or Douglas Preston write some fun Crichton-like techno thrillers. The Relic and The Ice Limit are two examples I can think of. All pretty trashy, but really fun. As a professional sailor, I have to add that Cussler does a terrible job describing ships, maritime tech, and the like. He writes like his experience is on his yacht and a few hours watching the history channel. Randy Wayne White is like the opposite of Cussler. His character Doc Ford is a semi-retired ex-government somebody who spends his days as a biologist in southern Florida solving mysteries. They are actually pretty good, and the author knows boats and fish since he used to be a charter boat captain.
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Mar 27, 2010 07:20
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Casimir Radon posted:I used to like Tom Clancy, when I was 10. I still like Red Storm Rising, and Patriot Games though. If I want a thriller now I'll go to Frederick Forsyth who is awesome. When assholes like Dan Brown claim to be off doing research while they're really doing coke and sending condescending emails to Umberto Eco, Forsyth actually does his homework, often a little too well. He's also inspired some rather crazy people. While he does have some issues (Climate change skeptic) he far outclasses Clancy and any other airport author. Frederick Forsyth rules, haven't read any of his later stuff but The Dogs of War, The Odessa File, The Devil's Alternative and The Fourth Protocol are all fantastic. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call his stuff airport fiction though as I happen to think it's rather classy. 
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Mar 27, 2010 10:01
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Mercury Ballistic posted:As a professional sailor, I have to add that Cussler does a terrible job describing ships, maritime tech, and the like. He writes like his experience is on his yacht and a few hours watching the history channel.
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Mar 27, 2010 10:33
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glasnost toyboy posted:How about nazis in the jungle? Read Temple by the esteemed Matthew Reilly. Is there any milporn fiction out there (besides in comic books) by and for liberals? Let me rephrase, since most conservative written milporn is something both smart liberals and dumb conservatives can be  about. Is there any liberal-written milporn that would cater to dumb liberals and smart conservatives?
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Mar 27, 2010 10:42
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Payndz posted:You should be able to find them in Waterstone's, Picked up Hunt for Atlantis from Waterstone's yesterday, enjoyed it immensely. Not enough Nazis though and poor bloody Hugo 
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Mar 27, 2010 12:33
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Wilbur Smith is pretty enjoyable. All his books are set in Africa mostly during the British Empire period, although there is at least one set in ancient Egypt. He seems to do a pretty good job of describing everyone's perspective/motivation. So you get Boers, Zulus, Bantu etc as well as British points of view. It's been a while, but he seems pretty fair to everyone except Arabs, he doesn't seem to trust them. I assume if you are in this thread you don't mind Manly Men being Heroic... I would also join in the Larry Bond recommendations
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Mar 28, 2010 11:36
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If you want really old school, H. Rider Haggard, Talbot Mundy, and Sax Rohmer were the Clancy's and Bond's of their day. Everybody should read King Solomon's Mines, King of the Khyber Rifles, and The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu.
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Mar 28, 2010 15:58
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Angry Midwesterner posted:Is there any milporn fiction out there (besides in comic books) by and for liberals? That's an excellent question. I don't know, but this is something I'd be interested in. The conservative dynamic works for Clancy, or it does in his better stuff at least.
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Mar 28, 2010 16:01
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Nuclear Tourist posted:Frederick Forsyth rules, haven't read any of his later stuff but The Dogs of War, The Odessa File, The Devil's Alternative and The Fourth Protocol are all fantastic. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call his stuff airport fiction though as I happen to think it's rather classy. Do NOT read The Afghan; disappointing is not the word. Doesn't Chris Ryan have a ghostwriter? In The One That Got Away he talks about being uninterested in school and not doing well in *koff* English; suddenly he's a best-selling author? Nope; doesn't wash. I'm sure that for TOTGA he told his story to someone who patted it into shape, and then a publisher decided to cash in on his name and go the Andy McNab route. I remember reading one of Ryan's thrillers which was set in Arizona and it had some really odd segments, like an AZ phone number which was in the wrong format (it was like 00011558 547657 77 or something, rather than the usual 480-555-1234 format of a North American phone number); at some point the protagonist stumbles across a "tea chest", and there's an extremely peculiar description of the hero eating a meal from Taco Bell.
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Mar 28, 2010 20:56
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You guys are a killing me by not having Vince Flynn listed here. I freaking love his books. They are your general spy/political thriller type, but something about them has caused me more enjoyment than many of the other similar authors. I highly recommend his first book, Term Limits, even though it does not contain the main character from the rest of his books. A lot of the characters do come back though.
