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Scotsman posted:I really enjoyed Personal - it felt very similar to Persuader which is my favourite Reacher novel, and of course many callbacks to that. Although sadly Little Joey never came CLOSE to the awesomeness that was Paulie. Yeah, I was a bit disappointed by that character. Having a character be significantly larger than Reacher is a sort of cheap way to make him a threat, and I think Little Joey stretched my suspension of disbelief a little too far. The story noticeably struggled to come up with a decent reason for Reacher not to be able to just shoot him, and then Reacher basically just shoots him anyway. I remember the fight with Paulie being way better - isn't that the one where Reacher's like "he physically outclassed me in every way, which meant I had the advantage because he wouldn't be expecting me to beat him to death"? Man, Persuader was a great book.
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Sep 9, 2014 17:56
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Faux Mulder posted:Yeah, I was a bit disappointed by that character. Having a character be significantly larger than Reacher is a sort of cheap way to make him a threat, and I think Little Joey stretched my suspension of disbelief a little too far. The story noticeably struggled to come up with a decent reason for Reacher not to be able to just shoot him, and then Reacher basically just shoots him anyway. He was actually getting his rear end handed to him by Paulie in the fight and was hosed - but then Paulie got too confident and went for some crazy karate kick. Persuader had probably my favourite part of any book I've ever read. This part here I think just did such an incredible job at selling Paulie: “I kicked him in the kidney. It was the kind of kick that would have sent a football out of the stadium and into the parking lot. It would have cracked a utility pole. It would have put most guys in the hospital all by itself. It would have killed some of them. It had about as much effect on Paulie as a polite tap on the shoulder. He didn’t even make a noise. He just put both hands on the door frame and slowly pushed himself upright.”
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Sep 11, 2014 23:03
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In Personal I totally thought that Reacher asking for info on the bulletproof glass, in combination with the several mentions of the three-second delay between the muzzle flash and the shot arriving, meant that he was going to come up with some kind of shield arrangement that could be launched into place in less than three seconds after someone sees the muzzle flash.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:39
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I totally saw the 3-second lag for the second shot early on, and thought it was a plot gap. I never see those sorts of things, so I was feeling quite smug until it was revealed as intentional. Do other Reacher novels have that sort of Encyclopedia Brown puzzle? I don't recall any.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:46
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Since I haven't seen anyone mention reading it, as a long-time MATTHEW REILLY!!!!!!!! fan I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by The Tournament. It had some scattered scenes of snug-as-hell Roger Ascham being a Tudor Sherlock Holmes, and a couple of the (sparse) action scenes were fun, but it got way too bogged down in hand-wringing about Elizabeth's friend having Lots Of Sex and everyone conforming to pretty boring stereotypes (pretty much every Arab is crooked and corrupt; every Catholic is a child abuser, etc). The fact that the protagonist was ostensibly a thirteen-year-old girl made thins more awkward, not more fun. Usually when I read a REILLY!!!!! book I have moments of "What, seriously?! Hells yes!  ", but with this it was ore "...what, seriously?  "Really hoping the next one is a return to form - from the synopsis it sounds like much more fun.
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Sep 17, 2014 15:18
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I haven't read The Tournament yet, making it the first Reilly in a long time I hadn't picked up in hardback on publication; the premise just didn't grab me. And having since read the promotional short story that accompanied it (Roger Ascham And The King's Lost Girl), I haven't changed my opinion. RAATKLG spoilers: Shouty sweary Henry VIII orders Ascham to find his favourite prostitute, who's gone missing. Ascham does some very simplistic Sherlocking and finds out that the kidnapper is a serial killer who's training himself to become a surgeon by re-enacting the "Unspeakable Experiments" scene from the old Mars Attacks! bubblegum cards on a dungeonful of women, and who sets up deadly traps for snoopers that can only be avoided by, er, moving slightly to one side. Unfortunately, the killer fails to remember where he placed his own traps, and Ascham promptly decoys him into decapitating himself. The end.
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Sep 17, 2014 15:41
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Yeah, spread that amount of plot over 400 pages of large print and you've pretty much got the level of interest in The Tournament. The only thing that made me finish it over the course of one day was disbelief at how lazy it all felt. MATTHEW REILLY!!!!!!!'s writing is many things, but I don't think I've ever felt it was lazy before. That said, it's probably worth reading if you can get a cheap copy? If only for the reassurance that even someone like REILLY!!!!! can have some pretty terrible missteps.
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Sep 17, 2014 15:53
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Maybe his dealer was outta town the weekend he wrote it?
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Sep 18, 2014 12:16
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I'm almost out of John Sandford books and I'm freaking out. I really like his stuff. I've already read almost all the Reacher books and almost every Robert B. Parker book. I also really liked the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, mostly the first one. Where do I go from here??
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Sep 21, 2014 22:23
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Doghouse posted:I'm almost out of John Sandford books and I'm freaking out. I really like his stuff. I've already read almost all the Reacher books and almost every Robert B. Parker book. I also really liked the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, mostly the first one. He's got a new Virgil Flowers novel coming in October. Try early Tom Clancy as well. I love Jack Ryan.
