Jack Reacher, Lee Child, and Why I hate Hollywood.

A while ago, I mentioned how I thought that Hollywood was improving in the adaptations of novels to films.



I'm certain I've mentioned author Lee Child a few times on the blog.  His main hero is Jack Reacher, a former Military Policeman who specialized in arresting special forces operators who committed crimes, also a homicide detective.  And, considering that this is the army, Jack Reacher is built like  amiddle-weight wrestler ... if a middle weight could be 6'5" and 280.



Now retired from the army, after a live of rules, regulations, and fitting into a rigorous bureaucracy, Reacher has become a drifter. He lives off of his army pension and his savings, hitching rides, taking buses, wandering through middle America, with the occasional trip to New York. He's done the math, and figures that buying cheap and disposable clothes and living on the road is cheaper than living in a house with a washing machine, et al.



And Reacher thinks.  Good God, does he think. A fight scene that takes about ten seconds requires two pages to describe, because he thinks out every, last, move. His deductive abilities rely on heavy analysis, and quiet, thoughtful diligence.  If he were less conspicuous, he would be the quiet man in the corner who solves the crime by quietly moving around in the background, just listening.



Now, Hollywood is considering looking at making a Jack Reacher novel, One Shot, into a movie. Even though it's book number nine in the series. Probably because they have a Gulf War sniper veteran accused of being a killer.  Right now, I'll be happy if they keep the ending to the book, as opposed to going for the Hollywood's popular "crazy veteran" plot device.



So, who would you cast for the massive, silent, thinking man's detective?



I like Adam Baldwin .... he's tall, built like a brick wall, and has played military men for practically his entire career.  I can see Adam Baldwin playing a man who has put in his twenty years, and who just wants to be left alone.  I've seen him do more with a glare than some people who speak only in rants. He's not 6'5", but he'll do.



And Adam Baldwin is a thinker. At least in real life. He maintains his own political blog, and every argument is well reasoned, and thoroughly thought out.



So, he'll do.



And, Hollywood being Hollywood, they took Jack Reacher, and they cast ....



Wait for it ....






Tom Cruise.



Yup, a thoughtful, insightful, 6'5" wall of a man, and they cast a 5'6" guy whose major real life moment was him going insane on the Oprah Winfrey show.



Just what the hell are these people thinking?



Obviously, that presumes that they are thinking.



What does the author have to say about this travesty?



To quote from Lee Child: "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way."



I'm sure that if I were being given God knows how much money to make one of my novels into a book, and I absolutely had to comment, I'm sure I'd say that too.



If you ever wondered why I spent so much time on casting blogs for my novel, now you know. It's so that, should something like this ever happen to me, I'll be on record already.  And I wouldn't comment on any movie project .... I would take the money and go into hiding.



With any luck, Tom Cruise will fall down a manhole before filming.

What I read: Thriller/ mystery authors

A few weeks ago, I did romance.....

Now, enough of the mushy stuff. Now we blow stuff up.... Thriller/ mystery authors.

Keith Thompson. Once a Spy .... if Jason Bourne had a son, and if Bourne had Alzheimers.... My review here.  There's a sequel called .... wait for it ... Twice a Spy.

David Morrell: Yes, he created John Rambo in his novel “First Blood.” However, I would suggest that it is not his best. In The Spy Who Came For Christmas, a spy tries to keep a baby from the mercenaries he'd been undercover with.  Wounded, he seeks refuge in a home while being chased; to keep the occupants calm as he prepares for war, he tells them a spy's version of the Christmas story.

In “Creepers”, a group of urban explorers enter into an abandoned hotel, onto to discover that they're not alone. “Scavenger,” the sequel to Creepers, finds the survivors of the hotel incident trapped into a deadly game—a real life role playing game, set in a hostile wilderness filled with booby traps.

Vince Flynn-- He writes about a CIA assassin named Mitch Rapp, and the first one was about terrorists taking over the white house. This was before terrorists became popular (1999), and he does a wonderful critique of what went wrong during the 1990s in the intelligence world.  In his first novel with Rapp, terrorists have taken over the Clinton White House, and he's sent in for recon. Now all he needs to do is not kill all of the terrorists himself.

One of the nice things about Vince Flynn is that he always has a domestic element to his novels. Domestic as in "do we have to kill the politicians before they get us all killed."  Again, Flynn has had politicians as antagonists since the 1990s, so he's not some sort of Tea Party individual. He came like this
[More below the break]

Sex Scenes, Novels, and A Pius Man

Sex, books, and A Pius Man. [PG-13/ R. And, for the record, this is a completely amoral blog post—preaching morals gives me a headache and upsets my ulcer.]



1. Sex. What is it good for?

Were this a song parody, the next line would be “absolutely nothing.” But, given that I've had bad experiences with song parodies, I will forgo that.



But, seriously, sex... why bother?  In the context of literature, almost any novel with a sex scene in it has been, in my opinion, a horrid waste of time, energy, and irritates, at least, this reader.



A Pius Man has no sex scenes. Why? Because I find them boring.



