Action Hero Names And Backgrounds

So reading this Nader Elfhefnawy speculation on “Thrillers and Social Class” brought me to some of my thoughts I had on the subject.

• A lot of character background in the pulpier stuff extends only to their ability to buy their arsenals. John Rourke somehow got the money to build his mountain bunker lair, his wife wrote children’s books, and that’s basically all we know of his pre-apocalyptic social status. It’s generally not mentioned that much.
• W.E.B. Griffin preferred wealthy characters for the flippant explanation of “Rich people are more interesting than poor people. “
• Irish names seem to be strangely common. John Rourke, Blake Murdock, John Brannigan, and of course, Blaine McCracken are some of the names I’ve seen. I honestly think this is a pure coincidence that wasn’t conscious on the part of any of the authors, but an interesting one nonetheless.
• I’ve encountered three different main characters by three different authors who all have the last name “Stone”. Mark Stone, Luke Stone, and now John Stone. It’s a coincidence with a common name, I’m sure, but still interesting as well.
• The worst cases have obvious author Mary Sues. For instance, Ben Raines in William W. Johnstone’s Ashes series mysteriously was a paperback book author before becoming Mary Sue Alexander Temujin.

 

The Worm And The Snake

There is a piece of fiction that, although deservedly obscure, has attracted a mammoth amount of attention on a small part of the internet, an instance of being incredibly narrow and incredibly deep.

Said piece of fiction has a legitimately distinctive setup that attracts attention, yet is filled with darkness for darkness’ sake and a huge amount of author explanations that can make it across as more possible to a casual observer and less possible to a trained critical eye. However, it has flaws that can deter more casual readers.

Yet the story is in the right place at the right time to enter and fill the niche, attracting controversy and written fanworks in response. However, those fanfics diverge not just in terms of accuracy, but in terms of tone as well. People come to know it from those fanfics and an internet telephone game, not the original source.

That describes Worm, the Spacebattles/Sufficient Velocity darling.

Yet, with me having finally read the four novels in the infamous Draka series, the stereotypical bane of the alternate history community, it can describe them pretty decently as well.

There’s obviously differences, especially in terms of personal taste. Stirling, for all his flaws, is an overwhelmingly better prose writer than Wildbow. A web serial is different from four conventionally published books. A consistent YA-styled superhero drama is different from the zigzagging genres of the Draka series. Worm doesn’t have as explicit a “bad guys win” in spite of its darkness.

But the biggest similarity I’ve found is that a sort of “huh, that’s it” feeling I felt when actually seeing the original(s) in depth. I agree with a lets reader that Worm is ultimately just insubstantial, and my impression of the Draka series was that it was middling trashy pulp. Yes, they have a “superheroes that aren’t the big two or a knockoff” and “distinct alternate history” as their legitimately interesting setups, but the meat isn’t that substantive. Almost certainly not enough to propel them to their (limited) notoriety alone.

Reviewing Two Books With The Same Title

It’s finally happened and it’s a little (but not too) surprising that I’ve finally reviewed two books with the same title on Fuldapocalypse.

The two “Hard Targets” are the more recent OPSIG Team Black: Hard Target   and the earlier The Zone: Hard Target.

 

The Backlog Is Even Bigger

It’s one of those times when my book backlog keeps growing and growing and growing.

As I’ve said many times already, I don’t necessarily view this as a bad thing. The few times I haven’t had a big backlog are times when I scramble around for new books. If I find a new book in a time without a backlog and it turns out to not be very good, then I have to scramble anew.

Yet if I read a backlog book and that turns out subpar, then, well, I can just grab the next book out of that. And frequently that turns out a lot better than the previous one. I try to balance my book purchases, even within the “cheap thriller” types so that I don’t get too overloaded by any one genre. It may be counterintuitive to have a big pile of unread books, but it works for me.

 

Alternate History Types

There are five main types of  alternate history, I’ve found. Three are only technical: Alternate Presents, Alternate And Historical But Not AH and Secret History. Two are more firm: Alternate History As Setting, and Alternate History As Genre.

Alternate Presents

This is the kind of “Alternate History” that’s only so in the most nominal fashion. Almost none are ever sold as alternate history, and if it’s mentioned at all, it’s as a “ok, I guess this happened” when talking about the background. So if there’s a fictional city it takes place in, it’s an “alternate present”.

Really, almost all fiction falls into this category. The only fiction that doesn’t is historical fiction that contains no made-up characters and is explictly trying to reenact a historical event as quickly as possible.

Alternate And Historical But Not AH

This is a strange classification, and it mainly has to do with events in a piece of historical fiction that A: diverge from actual history, but, B: Doesn’t change the grand-scheme events, and C: Isn’t really sold or promoted as “alternate history.”

The prime example I have of this is, of all things, Kelly’s Heroes. Yes, there’s an ahistorical gold raid there in World War II, occurring long before the movie was made. But it’s not sold or considered alternate history, and doesn’t explore the ramification.

Secret History

This is when there was a big divergence in the past but which didn’t cause an actual change in history as we know it until the moment of the story. The Casca series is “Secret History”-yes, an immortal Roman mentored Genghis Khan and killed Adolph Hitler, but the Mongols still achieved what they did and Hitler still died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945.

And speaking of that mustached man, my favorite “secret history” divergence comes from Jerry Ahern’s Survivalist series. That has many styles. It’s post-apocalyptic action, then it becomes science fiction, and then the “secret history” part kicks in with the plot point of Hitler’s dead body being kept in a New York facility. Did that change anything up until Book 1? Not really.

Those three are only really considered alternate history in the most broad view.

Alternate History As Setting

A lot of alternate history, and, more importantly, a lot of stories that aren’t sold as or even considered alternate history fall into this category. There is a big divergence, and it did have an effect.

