Steve’s Comments (group member since Mar 07, 2022)

Steve’s comments from the Espionage Aficionados group.

I rather enjoyed SILVERVIEW, although I thought it could have done with a bit more fleshing out. Still, a great read.

I am all for it. The production team behind "The Night Manager" series is behind it, so I expect it to be good. A mini-series gives them more room to hit all the themes as opposed to tightening it all down for a two-hour theatrical release. And I think a TV product just might spark interest in the books; I had a couple of friends get interested in reading Le Carre because of "The Night Manager" series.

So, as long as they don't cock it up ...

I recently offered some thoughts on Le Carre's "A Most Wanted Man" over on my blog.

I think it is excellent. Link below:

https://stevegoblefiction.wordpress.c...

I appreciate all the thoughts, people. I am reading an old-fashioned mystery now ("Rebecca," by Daphne du Maurier) and may give Ludlum a go after that.

I finished "The Gemini Contenders." It is not anywhere near the caliber of Le Carre or Greene, but it held my interest enough to keep me going. It is more of a "beach read" than a "makes-you-think" book, which is OK with me.

It was vastly superior to the first hundred pages of "The Scorpio Illusion." The difference is quite dramatic.

I still found his characters in "Gemini" mostly lacking in depth, but not so bad as those in "The Scorpio Illusion." The plot was predictable in just about every detail. So, while I might give more of his early works a try if they come my way cheaply, I won't seek them out, and I won't pick Ludlum unless I am in the mood to coast through a book.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Felix. I will tackle "The Gemini Contenders" next. I see from a chronological list that "The Parsifal Mosaic" follows immediately on the heels of "The Bourne Identity," so perhaps it will be OK, too.

At a thrift store today, I found a box of paperbacks for 25 cents each. It contained a lot of Robert Ludlum novels. I had heard of him, of course, but I had never read any of his work. I grabbed four titles and plunked down a buck.

I started reading with "The Scorpio Illusion," and quit after about 100 pages. The characters were wooden, with melodramatic backgrounds. The plot moved at a headlong pace, with little time to spare for character development. The dialogue was trite, and forced. The action scenes were implausible. The plot was cliche.

I know Ludlum has many novels to his credit, bestsellers among them. Can anyone in this group tell me if I just got unlucky and picked a stinker he wrote in a month to meet a contractual obligation? Does it get better? Or did I waste a dollar?

The other titles I bought were "The Bourne Identity," "The Gemini Contenders" and "The Parsifal Mosaic." Any thoughts on which book I should try next?

I have published a good number of fantasy, science fiction and horror stories in small-market anthologies and magazines, but nothing of novel length and nothing in the espionage genre. And nothing for the last few years, unfortunately, because the day job ate up my writing time. That could change soon.

I have a small, but enthusiastic, following here on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I just finished re-reading "The Summer Soldier" by Nicholas Guild, and wondered if anyone else here had read it.

This novel is basically a tale of one predator hunting another, but the character depth and moral ambiguities make it more analogous with Le Carre or Greene than with simple action-thrillers. This is Guild's first novel about professional killer Ray Guinness. There are at least a couple more, and I will track those down soon.

As an aside, I took a fiction writing course my freshman year at The Ohio State University, and Guild was the instructor. The first day of class, we probably had 30 students. Guild spent the first day telling us how God-damned hard it was to break into the fiction writing business, and how most of us probably were nowhere near good enough to get published.

The next class session, we had maybe seven or eight students. Most of the students had been scared away. Guild told us that now that we had pared the class down to a workable size, we would meet for classes in a comfortable lounge, dissecting one another's stories. He was very intense as a teacher, but very insightful. It was the best class I took at OSU.

I finished it. I did not consider it preachy, but it certainly was pointed. Great book.

Well, I got over my present tense-a-phobia and stuck with "Absolute Friends," and I am very glad I did. I still have a bit more book to go, but I am thoroughly engaged.

This is my current reading. I am not far into it, but I am again swept up in the depth of characterization and the keen dialogue. However, the prose is written in present tense -- which always bugs the hell out of me.

It is a testament to the author's craft that I have hung in there for 92 pages. I intend to keep going, but novel length in present tense just bugs me.

Thoughts?

I, too, am here primarily to learn about good stuff I haven't read. I find Feliks' reviews useful, and the notes from folks regarding what they've read. A slower pace of conversation is not a problem for me.

I plan to read "Absolute Friends" next, but I am going to wait until I am sure I have time to devote to it.

The Bantam paperback I read came in at 532 pages, with smallish type.

I enjoyed the action sequences, too, particularly knowing that Le Carre's characters do not always come to a good end. It ratchets up the tension when you don't know the fellow you are reading about is going to survive.

Craw appealed to me, in part, because he is a journalist, as am I. I also loved his theatrical manner of speaking. In my mind's eye Richard Harris portrayed the gent.

I wrote a brief review, but nothing so in-depth as yours, Feliks. I was into this book quickly, but I'd say I was totally engrossed from midpoint on. I don't want to issue any spoilers, of course, but I will say that the very human drives of key characters really compelled me to keep going. I thought all the characters were well-drawn, but I think the one I would most like to spend an evening drinking with is Craw.

Feliks: I finished "Schoolboy." You were right. It is outstanding in every way.

I will check out your reviews, too. Thanks!

Thanks, Feliks. My first observation on this work (as in every other Le Carre I have read) is the great care he takes to assure all his characters are fully human. No cookie-cutter characters, no pure-snow heroes and no pure-evil villains. I also like the way the plot builds slowly, and how it he reader is tugged along trying to decide what is significant and what is not. Unraveling these plots are a bit like unraveling an espionage plot ...

Hi, I am Steve. I read a wide variety of stuff, and got into spy fiction primarily as a fan of Ian Fleming, the Bond movies and TV's "Mission Impossible," along with other pulpy stuff like Leslie Charteris' stories about the Saint.

Along the way I began reading Le Carre and really digging it. I still have a bunch of Le Carre to catch up on, but I recently read "A Delicate Truth" and before that the first two Smiley books. I am reading "The Honourable Schoolboy" now.

I picked up some Graham Greene recently, and will get to that sooner or later.