Best/worst Gun AUTHORS (of fiction)

Darn it.. going from memory I thought "The Lieutenant" was correct.. too lazy to get up and look. It's "Final Blackout". doh! You'll understand if you've read the book though and it's been a long time.
"No Country for Old Men" (Cormac McCarthy) was pretty good. I think in the book there was like one thing that bothered me but I forget what it was.. and it really wasn't the shotgun.

AWFUL: John Shirley, especially in Everything is Broken. This guy is a real piece of...something. The entire plot could have been stopped in about 15 seconds by four men with California-PC long guns and some determination. The author spends most of the book demonizing liberty and self-sufficiency.

Carl N. Brown said:

I don't think Steven King is necessarily pro-gun, but the gun details in "The Stand" and in "Lisey's Story" for example ring true and the folks armed in self-defense are not all treated as redneck buffoons, which I have come to expect of mainstream fiction.

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The Stand certainly showed guns in a decent light, although King is much closer to be an anti.....http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...1/25/stephen-king-releases-gun-control-essay/


I am pretty sure there were some glaring errors in The Stand though. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think he invented a caliber or something

Good:

Robert R McCammon
Vince Flynn
David Baldacci
Brad Thor
Larry Corriea

Bad:

Most other I have tried to read them.

Moondancer said:

About Koontz, IIRC, he made a fair amount of blunders early on in his career, but it's been so long ago that I'm not positive. I just remember thinking "that's not right!" when I was reading some of his stuff.

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Early on Koontz seemed fixated on portraying certain weapons, and didn't account for their strengths, weaknesses, and manners of use very well, but he has expanded his familiarity with the subject considerably since then. It probably wasn't a chore given his personal enthusiasm for firearms and support for our Second Amendment rights.

Good:

Robert R McCammon
Vince Flynn
David Baldacci
Brad Thor
Larry Corriea

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Couldn't agree more!!

Dick Francis

The last Dick Francis novel i read had some good gun detail in it.
i think it was Twice Shy?
one of the characters shoots a Mauser and a .22 custom rifle for competitions.

Also in (forgot the name) he has a character that's kinda like a secret agent, but we never really know for sure, that carries a Luger and uses it well.

Both seemed pretty spot on to me. Good descriptions and even better action sequences that are closer to reality than many others i have read.

Stephen King was good till i read in one of the Dark Tower books how the character "popped out the cylinder" of Colt SAA to reload. They were still fun to read but i ignored some of the guns stuff after that.

Far as I know Linda E. Evans has never made a modern gun error in her Science Fiction whether "here", the near future, or folks from those places time traveling.

But I am biased.

-kBob

Looking back through some of the post over the last six and a half years on this thread I noted someone commented on Dean Ing doing his research. Yes he does.

Anyone read his remake of the Soft targets stuff where a bad lady leaves a HK P7 where a youngster can get to it? He basically worked that scene out in a hallway of the World SF/F convention in Baltimore the year KAL 007 was splashed by the Russians. He had a long talk with an HK P7 owner and all around gun nut about the feasibility of the scene and whether a P7 was a good choice.

He also spoke with the owner a Taurus Barfetta 92 clone about that and other guns.

The three of us had a nice half hour or so avoiding other fans in a side hall after being surrounded in the more open area.

-kBob

I was going to mention Hunter and Baldacci. I've read a lot of Hunter's stuff, but only one of Baldacci's. Most were before I really became a gun guy like I am today, but I remember them having a lot of gun detail. I was also less than impressed with Ludlum's gun detail, although I did like the stories. Clancy seems pretty good too, though he seems more concerned with military hardware than small arms.

kbob:
Are you related or is that your nom de plume? Either way I've bookmarked her Baen page for future purchases. Baen writers tend to be in the good to great band and I like to support gunny authors.

Hutch said:

Fully agree that Ludlum is invincibly ignorant. I even wrote him a letter many years ago, offering to proof/edit his stuff. No response, funny that. Here's another gun-Muggle: Jack Higgins. 25 millimetre (Brit, I s'pose) Colt auto, anyone?

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I hope it was many yrs ago.....he's been dead for almost 15 yrs.

Edit: Wow, this is an old thread...he'd only been dead 6 yrs when this thread was started!

Cormac Maccarthy is my favorite modern author. I loved the guns, and gun scenes in the movie "No Country for Old Men." Heck, I loved the whole movie, one of my favorites of all time.