And yet, it’s there as a setting, a backdrop, to a main story taking place in a clear genre. Lots of “Alternate History As Setting” pieces are sold as alternate history. Others basically aren’t-a stereotypical steampunk story, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and Hotline Miami (three very different pieces of fiction) are all “Alternate History As Setting”.

Alternate History As Genre

This is the top of the pyramid and is reserved for works where the alternate events themselves are front and center, driving the plot. It encompasses a lot of Harry Turtledove’s fiction and essentially every work written in the “pseudo-history book” style.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

As with every category, not everything fits exceptions and there’s bound to be countless exceptions/works of fiction that don’t clearly belong to any one or could reasonably be considered both. But I’ve found a lot of stuff can fit pretty neatly into them.

The Most Strangely Prominent Book

David Alexander’s Marine Force One is not prominent or popular by any standard. The best you can say is that it led to a few more book in its series. It has its quirks, but it’s a very middling novel. That’s the reason why I cite it so much in later Fuldapocalypse reviews.

Like the elusive “replacement-level player” in sports analysis, the “51% book” is a term I use a lot, used to describe something that’s merely adequate in all forms. And this was one of the most 51% books imaginable. It’s so middling it somehow stands out as something that is the perfect example of a decent book.

Having a Personal Ending

What prompted this post was an announcement that Starbreeze/Overkill is beginning work on new content for Payday 2 again, as part of a desperate attempt to milk their lone cash cow even further to try and bide time for Payday 3 development. (It’s probably the least bad thing to do, but that’s another story)

Now that game, in its weird plot progression from story-less homage to classic heist movies to ridiculous tie-ins to what could have been a Jon Land novel just ended well. Having some sort of follow-on just seems like disrupting a good moment. Though I’m waiting until I see the content before I pass judgement on it specifically, I can feel comfortable saying that in my personal canon, the saga ends with confronting an evil dentist next to an alien MacGuffin in a cave underneath the White House.

And well, it’s not the only one where I’ve felt like I’ve had a stronger “personal ending”. There’s another, far more famous setting that I have a personal ending for, and, unlike Payday’s, it wasn’t originally planned as the official conclusion. That would be Jack Ryan. For all its other faults, The Sum Of All Fears is a near-perfect conclusion to the saga of Jack Ryan, Cold Warrior. And finally, I haven’t had much interest in the recent revival of the Survivalist series. I might check them out, but as far as I’m concerned, the story of John Rourke ended in Death Watch (if not the ninth/tenth book, a more ideal stopping point).

An area where I didn’t have a personal ending comes from the Blaine McCracken novels, mostly just because how disappointing the last-for-a-while installment, Dead Simple, was. I also don’t have them in many settings that are inherently open-ended.

But some settings/franchises/series just have a moment that seems so appropriate that I can’t help but go “That’s where it deserved to end.”

Going Back To The Car Plant

I actually haven’t read any cheap thrillers I can remember that took place in car plants, or even had a scene that was inside a car plant. They’re big, there’s a lot of people there, and there’s a lot of automated heavy equipment that can spice up the more ridiculous set pieces.

What’s not to like? Even better, they can be everything from shiny, new, mechanized car plants to old, rusty, smoky and grimy ones. There’s a lot of possibilities for making the scenes work. I may have to include a significant scene inside a car plant for my next thriller project.

 

Five Thrillers

I’ve read so many cheap thrillers that arrowing it down to just five I’d recommend right off the bat is difficult, but here they are:

Team Yankee by Harold Coyle

This is one of the best Cold War hot books I’ve read. It showed me the perils of box-check thinking, because on paper it has every indication of the kind of “Boom boom goes the tank” clunkfests I’d read on the internet. Yet in practice, it’s a smooth-flowing tale that illustrates the best possibilities of the genre.

The Alpha Deception by Jon Land

All right, so most of Jon Land’s books, especially the Blaine McCracken ones, are goofy, crazy, ridiculous and fun. It was very difficult to select the goofiest, craziest, most ridiculous, and most fun out of them. But if I had to, I’d say The Alpha Deception, because Land pulls out all the stops, even by his standards.

Burmese Crossfire by Peter Nealen

Take a love letter to the “Men’s Adventure” books of the past. Now instead of a revolving door of  for-the-money ghostwriters who glanced at one issue of Guns And Ammo, take a veteran with heart and a knowledge of when to be grounded and when to be bombastic. The result is something excellent.

Tin Soldiers by Michael Farmer

Ok, so this is driven up by context, because a 2000s technothriller is surrounded by mediocre-to-terrible neighbors. It also has its share of problems. But it manages to do right what a lot of other thrillers did wrong. This is no small feat, and it’s the technothriller book from that time period I’d be the likeliest to recommend.

Valor’s Choice by Tanya Huff

A military science fiction book that has almost none of the baggage associated with the genre. This, apart from being good (if a little derivative-you’d know the movie/historical battle it’s inspired by very quickly), is one of the best cases of a fresh face revitalizing a genre.

 

Casca: The Sword And Planet Hero

So I’ve been reading a few more Casca books. During one readthrough, it hit me: Casca is basically a sword and planet hero (think John Carter and knockoffs of that). Sword and planet heroes tend to start their adventures by getting some sort of anti-aging/immortality treatment. Either because of this or just from some intrinsic advantage (ie, “low gravity), they have just enough of an edge over their opponents. Their adventures are either standalone books or arcs that center around exotic set pieces.

Casca? Cursed to be immortal and gains rapid healing. Advantage over his opponents but not an overwhelming one? Of course. Standalone books where he’s in one (pulpish popular) “exotic” historical period after another? Exactly. Now, I don’t think this was intentional on Sadler’s part. But it still comes across that way.