Best/worst Gun AUTHORS (of fiction)

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BAD Robert W. Walker writes about his Detective hero/ Indian good guy chasing coyotes off his ranch with a "22 smooth bore"
 
I like Chuck Logan along with Vince Flynn, Lee Child, Sandford, etc.

Gregg Hurwitz has books that include guns I like. (But avoid "Trust No One" has a ridiculous plot.) One mistake, his main character carries a .357 Mag snub nose as his main carry, which is fine. But on a raid on an outlaw motorcycle gang, the writer had him add a Sig 226 in an ankle holster as backup. Good luck with that.

Ludlum wrote 100 page books then turned them into 400 page books by repeating things over and over and over ... Terrible.

I started a Brad Thor book, but the plot started with the "hero" shooting at a bad guy while sitting in the window of a fast moving car in the middle of a typhoon. That was too unrealistic for me to want to continue reading.
 
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Michael Koryta. His latest novels have more of a supernatural bent and less gunplay, but his novels featuring PI Lincoln Perry are very good gun wise. Besides that, it's great writing that is hard to put down.
 
I have always liked the Louis Lamour books, he actually had been in the locations he wrote about, and his historical research was first rate. When he mentions a gun it was accurate to the time period he was writing about.
 
I've always enjoyed the works of Brad Thor and he has been pretty accurate, though in one of his books his hero Scot Harvath was having a lul in the action and taking stock in his supplies, he was almost out of ammo for his MP5 but had several magazines for his Glock 19 (or other 9mm Glock).

(edit for typo)
 
I was reading 'Fuzzy Nation' which is John Scalzi's rehash of 'Little Fuzzy.'
Kind of like all the movie remakes, up through True Grit.

OK yarn considered in isolation, but Piper's Jack Holoway would never be found unarmed as Scalzi's mutation normally is. And what's this "Zararaptor" stuff? Where is the Zarathustran Damnthing? And the Harpy?
This was NOT a book that needed writing. Scalzi isn't bad, but he is no Beam Piper.
 
Terence said:
There's an author named Lee Child who writes a series about a guy named Jack Reacher. Reacher spends a lot of time carrying large amounts of lethal hardware around and doing really amazing things with it.

The treatment of guns ranges from the impossible (Reacher cocks guns with no external hammer) to the improbable (discovers a .50 Desert Eagle that a small town Georgia detective kept as a service weapon), but the stories are great. And sometimes he even gets it right.

I posted on the Lee Child forum asking why Reacher was doing so many odd things with a H&K P7M10. Overall, most of the other readers, including one guy who claimed to be a former Major in the MPs, told me not to worry about the little details and enjoy the story.
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Lee Childs writes good books, but is clueless about guns.

In one, he gets intentionally shot in the chest with a .38 because he knows they are low powered.

In another, he allows someone to draw a Beretta (?) on him and pull the trigger because he knew the owner kept the mags loaded for several years and knew it wouldn't feed because of that <grimace>
 
C.J. Box with the Joe Pickett series.

Great series - Box gets the guns right and has been a great promoter of Freedom Firearms.
 
http://www.authorhouse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000250224

When I wrote my above novel (under a pen name) I took extreme pains to be accurate with weapon systems to include individual weapons soldiers carried in the field.
Good fiction must be backed with fact. I took extreme research measures relating to nuclear countermeasures and invented some based on fact. Some people told me they could not see the difference from fact and fiction.
Facts relating to weapons are very important in a novel. If the facts are not there then the author runs the risk of having the reader put the book down, forever.
I have to agree, Tom Clancy and Frederick Forsyth are good researchers.
 
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Ian Fleming did pretty good.

Guns, cocktails, food, gambling, women....

All described in a vivid, memorable way.

Never did like that part about Bond getting his nads whacked with a carpet beater though.


For those who have never read the novels, they have almost nothing to do with the movies. Worth checking out.
 
I've found Ludlum to suck with guns. I haven't met anyone really good with them, because completely accurate gun details really do take away from telling a story. Yes, I've tried.
 
He he he... This is an old thread. When I posted here last I'd just been contacted by my publisher for my very first book contract. I'm now working on the contract that will cover up to book #18 in 5 different series. :D

Professionally, I've developed a rep as the "gun guy" in fantasy. Sweet. I'll take it.