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Sep 21, 2014 23:35
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Sandford also has a YA novel that was decent. (Enough so that I plan to read the sequel, at least.) Frederick Forsyth is usually pretty good too.
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Sep 22, 2014 00:12
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Doghouse posted:I'm almost out of John Sandford books and I'm freaking out. I really like his stuff. I've already read almost all the Reacher books and almost every Robert B. Parker book. I also really liked the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, mostly the first one. You might like David Baldacchi (he gets a nice name-check in one of the newer Reacher books, so Lee Child is probably a fan). I am also quite partial to Jeffery Deaver, but he's not quite as "airport" as other thriller writers, more of a mystery writer. The Bone Collector is a great book though. If you want a series of books where bad dudes get punched in the face and/or shot with sniper rifles, then you could do a lot worse than the Andy McNab books. I have enjoyed pretty much all of them.
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Sep 22, 2014 20:41
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Mind you, David Baldacci's writing is absolutely godawful.
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Sep 23, 2014 01:20
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iNteg posted:He's got a new Virgil Flowers novel coming in October. Just stay away from any of the books that feature his son.
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Sep 25, 2014 17:02
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AFewBricksShy posted:Just stay away from any of the books that feature his son. I still read em. I enjoyed the books as ghost written novels with more jack ryan.
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Sep 25, 2014 18:27
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iNteg posted:I still read em. I enjoyed the books as ghost written novels with more jack ryan. I figuratively sprained my eyeballs when I rolled them so incredibly hard after the "genuine pigskin so gently caress you terrorist, football is sending you to hell" part in I think it was teeth of the tiger. Also his "offscreen" killing of Robby Jackson was loving bullshit.
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Sep 26, 2014 03:00
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AFewBricksShy posted:I figuratively sprained my eyeballs when I rolled them so incredibly hard after the "genuine pigskin so gently caress you terrorist, football is sending you to hell" part in I think it was teeth of the tiger. Agreed on that, i had to reread bear and the dragon to make sure i didnt miss something lol
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Sep 26, 2014 05:25
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I just finished Personal by Lee Child. Another great instalment, although I had kind of guessed the twist by about half way though. I also realised that I have read too much airport fiction because the fact that the second shot was never fired in the first incident, because of the three second flight time delay. I listened to the Audible version and the narrator, Jeff Harding, is now the voice of Reacher for me.
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Oct 2, 2014 10:02
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langurmonkey posted:You might like David Baldacchi (he gets a nice name-check in one of the newer Reacher books, so Lee Child is probably a fan). Haha, just the opposite, I think. That name-check in Never Go Back was a fairly overt dig at Baldacci, who had just come out with his first (shameless Reacher rip-off) John Puller book, Zero Day. As a result, in Never Go Back there's a minor thug named something like Robert David Baldacci. Reacher savagely beats him and breaks his arm in an airplane bathroom. There's also a character in A Wanted Man called Puller who Reacher takes a dislike to, but I think that was more of a coincidence. The dislike isn't mentioned specifically enough for it to feel like a direct jibe.
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Oct 5, 2014 13:49
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Huh - never knew that. On the topic of references, Under the Dome by Stephen King had a few to Jack Reacher. Minor spoilers for that book: quote:“Wettington was given a citation for helping to break up an illegal drug ring operating out of the Sixty-seventh Combat Support Hospital in Würzburg, Germany, and was personally recommended by a man named Jack Reacher, the toughest goddamn Army cop that ever served, in my humble opinion.” quote:Cox laughed without much humor. “Jack Reacher says hello.” Also people NEED to read the books by Lee Childs brother, Andrew Grant. I've only read the first one - Even - but holy crap, his Reacher-like character makes Reacher look like Clark Kent. Just wow. He did have an enjoyable writing style that I liked though where the opening to each chapter would be about something that previously happened in the characters life, and would be in line with the current story.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:22
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Looks like Reilly has a new book out overseas. The Great Zoo of China. Think the release date for the US is something like Jan 10th or 15th, but I've been hearing good things about it.
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Nov 14, 2014 07:58
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Huh, for some reason it's in stock with second-party sellers via Amazon UK, but Amazon itself won't have it until next Feb. drat, and I thought I'd be able to read JURASSIC PARK WITH MOTHERFUCKING DRAGONS!!!!! this weekend.
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Nov 14, 2014 16:36
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Anyone read Duane Swierczynski? Trying out "Severance Package" at the moment.
Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 21:35
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Welp, finished up Severance Package and it's... weird. It's sort of an airport fiction book, but it's not really. It's like a weird amalgam of thriller, horror, airport fiction, and just odd. Minor spoiler The weird part includes a character who is reading an airport fiction novel while being a main character in this book, which kinda reads like the same. Just, oddly meta. Still, it was interesting enough to keep me reading till the end.
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Nov 16, 2014 10:09
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