Best/worst Gun AUTHORS (of fiction)

[TRX]

I'm reading "The Quiller Memorandum" right now. I know I read it 30 or 40 years ago, but I didn't remember much about it.

The writing is... I guess a literary critic would call it "idiosyncratic", but it was probably broken and weird even by the standards of British writers of the early 1960s. It does make sense, though, once you read around all the strange indirect dialogue.

I'm bringing it up because I just ran into a description of a "Pelmann and Rosenthal" 8mm pistol. I hit Google, and the only hits I found went back to the book. I have no idea why he made it up; there were gun stores and gun magazines in most British towns back then, he could have picked a real gun easily enough.


At least part of the story line of H. Beam Piper's "Police Action" hinged on the main character carrying a 1937 Sharps' bolt action in .235 Ultraspeed-Express...

 

[Radagast]

Piper wrote alternate history/alternate timeline stories. So it was probably correct - for that timeline.

 

[TRX]

Yes. And a few years back I vowed that if I ever decided to do a 6mm wildcat, I'd call it ".235 Ultraspeed-Express."

Actually, the .244 H&H Magnum is probably the most "ultra" you're going to get out of a 6mm...

 

[peacemaker45]

Bad: Ian Fleming, Sarah Paretsky, Stieg Larsson. The whys have already been hashed out in the thread, but those always irked me when reading them.

Good: Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn, Barry Eisler, Larry Correia.

The fantastically awful: Lee Child.

An odd one: Larry McMurtry. Author of Lonesome Dove, one of the greatest westerns ever written. He did enough research about the guns of the old west to know that not everything was a Colt Peacemaker, but then stopped. As a result, he seems to think that an 1860 Henry was more powerful than a Winchester '73, or that an otherwise intelligent person would carry a Walker as a belt gun, long after functional weapons half its weight had been in common use for years.

Also, there were a few mentions of Louis L'Amour, but no one seems to have pointed out the salient fact about nearly all his heroes: they were early adopters. He's just about always got his guys packing the most advanced thing that was available at the time. When all the conservative people were still using muzzleloaders, his hero used a breech loading Ferguson Rifle. When everyone else was using single shots, he gave his hero a brace of Lorenzoni repeating flintlock pistols. When the rest of the world (including the historical JB Hickok) was still using cap and ball, his heroes were packing S&W .44 Russian top break cartridge pistols. He had guys using Spencer carbines with Blakeslee speed loaders. All kinds of exotic, cutting edge weaponry showed up in his books. He did stray from the true path in having gunfighters denoted by their tied down rigs, fast draw gunfights at high noon and such, but he also pointed out that only a tenderfoot would wear shiny silver conchos, or festoon his horse's tack with same, were he riding in hostile territory. Tactical good sense for the 1800s.

Lorenzoni:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_hnC6x036Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[T2K]

Someone had a post in this thread in 2007 or so about the Jack Reacher novels.

Now that the movie is out, it made me want to read the books (I've not done so yet).

The movie was certainly heavy on gun stuff / ballistics / shooting.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

When all the conservative people were still using muzzleloaders, his hero used a breech loading Ferguson Rifle.

To be fair the fact the Ferguson Rifle was given to the hero by Major Ferguson was a key plot point of the story and the title of the book. L'Amour also has the other characters fairly impressed by the gun,

 

[MattShlock]

Donald Hamilton in the Matt Helm books was very good. Knew what he was writing about...

+1 on Donald Hamilton. Matter-of-fact on all sorts of guns as tools of a special clandestine service, and he obviously knew them well. By the way, the books are the exact opposite of the hokey, awful, movies which tried to outdo the bad flower-power Bond films in the "cheesey" department.

 

[Schlegel]

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.

To be fair, 38acp is a real, but obsolete caliber. I have never read Hillerman, but if his gangsters are early 20th C, it would be appropriate.

 

[peacemaker45]

To be fair the fact the Ferguson Rifle was given to the hero by Major Ferguson was a key plot point of the story and the title of the book. L'Amour also has the other characters fairly impressed by the gun,

Not saying otherwise, just pointing out that his characters had a thing for advanced (for the time) weaponry, and frequently used it to its full advantage at the peak of the plot.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Not saying otherwise, just pointing out that his characters had a thing for advanced (for the time) weaponry, and frequently used it to its full advantage at the peak of the plot.

I seem to remember one where the hero had a 12 shot revolver and tricked the bad guy into thinking he was empty

 

[peacemaker45]

That sounds familiar, but didn't stand out as much as the repeating flintlocks. Lol. I think that awesome and Lazeroni should be considered synonymous.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TRX]

> 12 shot revolver

Lefeucheaux made revolvers with more cartridges than that, for a good chunk of the 1800s. Both pinfire and centerfire. They were famously carried by some Confederate officers, but were still sold long after the war. A common arrangement had a two-row cylinder, upper and lower barrels, and a two-position firing pin.

Along with the shotgun shell and smokeless powder, the French had some notable pistol designs too.

 

[evan price]

Lee Child. I really like reading the Jack Reacher books, but Child is an Englishman with little gun experience. For example-
In Without Fail he based the entire survival of Reacher on his recognizing that a semi-auto Beretta M9 pistol had been stored with loaded magazined for a long time, and that the gun would then jam when fired due to the magazine springs going weak from being compressed by the loaded ammo.

I swear the guy gets his gun knowledge by trolling The Highroad.... :/

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Not an author but I remember watching an episode of Ironsides in which Raymond Burr refered to an M1911 as a revolver while holding it in his hand.

I assume that was a scriptwriter mistake but even so you'd think Burr would have mentioned the mistake if he had caught it.

 

[peacemaker45]

Script and props often don't agree. CSI Miami is particularly bad about that. Like Horatio holding a crow bar and talking about a tire iron.

Of course, the list of dumb things said or done on that show is monumental.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I wasn't clear, Burr refered to the pistol as a 1911 revolver

 

[JShirley]

As mpmarty said, Ludlum is the worst. I remember reading his description of his hero jamming in a "banana (i.e., curving) clip" into his Uzi...

 

[zorro45]

I just finished Stephen Hunter's The Third Bullet and I enjoyed it. I have read all of his books that I can find and while I have a little trouble with "suspension of disbelief" I found this one enjoyable.
I like the sense of justice in the Robert Parker books, and I do like the way he makes his characters talk.
As far as Lee Child goes, I kind of live that lifestyle myself, being 6'4, 210, fighting evildoers 4 or 5 at a time.... Well, this is a discussion about fiction.

 

[Flashman]

Barry Eisler--excellent, for more than just guns.

 

[PapaG]

I just discovered T.Jefferson Parker. A mistake per page, almost. Read The Iron Road for laughs.

 

[mp510]

When I was in High School, I really like Robb White's Deathwatch.