4 ms·
I enjoy his writing style, and particularly his willingness to indulge in paragraphs of dryly humorous details, usually of the technical and operational varieti
by jcalx 1y ago
I enjoy his writing style, and particularly his willingness to indulge in paragraphs of dryly humorous details, usually of the technical and operational varieties. For all their flaws, he and a few others (e.g. Alistair MacLean) have a particular flavor of "very competent protagonist relying on their wits and Very Particular Set of Skills" that other authors can't execute quite as well.
- bombcar 1y ago> very competent protagonist relying on their wits and Very Particular Set of Skills Writing these characters without creating Mary or Marty Sues is really damn hard.
- sherr 1y agoIf you like this sort of thing, a novel I would heartily recommend is "Kolymsky Heights" by a much neglected (and long dead) author Lionel Davidson. The Guardian has a short piece from 2014 that describes the plot. Great setup and a particular sort of cultural and linguistic skillset : "Porter, however, is descended from Canadian Inuits, who remain – physically, ethnically and culturally – virtually identical to their Siberian counterparts, despite the decades-long political rift between the two." From : https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/aug/03/book-beach-kolymsky-heights-lionel-davidson https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/aug/03/book...
- mellosouls 1y agoGreat great novel. I thought of it for my earlier comment in this thread (though decided not to mention), as I definitely see Forsyth as an influence on the detailed planning in KH.