Tag Archives: Reading

Review for Tom Clancy Act Of Defiance by Andrews and Wilson

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I read Red October years after it came out. It’s the only one of Tom Clancy’s books I didn’t read in the 80s. I read Red Storm Rising in paperback and Patriot Games in Hardcover. I did the same with Clear & Present Danger and Cardinal Of The Kremlin, my favorite of Tom’s novels. I always read ahead of my grade. I read Red Storm in 6th grade.

I saw The Hunt For Red October in the theaters the weekend it came out. It’s still one of my favorite 80s movies.

Let’s get into Act of Defiance. I will limit my spoilers as much as possible. If you’ve read Red October, that’s good. It will help you with Act Of Defiance. There are many callbacks to it throughout the book. There are also callbacks to Patriot Games and Clear & Present Danger, but Red October is front and center throughout the novel since this is about another Russian submarine.

It begins with how many of Tom’s books start. They set you up with an idea and chase that idea throughout.

While Red October was our introduction to Jack Ryan, Act Of Defiance begins with an idea but also tells us something about Red October that we didn’t know. This pushes the story in a vastly different direction.

Marko Ramius knew what he had and the possibilities of his boat, The Red October; this novel starts before the Red October. The Captain of the Belgorod knows what he has as well. He’s determined to make Jack Ryan pay. A theme and story that I will let the reader discover.

While Red October is mainly about Jack Ryan finding his way, Act Of Defiance is about his daughter, Katie Ryan. She does most of the same things her father did in Red October. The callbacks to the book and the movie are fantastic. I enjoyed them.

The cat-and-mouse game starts as the hunt is underway for Belgorod. It’s a different game with the same consequences as Red October but with far worse intentions.

Russia is not the power it was with Marko Ramius and the Red October. A group decides they want to change this. We’ve seen this scenario play out since the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s been in books, movies, and video games.

It is done very well in Act of Defiance. It’s one of the better tales with the trope. I think this is a trope now.

While the novel played out, I enjoyed Katie Ryan’s character. I hope more story ideas come from Red Storm with her in it.

I blew through most of this book in a day. But I read quickly. I always have. I give this a five. It’s well written, the story is good, and the placement of Katie Ryan reminds me of her dad, Jack.

There is a bit of transference…

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I’m going to continue on this tangent about books.

I’ve dropped reading Horror for a little while to work on my craft. I’m finding that when I read better writing my writing improves. I’ve ignored this for a while as I knew it happened, as it’s happened before, but I really like horror.

My current read is The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. While reading it I’m realizing a few things about my own writing as well as ways to improve my craft. These things have to do with paragraphs and how to structure them. The problem is I’ve written a blog for so long that what I do on here flows into my other writing. The short clipped sentences you’re “supposed” to use in blogs made their way into my novel writing.

When I discovered this I knew I had to change a lot of my writing. The latest rejection told me that there were a lot of single-sentence paragraphs, which I knew came from my blog writing. I will be adjusting this and you will see that adjustment. I’m trying to get the length correct and keep to one idea within each paragraph. I’m aware this is how paragraphs should work but the way I used to right created problems and I’ve fixed them along the way to where I am. These adjustments took time to break and I’m still working on them.

Now I love horror, but sometimes the language and the structure isn’t as good in horror as it is in other fiction. There are writers whose prose baffles me. I’ll look at some writer’s work and think, “damn I can’t do that.” Afterward, I think, but I’m going to work on it until I can. That is my goal in this art, to get better.

I know this is a bit different for me, but I’ll continue to write on this blog, it may come across a bit different as I work on my craft issues. I hope you’ll stay as adjustments are made.

Fear of the Classics

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I have a problem, it’s with classics but not all classics just some of them.

I’ve read, Frankenstein, Dracula, most of Lovecraft, Alexandre Dumas, and I love Algernon Blackwood, Dum. The Willows is one of my favorite stories I’ve ever read.

But there are others that I have trouble with; Dostoevsky, Faulkner(not all of them), Melville. I know that I should read them and enjoy them but I don’t. I have tried reading Crime & Punishment at least 10 times, but on the last read, I quit. I can’t read that book.

I wish I knew why I have this trouble, but I’ve narrowed it down to fear.

