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great spy novel but I think fraud

C

chiangmaifalcon

New Member
I started reading novel called The Echelon Vendetta by David Stone. First off I think it is very interesting and well-written, with a clever plot. However the author claims to be ex intelligence officer and investigator, and I am not so sure about this. First the CIA guy smashes bad guy in his nose with palm thrust, going on about how this is lethal blow which is widely believed but bull. It just breaks your nose. Ex military spooks should know this. Then he keeps calling CIA the Company which everyone calls CIA except people in CIA. Also the spy "cleaner", the hero of the story, constantly calls attention to himself in ways no real spook ever would. So I question the authors credentials. However it is still an exciting and entertaining story.
 
It is enough to put me off reading the story when obvious details are so crashingly wrong. In one I started reading, a neophyte just out of CIA training was immediately cleared into the innermost sanctum of Mowcow or Berlin operations, I forget which, and proceeded to reveal his ignorance of obvious matters to the station head during their opening conversation. Didn't seem at all plausible, and I put the book aside. One by Lytell I think, but it is now packed away and I can't verify it. Where is the editing?
 
Try not to get too caught up in the details of a thriller. In "Pursuit of Honor" the protaganist is faced with a situation where he needs to get into a nightclub that is guarded by huge, muscular bouncers. He takes them down with a kick to the knee and strolls right in. It's the same thing you see in made for TV movies where the star has to beat up someone who looks like they are unbeatupable.

(Yes I know the word "unbeatupable" gets thrown around a lot these days).
 
Now I am sure guy who wrote Echelon Vendetta is not a state investigator as he claims. In the story the hero Micah goes to visit guy in prison. The guard goes into the cell block with an H & K submachine gun. No prison in US would ever allow anyone through the gates with a firearm. Anyone who has ever worked in law enforcement would know this.
 
I am now positive author is not what he claims. Hero cocks Colt Python and runs around with it. Only an idiot would do this with a double action revolver. Also he describes the usual way of breaking someone's neck but the way it is described in book would maybe give you whiplash but thats all.
 
chiangmaifalcon said:
I am now positive author is not what he claims. Hero cocks Colt Python and runs around with it. Only an idiot would do this with a double action revolver. Also he describes the usual way of breaking someone's neck but the way it is described in book would maybe give you whiplash but thats all.
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And? It's just part and parcel of a world wherein many folks are not what they claim , look at Hollywood for instance , Von Dumb isn't remotely a legitimate Shotokan dan rank holder , Segal while his rank is legitimate in Aiki isn't remotely the ex-spook he claims to be and not even nearly as well versed in the Indonesian and Pinay systems as he claims. Many an author has pumped that biographical blurb on the back of the given volume in a similar manner.


As for the small details , you run across such details along with more egregious faux pas fairly frequently ( how do you load a revolver with a magazine for instance? .45 caliber combloc AKs? In what universe do those exist?) time was that I'd put a book down for such flaws , nowadays I just take 'em in stride , especially the ones as regards long-range shooting. You can't *SEE* a man against cover at a 1000 yards , much less hit the target with open sights.

The other details that used to bug me were errors as regards cars, motorcycles ,boats etc. , it used to irritate the daylights out of me , but then I never understood how Ponch and Jon could take 10 minutes to catch a truck with a topend of 90 and a 1/4 mile time measured by a sundial when mounted on bikes that do 115-120 and 1/4 mile around 13 flat even with all the crap they hang on them.

Ah well , I'm in agreement that it would well behoove some authors to do a bit more research into certain subjects prior to writing about them.

But that's as it always was..........
 
Hugh said:
Try not to get too caught up in the details of a thriller. In "Pursuit of Honor" the protaganist is faced with a situation where he needs to get into a nightclub that is guarded by huge, muscular bouncers. He takes them down with a kick to the knee and strolls right in. It's the same thing you see in made for TV movies where the star has to beat up someone who looks like they are unbeatupable.

(Yes I know the word "unbeatupable" gets thrown around a lot these days).
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Yet another myth perpetuated , Falcon already pointed out the one as regards ' shoving the nose into the brain'.

Now the fact is that the right sort of kick to the knee *can* incapicate someone , problem is that you're not going to " stroll into the nightclub" afterwards due to all the attention you just attracted , I mean what with the guy laying on the ground screaming in pain and all.

But then such things are rife in movies and books , the hero takes 'leventy million elbows across the mug and comes back to save the day , when in reality you get hit an elbow or two and don't get something broken/smashed you're *real* lucky.

