Best/worst Gun AUTHORS (of fiction)

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Don't know if anyone has mentioned Stephen King. I like his writing but he does not know much about firearms.

I love the Dark Tower series but in the second book...well at the beginning Roland gets his bullets a little wet and virtually the entire book deals with his bullets misfiring. There are plenty of other mistakes but that is one of the biggest ones because it spans almost the entire book (and it is mentioned in the 4th).

I would also really love to know exactly how Roland reloads his revolver since it sounds impossible but if it can be done I think it would look cool.

Thomas Harris and Dean Koontz seem to know quite a bit about firearms.
 
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Dead Zero

Strange, nobody on the net has mentioned the latest Bob The Nailer, 'Dead Zero.' Less fantastic in firearms lore than iSniper, it is a good yarn. You know how it will turn out, though. The connivers and intriguers and murderers have alienated TWO Marine snipers.
 
Libertarian scifi author L. Neil Smith likes to drop exotic weaponry into his "alternate history" stories, postulating realities where guns like the Dardick or the Mars pistols were successful and in common use.
 
Guess most know Vince Flynn died this week.

I very much enjoyed his books. RIP

If only "Term Limits" would be made into a movie.
 
Stephen Hunter

Hunter has written many great books but his latest about JFK has a couple serious flaws well into the story. Just couldn't finish it.
 
I love the smell of cordite in a mystery novel, it smells like pulp fiction.


On topic: I was impressed (not overwelmed but impressed) by Dean Koontz' use of guns in Lightning--ironic that his time-traveling gestapo agents decided the Israeli Uzi was their preferred close quarters combat wepon. Not a lot of detail (the main story was more important) but none of that "flicking off the safety on his automatic revolver" stuff. What weapons details that were included were authentic.
 
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Carl N. Brown said:
I love the smell of cordite in a mystery novel, it smells like pulp fiction.


On topic: I was impressed (not overwelmed but impressed) by Dean Koontz' use of guns in Lightning--ironic that his time-traveling gestapo agents decided the Israeli Uzi was their preferred close quarters combat wepon. Not a lot of detail (the main story was more important) but none of that "flicking off the safety on his automatic revolver" stuff. What weapons details that were included were authentic.
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I trust they have corrected the early edition typo in which the Uzis came with 400-round magazines... :D


.
 
Steig Larsson was the worst.

I couldn't finish The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson because of the whole comment about the Colt .45 Magnum and the depleted uranium rounds if fired. What really made me angry was when one of the police detectives commented that it is a "big cowboy gun that no one should be able to own." I stopped reading his piece of garbage after that line, but had basically given up on it when I read about the depleted uranium tipped rounds. Anyone who had spend a sliver of time researching anything could have found out that those rounds never existed. It caused me to question the things I took him at his word for and frankly started eating my brain. :cuss::fire:
 
Exact same experience and reaction as I had. Once an author blows details and expresses opinions like that (even by proxy) I don't go on. Offhand I can't remember more of these errors, butI have run across many, and when I do, it ruins the book for me.
 
One of my favorite authors was William W. Johnstone.

He wrote a series called "The ____ of the Mountain Man".
The blank included words like Law, War, Return, Justice etc...

I could VERY easily have seen John Wayne as the main character.
"Smoke Jensen" is da man!

As far as gun accuracy...
Well most of it is written about the 1870s - 1890s.
So there's a lot of SAAs, but at times they tend to shoot 20 rds w/o a reload.
Jensen is amazingly accurate & most of the bad guys couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside.
And their IQs are about 50 or less.
 
Steig Larsson (the author of the "Girl..." series) not so good. He could have used an advisor, as Geoffrey Boothroyd tried to advise Ian Fleming but Fleming did not always pay attention (Boothroyd recommend a S&W Centennial in Berns-Martin revolver holster, with a Walther PPK backup; Fleming had Bond carrying the PPK in the Berns-Martin).