What if it’s amazing and I wished I’d read it earlier. I feel that way about Frankenstein and a few others, but they’re either sci-fi or horror. It’s the literary classics I have trouble with. It’s not the way it’s written, it’s the fear that I’ll either hate it and feel like I’ve wasted my time on it or I’ll love the hell out of it.

This comes in many ways to me. I am going to read a bunch of classics this year and my current read is ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. I know it’s Dostoevsky, but I want to read it for my own reasons. These books are part of my learning as a writer and while I hope to enjoy them, there’s that fear I won’t.

It’s the whole I’m not good enough to do this writing thing. What if I read something and I feel I’ll never accomplish that grandiosity of what I’ve read? This came to me a lot in the early days of writing but hasn’t been raising its nasty little head lately.

I don’t know how to get past all of this other than keep reading, keep writing, and ignoring the voice in my head, so I’ll ignore it and read all these books.

This started as a conversation between my wife and me. I bought Don Quixote recently and she was surprised I’d never read it. I told her it’s one of those books I was afraid to read for all of the reasons I stated above.

Anyway, read what you like and don’t let that voice screw it up for you.

What may come…

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I had no intention of writing anything on the blog today, but here we are.

I don’t know why I haven’t been writing on here more often, it’s just something that I haven’t found interesting.

It’s not to say that I haven’t been writing, that’s been happening. It’s when I come to the keyboard to write a blog post that I feel bored.

I have a lot to say about things, but when I write on here it doesn’t feel the same as when I do my creative work.

So here goes, I have a few things out with various places as well as a two novella’s I’ll be editing and submitting in the near future. If those fall through in submissions I may publish them anyway.

I feel good about my short story collection and I’ve recently changed the price for the ebook to $2.99.

It hasn’t gained traction and I may go over it with another round of edits and republish it. I’ve also dropped off on publicity for it, and that may the biggest determiner for its lack of success.

On the reading front, I’m reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

I have never read westerns, but my older brother had a lot of Louis L’Amour books in his room when we were growing up. He was loved the whole cowboy thing, but it was never my thing. It’s been a difficult book to get through. I haven’t been reading much outside my own genre and I know why I’ve struggled reading it.

On another front of reading, my wife and I recently read, Goddess of Filth by V. Castro. This was not a book I would have bought, but there was a lot of buzz around it in the horror community on Instagram as well as Twitter. It came in our Nightworms book package and it was phenomenal.

I don’t like leaving this blog sitting as I found a lot of people that need help through Transcendental Meditation. I continue to practice TM and will for the rest of my life.

The blog may still be here and I’m going to make a run at doing more with it, even if it is only once a week.

Have a pleasant rest of your week.

Changing reading habits and me

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I’ve mentioned numerous times on here about the books I felt forced to read growing up. It was the 80’s and the techno-thriller was king, at least that’s how it felt in my little corner of the world.

I enjoyed those books, but as I grew older I found myself gravitating towards darker stories.

I recently purchased Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, the book not the game. The last couple of weeks have found me reading through it and I found so much of it boring. As a writer myself I found places the could have been removed through editing.

Was Clancy brilliant in his world building, absolutely. Were his technical discussions within the books not needed in most places? After reading the three hundred pages I’ve consumed of Rainbow Six, I’d have to say yes. It feels like there are so many parts that could be removed.

This is not a review of the book. But I don’t enjoy all of that stuff anymore. It was cool reading those things in Elementary and Junior High, but as and adult, I found them boring and unnecessary within the constructs of the book.

I have read a few books that are more concise and less grandiose in their wording and content, but I feel I’ve outgrown the monotony of how this book works. I haven’t read any of the new books in the Jack Ryan series written by other authors, but I’m hoping they’re most concise and less about adding words and more about the story…at least that’s my hope.

On the other side though, the horror books I’ve read in the last year have blown me away.

I think small doses of Clancy and war books are a better idea. It’s not the length of the book that felt daunting, it’s the unnecessary aspects of scenes. Some of the scenes in that book could be done away with as I don’t feel they move the story forward and are more of stopping point.

I think my days of reading Clancy books, at least those written by the author prior to his passing, are over. I want to read the books in that universe written by the other authors but haven’t had time to do so.

I’ll go back to reading other things for the time being. I have a subscription to Nightworms and I get a few horror books from them a month. They are wonderfully curated and come with all kinds of goodies.

For now, I’ll stick to the smaller war and techno-thriller books.