I'm branching out into thrillers. The online story written by Mike Kupari and I, known as Welcome Back, Mr. Nightcrawler, that was posted here a couple of years back is coming out as the thriller DEAD SIX in September. That is a very gun heavy book, (well, obviously, the rough draft was written on a gun forum).

It takes place in a small Persian Gulf nation during a violent military coup. Lots of modern guns, and we did tons of homework on the technical end of things for this one.

My Monster Hunter series is very gun heavy. Monster Hunting contractors take care of business in the most efficient way possible. Lots of modern stuff, lots of guns, and I try to keep the tactical end of things realistic enough that even my fan base won't get too nitpicky. :) Paraphrase of actual line: "What's the best gun for armored zombie bears?"

The Grimnoir Chronicles series is an alternative history, set mostly in the 1930s, so lots of period weapons. John Moses Browning is a character, and he's a wizard. (that last part isn't fictional obviously). Main character is armed with a Lewis Gun, and then a version of the BAR that never actually existed. (which is why I so love alternate history)

Next up is a sci-fi series I'm co-authoring with John Ringo. Post-apocolyptic, and there will be much gun-nuttery. We get to ask the question, "what's the best gun for giant ants?"

After that is another thriller series, a fantasy (no guns in that one!), and there will be more.
 
Good:
Larry Correia (natch)
Stephen King
Robert McCammon

Bernard Cornwell's attitude toward pistols, particularly 1911s came through
in his modern day novel Wildtrack.
 
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer

I always liked Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer books and T.V. shows.

Especially the sections where the females always carried a pair of 38's or 44's.. ;) and knew how to use them. :D

Single Action Six
 
i read a few of stephen king's "the gunslinger" series, and he doesn't know jack squat about guns lol
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That's true, King is generally not a good gun writer. But there's a scene I love in Drawing of the Three when the main character from a post-apocalyptic world walks into a gunshop in our world and is astounded by the wealth of weapons around him. He thinks something like, "I can get 100 bullets for 50 paper dollars? Such luxury!" And then the sleazy gunshop owner immediately tries to swindle him, just like in real life. I had to laugh when I read that because it reminded me of the first time I walked into a gunshop with money in my pocket and no knowledge in my head. King is getting better at writing guns I think. Under the Dome had some realistic depictions of Ruger and Beretta pistols, and AK-47s.

Raymond Chandler is my favorite because he doesn't make a lot of errors, he doesn't dwell on unimportant details, and I learned about a lot of interesting vintage guns through his books. One of his dirty cops carries a .38 on a .44 frame, a "wicked weapon with the punch of a .45 and twice the range". I thought the description was cool without knowing what it meant, and when I learned about the real life .38-44 S&W years later it was like running into an old acquaintance.

Thomas Harris is good in the same low-key way as Chandler. Silence of the Lambs had a lot of FBI gun tidbits, like sewing washers into your jacket lining so it would swing away on the draw, and dry-firing a revolver over and over to train hand strength. The murderer uses .38 wadcutters so as not to damage his victims' carcasses. There are a lot more authentic-seeming cool little touches like that.

I thought I would like Mickey Spillane, but I can only read about a guy getting punched in the stomach, throwing up, and staring down the barrel of a .45 so many times before I kind of stop caring.

Unintended Consequences is the worst wish-fulfillment violence-porn milita fantasy masquerading as fiction I've ever had the displeasure of halfway finishing. It also had guns in it, which I suppose is all it takes for some folks.
 
Dirty Bob said:
Stephen Hunter is generally good, although the plot of Point of Impact hinged on a few rather improbable gun-related issues.

Regards,
Dirty Bob
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Stephen Hunter is a fellow gun owner and in a interview that he had with Micheal Bane he stated that he talked with people that were snipers/long range shooters to get his information for the book.
 
Dean Koontz, personally is actually a strong pro 2A guy. His favorite pistol seems to be the P7, and he is pretty good on details.

Stephan Hunter made two errors that jumped out at me enough to bug me- in one of the Earl Lee Swagger books, he refers to the character carrying a Thompson in the Pacific with 'a round in the chamber'- Which wouldn't work- the WW2 USMC Thompson fired from an open bolt- the firing pin was machined on the boltface.

In another novel, he has a character holding HIGH on a distant target when firing 'downhill'- he had it exactly backwards.

Overall, He does so well that those errors bugged me more than they would have from someone else. I did think the 'Bob the Nailer saving Bambi by shooting deer with delrin bullets then sawing off their antlers' bit in the begining of the first book a little silly.
 
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