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Mar 28, 2010 21:27
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Angry Midwesterner posted:Is there any milporn fiction out there (besides in comic books) by and for liberals? I think I have just the thing. Two authors actually and I have been waiting to talk about this for a while here at TBB so pull up a chair and lets get loving military NERDY. The first author is Barry Sadler. He is most famous for his Casca series about the guy that stabbed Jesus on the Cross and was forced to live forever and fight in war after war. Because after all, he was a bad rear end and what else can one do when you are a bad rear end? Hell the subtitle is 'The Eternal Mercenary.' Basically, it was a platform for Sadler to put one character into every single major conflict in human history. He only wrote the first couple and then a ghost writer took over, but they are still a boatload of fun. Also, check out his Vietnam series. I read Phu Nam as a kid and my mom tried to take it away from me. Basically merc porn. The second author is AJ Quinnell. He wrote Man on Fire, the book they loosely based the Denzell Washington flick on. And by loosely I mean both are about guys that want revenge and that is about it. The character Creasy is 400% more bad rear end in the books and I did a scientific study of this. Jumping out of planes, improvised weapons, the whole thing. It is a lot like the Bourne series without the long stretches of bullshit internal monologues. Now, I don't know a lot about this genre of books, but to throw one out there that I like: I thought Clancy's Without Remorse is hugely bad rear end. One of my closet favorites. I mean, yeah, some of you can scoff and say 'Blah blah blah Joyce blah blah blah literature blah bla' BANG. If anyone can come up with a better premise than "An ex-special forces loving KILLER decides to systematically dismantle a criminal enterprise that killed his girlfriend only to be recruited by the Federal gently caress Government to do more bad rear end poo poo," then you need to write that book and send the poo poo to me FedEx. Otherwise, suck it.
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Mar 30, 2010 02:59
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flamingmuse posted:I think I have just the thing. Two authors actually and I have been waiting to talk about this for a while here at TBB so pull up a chair and lets get loving military NERDY. This sounds interesting, but how does the religion angle factor into this beyond making the guy immortal? If it's an endless jesus-fest I want nothing to do with it.
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Mar 30, 2010 03:16
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flamingmuse posted:The first author is Barry Sadler. He is most famous for his Casca series about the guy that stabbed Jesus on the Cross and was forced to live forever and fight in war after war. Dang, I'd forgotten about this guy. He's up there with the Remo Williams series for "ultimate badass warrior goes and destroys everyone he meets while boning all the ladies because that's the way the world is, oh PS: he just spin-kicked all the bad guys into an early grave and now his gigantic rocket cock inseminated all of America to produce the next generation of Freedom Babies."  Okay, yes, it gets kind of silly but a friend of mine's dad had those Casca books and they were definitely NOT for us to be reading. Which meant we'd steal 'em and read as fast as we could before he got home. Good times.
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Mar 30, 2010 04:37
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IRQ posted:This sounds interesting, but how does the religion angle factor into this beyond making the guy immortal? If it's an endless jesus-fest I want nothing to do with it. gently caress no there is nothing to do with Jesus in the books. Remember, he is a Roman so he didn't believe in that upstart bullshit anyway. I think the post above me puts it about right with the following caveat: these were probably targeted at young adults before YA books split into light hearted new-age bullshit or celibacy parables for 25 year old assholes that never learned to read. It is definitely jingoistic propaganda, but in a 50's sort of 'Manifest Destiny makes sense because we never really thought about it' kind of way. It is the details that are so much fun. For instance, once he realizes that he is immortal, he decides that he'll never work in a mine because he is terrified of getting stuck under ground and being unable to die.
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Mar 30, 2010 06:02
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Payndz posted:Would it be poor form to plug my own books? Oops, too late. They definitely fall into the category of 'airport fiction', and unashamedly so. I now have to read these, if only because the main characters are called Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase. I can only imagine that you are a real-life Richard Castle.
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Mar 30, 2010 17:04
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Leovinus posted:I now have to read these, if only because the main characters are called Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase. I can only imagine that you are a real-life Richard Castle. I just finished the first in the series, and it was like a Michael Bay movie on paper. Which could have been a bad thing, if it took itself at all seriously, but it doesn't.
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Mar 30, 2010 18:06
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Leovinus posted:I can only imagine that you are a real-life Richard Castle.
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Mar 30, 2010 19:21
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There's nothing wrong with liking pop fiction. It's the lovely books that make all the money and let publishers take risks on the more literary works. The only kinds of pop fiction I dislike are pure action novels where it's literally just descriptions of one fight scene after another. Oh, and the lazy writing that seems inherent in most of them. The great ones avoid this, but a notable example would be in Casino Royale where James Bond is described as a Hoagy Carmichael looking fellow. It's just so lazy to tell me that a purse is Gucci rather than describing it. To contribute: favorite pop fiction novel would have to be Angels and Demobs by Dan Brown. If you've only seen the movie, the book is actually a lot better, and even though it does do the lazy stuff (he actually tells you the make and model of the car Robert Langdon drives rather than describe it) it's actually the most coherent and compelling story Dan Brown has actually written, and definitely worth checking out for some light reading.
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Mar 30, 2010 19:55
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Soft Money 1M posted:To contribute: favorite pop fiction novel would have to be Angels and Demobs by Dan Brown. If you've only seen the movie, the book is actually a lot better, and even though it does do the lazy stuff (he actually tells you the make and model of the car Robert Langdon drives rather than describe it) it's actually the most coherent and compelling story Dan Brown has actually written, and definitely worth checking out for some light reading. You are a very bad man.
