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I want to read Brad Thor...
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(last edited Aug 03, 2016 01:53PM)
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Aug 03, 2016 12:05PM
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AGuyWhoTypes wrote: "Good, I look forward hearing from him."Hello. Pleasure to meet you. I hear you're looking to dig into Brad Thor.
To answer your questions.
The first book is "The Lion's Of Lucerne". Released in 2000, it involves the POTUS getting kidnapped by Europe's top Private Military Corporation and one very stubborn USSS agent going on the run in Switzerland to find his Commander in Chief.
Each book is written as a standalone. Book 15 is out. My personal favorite of the bunch.
Side Notes:
> Am I a fan of Brad Thor? Not quite. Out of his 15 books I only like 6 of them. This is because the man has a somewhat annoying tendency to use his books as a tool to preach his political beliefs. This results in a waste of good page space that could be devoted to more explosions and character development instead.
> Am I a fan of Scott Harvath, the main character? He's grown on me. In the earlier books, I loathed him. Found him an immature, arrogant twat. Halfway through the series however, in one of my favorite books, he has a bad month and goes through such hell, I felt sorry for him. After that he started to mature, and become more cunning and pleasant that he was back in the days when he was full of bravado and arrogance.
> That being said, Mr Thor makes mostly solid plots with excellent plot concepts. He focuses on the sort of things that will become headlines down the line. Book 15 for instance touches on everything from the Daesh terrorist group, the resurgent Russian secret services and even the Turkish coup de etat.
So, here's the latest book. Enjoy.
Love/hate affair with Thor to the point I will only read those that I picked up a used book store and that's it.......A couple were good, then they are just plain boring.......I read out of order the "The Last Patriot" as my first read and was impressed, it has been downhill since.
I've read four of his books, and only disliked one (State of the Union). I'll be reading more, because to me he's one of the few current writers who get weapons and tactics right. He really tries to be realistic in what his protagonist can actually accomplish and what types of weapons he can use while doing so.I saw an interview of Thor on the NRA All Access TV show this week, and he spoke about how hard he tries to be realistic in his books. He does quite a bit of research in order to do so, including getting his hands on weapons he'll use in his book and actually practicing with them. For this, I've got to give the man lots of credit, and most of his plots are reasonable and enjoyable. Overall, I'd personally give him 4+ stars and I'll eventually read all his books.
Michael
http://michaelconnick.com
I've read three so far. It's hard not to be impressed with the writing, but Harvath? The guy could screw up ONCE in a while. Are we that shallow that all we need is a wise-cracking hero who knows everything there is to know about guns and military hardware?
It's his personal style, one which he's unrepentant about. Mr Thor is part of the "escapist wish fulfillment" side of thriller fiction which Ian Fleming founded, despite disguising it behind hard details and high - tech killing machines. His books barring "The First Commandment" are some of the most idealistic 21st century spy fiction. There's good, there's evil and one well equipped and well supported good man can vanquish evil and the ills that plague contemporary civilization today. For Mr Thor and Harvath, moral ambiguity is the preserve of the spineless, and failure is not an option.
There are readers out there who despair at the state of the world, and want a bit of escapism. A book in the vein of a psychologically brutal Le Carre novel, where the hero gets screwed over several ways from Sunday, would depress them, while something along the lines of a Thor novel would be more to their liking.
In an interview, Thor said that he once read about how Ian Fleming tried to pander to the British public's self esteem, even as the Empire fell to pieces around him and 007. Mr Thor said he would like to do something similar to the American readers of his books.
As for quality. I find Mr Thor a rather unstable novelist. There are hits for every time he misses, in my opinion, Brad doesn't get consistently better in quality with every books, he rises, slumps and rebounds. Sometimes he has a good plot concept but doesn't quite utilize it to its full potential (State Of The Union, Foreign Influence - Full Black).
Other times, he botches the job (Hidden Order, Blowback, The Last Patriot). Either bores the reader to death, doesn't structure the plot as well as he could have or ends on an anti - climax.
But then there are the times where the clouds clear and the stars line up like they're supposed to (Foreign Agent, Act Of War, The First Commandment, Takedown). These are the times when everything is on point, whether it be plotting, characterization and central concept.