The "Girl..." movies are much more correct.
At Internet Movie Firearms Database:
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Girl_with_the_Dragon_Tattoo,_The_(2009)
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Played_with_Fire_(2009)
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Girl_Who_Kicked_the_Hornets'_Nest,_The_(2009)

Which proves gunlore is easier to get wrong in novels, but harder to get wrong in movies when studio armories or prop houses are involved with visible objects.

I don't think Steven King is necessarily pro-gun, but the gun details in "The Stand" and in "Lisey's Story" for example ring true and the folks armed in self-defense are not all treated as redneck buffoons, which I have come to expect of mainstream fiction.

ADDED: I have tried to search my archives, but I recall reading about a novelist who believed that a revolver cylinder had to be manually rotated between shots (independent of cocking the hammer on SA or pulling the trigger on DA) and who thanked her editor for catching her faux pas before it hit the presses. I just can't find the ref just now, but propbably good on the author that I can't find it.
 
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Hunter has written many great books but his latest about JFK has a couple serious flaws well into the story. Just couldn't finish it.
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I liked it, I only saw one serious Flaw in it, when it comes to Hunter, he is pretty gun savvy, when I read his first Book "Shooter" I thought the Guy had been living in my House and I am not new to Guns, I have owned them and collected them since the early 60s and have been a Service Rifle Competitor for over 40 years.;)
 
I write books for a living, and like many of us here I'm irritated by the ignorance and laziness of most authors when it comes to guns, so one day I got the bright idea of marketing myself as the gun doctor. Editors at publishing houses could send me their authors' manuscripts, and I'd fix all the gun mistakes they'd made. My agent just laughed. Nobody would pay for that, he said. Neither the publishers nor the authors gave a damn about "gun people" because 1) they didn't know any personally, and 2) gun people didn't read.
 
Nobody would pay for that, he said. Neither the publishers nor the authors gave a damn about "gun people" because 1) they didn't know any personally, and 2) gun people didn't read.
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Get a different Agent, Yours evidently doesn't read either.:rolleyes:
 
I should have written "and 2) they thought gun people didn't read." My agent knew the score.
 
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Devonai said:
We're still waiting for the Abomination production model, Larry.
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Our own Larry Correia does a great job with his Monster Hunter International series.

I started working towards turning my Saiga 12 into a rough version of Abomination but when you put the launcher on the front it makes it very heavy and that's before you even consider the bayonet. Of course I had the 20 round drum on as well so that adds to it, I guess it would help to just have the stick mags in but that's no fun. :)
 
I enjoyed The Lieutenant too, it was very good near future dystopic/ post apocalyptic Sci Fi for its time, with radiation poisoning, nuclear subs, Kevlar, etc, yet published years before the first atomic pile went critical.

I wouldn't say it was a good example of an author who both knew his guns and wrote about them to satisfy the most OCD internet gun nut. Not that there is anything wrong with OCD internet gun nuts. Having posted nearly 3000 replies on the S&W identification thread I have to say I know one personally. :)

John Ringo writes guns well for the interested but not informed crowd, I quite liked his academic learning how to load and fire a HK USP while in CQB with attacking aliens. That was Into the Looking Glass IIRC.

Honorable Mention to Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle for their take on Robert Heinlein as a presidential adviser during an alien invasion in Footfall. Not a great deal of detail, but the idea of honorable men owning personal weapons and having enough gun for the job is covered well.

Larry Corriea gets another thumbs up. He could write for American Handgunner and Fortean Times. His books basically combine the two. :)
 
Limey46:
I'm betting that a majority of the readers of Baen own guns or approve of people owning guns. The other mega-merged NYC publishing houses?
They wish that people who own guns or approve of them don't exist.
 
Only saw one mention of John Ross in this whole (old) thread but I have read "Unintended Consequences a couple of times! Scintillating!

Also as a child I devoured the Peter Hathaway Capstick books about professional African hunters and every Louis L'Amour novel I could get my hands on!
 
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