Sunday, February 12, 2012

Late night...

I was up late reading a thriller by an ex-SFOD-D action dude, titled Black Site, last night. After seeing the following review at pistol-forum.com, I had to buy the book:
Well I just finished Black Site. If this book doesn't make you want to strap on a pair of Asolo boots, buy a one way ticket to Pakistan, and start kicking in doors, then you're most likely a sexual deviant and AQ sympathizer.

That is all.
Two observations:

First, reading guys who have actually been there and done that will ruin you for tales of specops derring-do made up by soft and nerdy insurance agents.

Second, given the horrible hash that so often comes of various other collaborations between knuckle-dragging, snake-eating doorkickers and their publishing-industry collaborators (ranging from co-author to actual ghost-writer) I've read, this one was a pleasant change from the run of the mill book in the genre *coughDickMarcinkocough*. Relatively free of cliches, a well-ordered plot, a good level of suspense, and dialog that wasn't lifted from a comic book. Recommend.

12 comments:

Joel said...

Is it bad that I've never heard of Dick Marcinko?

Tango Juliet said...

It's on my list.

Joel said...

Wait! I sit corrected. "Rogue Warrior" - okay, got it.

Yeesh.

Tam said...

Joel,

No. It is good. You've missed out on one or two slightly better-than-average books and then a whole lot of dreck.

Tam said...

Joel,

Whoops. Sorry, I didn't mean to open old wounds. :D

Joel said...

S'okay. Bourbon is my friend, Tam. Also, I've been mainlining Barbara Tuchman. Between them, they keep the nightmares to a dull roar.

WV="masishis." If they're not a fringe cult of Islam, they certainly should be. Except then Dick Marcinko would probably write a book claiming to have killed them all.

GuardDuck said...

Funny thing is that Marcinko comes across in person as the same character he does in his books.

Act or no, I could not tell.

Lewis said...

Kolt Raynor? I guess that's only a little less believable than Dalton Fury, but, shit. Even giving the naming traditions among the Puritans, it was Oliver Cromwell, not I-Shall-Smite-the-Antichrist-Who-Goes-By-the-Name-of-Charles-Stuart Cromwell. (Besides, imagine what a pain in the ass that moniker would have been to write out.)

Lanius said...

Dunno, but I really liked tales of Derring-do by a lanky, mild-mannered bespectacled, married(with three kids), thirtyish jazz musician who threw out his third draft deferment and went on to fight in US Army from Normandy all the way to Western Czechoslovakia in I believe 1st Infantry division.

Was promoted from PFC to sergeant, and eventually brevetted as officer to lead his platoon.

He only remembers killing about thirty Germans.

Lanius said...

Book is called "Roll Me Over" by Raymond Gantter (author was a bit of a Hun by ancestry and in addition to fighting served as an interpreter)

velcro8ball said...

As a soft and nerdy insurance salesman, I resemble that remark.

NJDave said...

Tam, that's two books I've had to buy on your recommendation in just over a week. Only about a quarter of the way through Pike, and now I just ordered this... slow down, I can't keep up :-)