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Mar 30, 2010 21:49
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Soft Money 1M posted:even though it does do the lazy stuff (he actually tells you the make and model of the car Robert Langdon drives rather than describe it) "Boxy and utilitarian, the vehicle he boarded stood high off the ground on four chunky, deeply treaded tyres, indicating that it was designed for hardscrabble use considerable distances off-road and in all manner of terrain and climate conditions. Its somewhat dated design, despite its apparent relatively recent manufacture, suggested that it was a direct descendant of - or even a knowing throwback to - a transport of similar function from over half a century earlier, trading on the cachet and reputation of the older model as a sales tool. The circular headlights, mounted in the flat, perfectly vertical aluminium leading panels of the front wings, added to the retro feel. Between the lights was a black, rectangular radiator grille, at its centre an oval badge of dark green bearing two words in stylised yellow text, revealing the manufacturer's marque. In descriptive terms they were as blunt as the vehicle's aesthetics, conveying its function: to traverse the landscape." over: "He climbed into a Land Rover."
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Mar 30, 2010 22:44
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You can't fix Dan Brown.
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Mar 30, 2010 22:50
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Boxy and utilitarian, the Land Rover he boarded stood high off the ground on four chunky, deeply treaded tyres, indicating that it was designed for hardscrabble use considerable distances off-road and in all manner of terrain and climate conditions. Its somewhat dated design, despite its apparent relatively recent manufacture, suggested that it was a direct descendant of - or even a knowing throwback to - a transport of similar function from over half a century earlier, trading on the cachet and reputation of the older model as a sales tool. The circular headlights, mounted in the flat, perfectly vertical aluminium leading panels of the front wings, added to the retro feel. Between the lights was a black, rectangular radiator grille, at its centre an oval badge of dark green bearing two words in stylised yellow text, revealing the manufacturer's marque. In descriptive terms they were as blunt as the vehicle's aesthetics, conveying its function: to traverse the landscape. "I love Land Rovers," Langdon mused.
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Mar 31, 2010 01:11
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Boxy and utilitarian, the Land Rover he boarded stood high off the ground on four chunky, deeply treaded tyres, indicating that it was designed for hardscrabble use considerable distances off-road and in all manner of terrain and climate conditions. Its somewhat dated design, despite its apparent relatively recent manufacture, suggested that it was a direct descendant of - or even a knowing throwback to - a transport of similar function from over half a century earlier, trading on the cachet and reputation of the older model as a sales tool. The circular headlights, mounted in the flat, perfectly vertical aluminium leading panels of the front wings, added to the retro feel. Between the lights was a black, rectangular radiator grille, at its centre an oval badge of dark green bearing two words in stylised yellow text, revealing the manufacturer's marque. In descriptive terms they were as blunt as the vehicle's aesthetics, conveying its function: to traverse the landscape. Robert Langdon, 33, a professor of Ancient Studies at George Brown university puffed and wheezed slightly as he wedged the soft contours of his corpulent frame behind the steering wheel of the Land Rover. Noticing the green and yellow insignia on the steering wheel, Robert had a sudden flash of insight. "Of course! Green for the Rebirth, yellow for the New Dawn!" Feeling carefully around the edge of the insignia, the soft pads of his fleshy fingers felt a slight lip. Twisting carefully with his fingernail, Robert pried open the plastic cap covering a hollow space behind the logo. Inside, he saw a short tube containing a tightly-rolled scroll and two lenses that caught the light in scintillating patterns of yellow and green as he removed them from their resting place. "How long have these been entombed here?" he wondered as he gently unrolled the ancient scroll upon the dashboard. He did this with some difficulty due to his paunch pressing hard against the steering wheel but no matter, the hunt was on! For the first time in a thousand years, man's eyes once more gazed upon the fabled Rosicrucian Rolling papers. Thought to be lost during the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade when King Richard Coeur di Leon was rumored to be imprisoned for smoking dank buds in the Holy Lands, these papers had been presumed lost for all time. Edit: Oh, and there was a hot chick in the back seat who was smart and sciencey and had a degree or something. Robert Langdon, Professor of Ancient Studies then made love to her in the back seat while musing on the intricate polynomial sequence revealed by Galileo's telescope if you point it at Da Vinci's Last Supper and squint a bit. "Remarkable," Langdon mused. CuddleChunks fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Mar 31, 2010 |
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Mar 31, 2010 01:31
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Renowned professor of ancient studies Robert Langdon smelled cheese being cut, and he knew it was his own.
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Mar 31, 2010 13:57
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Eric L. Harry - Yes I can point out some unbelievable aspects, but damned if his books aren't entertaining as hell. I re-read Invasion every year. http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Eric-L-Harry/dp/0515128422 Arc Light and Protect and Defend are pretty good too.
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Mar 31, 2010 20:05
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