No Country for Old Men the book, has gun descriptions that entail characteristics of the shooters and their own expressed personality traits to a climax I am unable to even attempt to explain on the internet. As it has been too long since I read it, I may be wrong about this, but I believe he dove right into characterizing a custom built .270 on the first page. If anybody has read it, and found his gun talk flawed, or noticed
it sound, please let me know. Thanks all for the great thread. Forgive my abstract language, lol.

Dan Brown has a tendancy to invent firearms, I can't remember what he called it but it provided no results on a search engine, he described it as being very large, I highly doubt the Swiss Guard would be armed with anything large and exotic described in the book, other guns were very generically mentioned.

In another Dan Brown book, deception point, he described the Delta-Operators to have 'snub-nose machineguns', two terms NEVER used in the same sentene, the only weapons I could envision was a P90, MP-5K or perhaps a M249 Para model or something like a M60E.

Good:

Stephen Hunter
Larry Correia
Michael Z. Williamson

Adequate:

Vince Flynn
Tom Clancy
Dale Brown
David Baldacci (Sometimes)
Stephen Hunter (Sometimes)

Abysmal:

David Baldacci
David Morrell
Robert Ludlum

Actually, most all Baen authors are pretty good, too, but you seldom see firearms minutiae in most.

Craig Johnson could do a better job (Longmire)

Sometimes I think he subcontracts the gun bits out; either he doesn't know one end of a 1911 from the other or he just does a bad job of describing the experience (which too many of us have had to not notice)
Cheers, TF

Anybody into W.E.B. Griffin? The Brotherhood of War series, Badge of Honor, and The Corps all have pretty good gun details, mostly centered around the weapons available to our armed forces during WWII and the Korea/Vietnam War eras.

They're not really action novels per se but the scenes where there is action are pretty well researched and written. Particularly memorable is a scene where two of the main characters in the BOW series are detailed to Greece just after the end of WWII and a crusty old Warrant Officer armorer is explaining the personal weapons available to them, which are mostly captured German or surplus British weapons as the US-supplied stuff hasn't started arriving yet in quantity.

They're good reads if your into minutiae. I'm not as impressed with Griffin's most recent efforts, he's been co-writing with another author (Butterworth, I think) and the tone of the books has changed significantly.

I will honestly say that I am a bit inept in this category, but I will mention, only because I remember my wife and father in law talking about how much they enjoyed the book(s). I had to google search the author's name as I only knew what they called the book.

The name of the book that I remember hearing them talk about was "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. I don't know if this fits your criteria, but you might want to check it out.

I remember Stephen King

annoyed me a couple times in 11/22/63, which was otherwise a fantastic read; I think it had more to do with one of his characters I liked getting hurt because they either didn't have access to or had bad knowledge of how to use a gun they had access to; He's much better on vintage Rock 'n Roll...

Has anyone mentioned Louis L'Amour? I have to shake my head every time I read "How The West Was Won" when one of the main characters ,Linus Rawlings, fires three shots as fast as he can aim with what (based on the time period) must be a flintlock

To be fair though it's still a good book

Tony Hillerman RIP

Tony Hillerman is both. He seems not to understand handguns very well as his police officers are always "removing the safety catch" from their revolvers when they're in imminent danger. Gangsters with .38 caliber automatics (there is the .38 Super of course so he gets a pass there I suppose).

He's, however, always got his rifles right. Lot's of 30-30s (none with safeties), bolt actions, and other hunting rifles.

He was a veteran of D-Day I believe.

Who's the most cheeseball? I remember reading some Mickey Spilane or somesuch and his gun scenes were akin to the old Batman series or comic books complete with POW!, WHOMP!, "SOCK!, etc. etc. Pretty fun reads though.

I will also put in for correia.

X-JaVeN-X said:

I will honestly say that I am a bit inept in this category, but I will mention, only because I remember my wife and father in law talking about how much they enjoyed the book(s). I had to google search the author's name as I only knew what they called the book.

The name of the book that I remember hearing them talk about was "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. I don't know if this fits your criteria, but you might want to check it out.

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Not a lot of gun minutia in "The Things They Carried" except for general description of types of weaponry carried by foot soldiers in Vietnam. A fascinating book though. Quick and very engaging read about the emotional toll of serving in Vietnam.

If they liked that book, they should try reading "Short Timers" by Gustav Hasford, the book that formed the basis for "Full Metal Jacket".


I'm glad Stephen King learned to just steer clear of too many gun details. I would rather read less detail than wrong detail, and I love his storytelling.