Or extended knife sequences where nobody gets cut , how does that work exactly?
 
Yes bluenote I know exactly what you mean. Right now I am reading one of sci-fi series called Chung Kuo which is about future and China controls the world. There is one part in which there is a death match between two martial artists. One is a huge white guy against little Asian guy. Little guy breaks big guys arm with a kick somehow, but then big guy does a flip through the air like jackie Chan and lands on Asian guy which breaks Asian guys head, neck and back. Despite this, as you say I used to throw out books after stuff like this but I didnt this time as it is a really great and exciting book if you overlook this kind of stuff.
 
chiangmaifalcon said:
Yes bluenote I know exactly what you mean. Right now I am reading one of sci-fi series called Chung Kuo which is about future and China controls the world. There is one part in which there is a death match between two martial artists. One is a huge white guy against little Asian guy. Little guy breaks big guys arm with a kick somehow, but then big guy does a flip through the air like jackie Chan and lands on Asian guy which breaks Asian guys head, neck and back. Despite this, as you say I used to throw out books after stuff like this but I didnt this time as it is a really great and exciting book if you overlook this kind of stuff.
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I hear you , I tend to just manage to overlook such things nowadays , along with place details I know to be wrong.

And much of the mass consumption and swallowing of such details by the segment of the public that still reads is attributable in many cases to differences in cultures , ever notice that the northern cultures i.e. Scandinavian , U.S. , Germanic , Slavic . British etc.etc. still think it's great fun to imbibe and belt each other around , not so along the Equator , try that crap in Indonesia and someone will take your hand off with a karambit , certain other places in the world they'll just feed your tail to the 'gators or crocs.

Anyway , enough tangental raving. I sometimes do wish that some authors would put a bit more effort into research on certain basic subjects at times , some of them being authors I really like(d). Edward Abbey being one.

An author that's notable for extremely accurate research and storyline integration as regards firearms is Stephen Hunter , for instance each of the characters supporting Swagger in 'Pale Horse Coming'' is based upon a famous figure in the firearms community , Bill Jordan ( LEO and gunfighter extraordinaire) , Jack O'Connor ( gun mag writer and early proponent of the high velocity rifle movement) , Elmer Keith ( father of the .44 mag , legendary shot and all round Western figure) Audie Murphy , Col Charles Askins.

If you haven't read any of Stephen Hunter's work then check it out , you might like the Earl and Bob Lee Swagger characters.
 
Yes Bluenote I also love Stephen Hunters books. Pale Horse Coming is one of my favorites and I read Dirty White Boys three times. I also liked Hot Springs, which is about Earl Swagger joining feds after WWll and fighting gangsters in Arkansas. I read interview with Stephen Hunter in gun magazine and he really knows a great deal about firearms.
 
I am reading novel French Kiss by Eric Lustbader for second time. It is very good book as far as suspense and action but once again writer does not know what he is talking about. Eric Lustbader claims to be expert about Asia and martial arts but is far from this. In the story this Cambodian girl kills guy but shoving her bare hand through bhis chest. Ridiculous. Then she claims that it is death blow to punch someone under the arm. More bs. Then this martial arts expert does an aikido throw hwich cannot be done with one hand but this guy does somehow. Communist Chinese are running opium business in Burma but fact was it was the nationalist Chinese kuomintang who were doing this. Then a cop in US stops a killer in traffic stop and killer murders him and hides car and body and no one knows, but fact is anytime anywhere cop pulls over a car they call in the vehicle reg. before they get out of the car. besides these errors the dialogue in the story is pretty ridiculous, especially with the asian characters, who would never talk the way they do in this book.
 
This French Kiss writer Lustbader seems to know nothing about martial arts despite the fact all his books are about martial arts. Now in this one little Chinese girl who is tied up jumps on guy and his ribs come through his skin. Then she kills him by crushing his windpipe. I studied and taught martial arts for 40 years and this stuff is ridiculous. it is offfensive to martial artists when these "experts' write this crap. Also Lustbader spend a lot of time in Asia he claims but I don't know where. In this book villagers talk like they all graduated from Harvard. They are often saying "I am Theravadan Buddhist." Here they are Theravadan Buddhists but I have never heard anyone even say they are Buddhist, much less Theravadan. If they speak English they only say "I believe Buddha."
If you wat to read martial arts action from someone who is not a fraud then read John Rain novels by Mchael Eisler, not this bs.
 
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