I am not certain how much of this is my own personal opinion and how much of it is a critique of how sex scenes tend to be inflicted on the reader.



One of my major problems is the OSS, or the Obligatory Sex Scene.



In the Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child novel Mount Dragon, our protagonists, after having found shelter and water in the middle of the desert, after nearly dying from thirst, while on the run from a nutcase with a gun.... are so happy they start having sex... Huh?



The OSS I just mentioned is quick. If it's longer than half a page, I'd be surprised. But it was just dropped into the middle of the book, and was so jarring it broke the pace. It had been a nice, solid thriller, our heroes on the run from a psychotic killer with a rifle, and then.... they're stopping to have sex? Really?



Looking at it objectively, what is the point of an OSS?



“Physical intimacy shows the the relationship involved has gone to another level and has thus impacted the characters”..... Perfectly true, but does that necessitate a five page sex scene? Or even a page? If one wanted to tell the reader that, yes, two people slept together, I can do that right now: “X and Y fell into bed, kissing passionately as they stripped each other's clothes. They then turned off the lights and hoped they wouldn't wake the neighbors.”



Done. Two lines and a bit of smart ass can carry something a long way.



“Things can happen during the scene that are relevant to the rest of the novel.” True, but rarely does it necessitate going into intimate details. In fact, I would suggest that anything interesting that happened could be covered in the next chapter. “On reflection, s/he noticed something odd while lying on his/her back. S/he didn't really notice it at the time, but now that it's quiet.....”



Done.



Exceptions can be made to this rule, obviously. If the couple rolls off of the bed as someone walks into the room, be it with room service or with a gun, then that is a useful detail.



There are moments when character can be served, strangely enough. I've seen sex scenes done well. I don't mean the sex scene in the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, where he dwells on a nice neat serial killer, his girlfriend comes in, starts kissing and disrobing him, and the next line is, literally, “How did that happen?” I mean a sex scene.



John Ringo's “Paladin of Shadows” series (Ghost, Kildar, etc), has sex scenes and nudity. However, the point of the hero, nicknamed Ghost, is that he is not a “nice guy;” he hangs out in strip clubs, and some of his contacts are strippers... it's rather amusing reading a scene where a stripper is informing him of pertinent information during the course of her duties.



The sex scenes themselves are surprisingly thought out. In the first novel, Ghost, it is a series of vignettes. The second vignette is two-thirds bondage porn and deep sea fishing, and who knows which is worse. Before the sex scenes take up whole chapters, the character Ghost has a discussion with the two young ladies he's dealing with... and their parents. The conversation that follows is one part dissertation on bondage subcultures, and five parts comedy routine.



After that, you can skip whole chapters, unless you really want to learn more about leather goods than you ever really wanted to.



So, here we have someone who makes sex funny without it being gaudy. In fact, the amount of thought put into his later sex scenes is odd. It shows a lot of character, intelligence, and humor.



Even then, are they necessary? Surprisingly enough, some are, and two crucial to the stories they show up in. Almost all of them impact the characters in some way. And almost all of these scenes can be entertaining for reasons that are anything but sexual.



Why Ghost does what he does (and I don't mean sexual maneuvers or positions) tells the reader more about the character than a hundred pages of sex scenes from any given novelist....



Laurell K. Hamilton, I'm looking at you.



Laurell K. Hamilton created a novel series about Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. It was a nice, solid series, set in St. Louis, with a well-constructed, detailed world, where vampires were public figures, werewolves are treated like HIV cases in the 80s, crosses work against vampires, and demons aren't the actor in a suit you see on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.



For nine novels, the series went well. There was sexuality here and there (a major character was a French vampire, after all), but it never really got in the way of the story. By book seven and eight, the main character was sleeping with both a vampire and a werewolf, but the OSS's were few and far between, and they were easily skipped by turning a page. Quite painless, overall.



After book #9, Obsidian Butterfly, I was warned off several of the novels because it opened with a hundred pages of vampire rituals of who gets to have sex with who. I went back for book #15, because it featured the return of Hamilton's best, scariest character: a mild mannered, white-bread fellow named Edward, a mercenary who started hunting vampires because humans were too easy.



However, I had to skip a hundred and fifty pages of the novel. It was one, long and drawn out OSS. Not a menage a trois, but a bisexual sextet among Vampires and were-creatures. Much of the rest of the book had pages of Anita Blake defending her sex life. “The lady dost protest too much.”



When the author herself was asked about the overabundance of sex during a Barnes and Noble interview, Hamilton's best defense was that “I only get complaints from men. They're disturbed that a woman is writing this sort of stuff.”



Ahem...



Dear Ms. Hamilton: I get disturbed with John Ringo writing about a man and two coeds on a boat with bondage gear. For the love of all that's Holy, what makes you think that a woman with bi-vampires and several were-furries would go over better?

2. “I want a Heroine not an excuse for sex.”



As I said, in A Pius Man, there are no sex scenes. There are moments of physical intimacy off screen, that the reader doesn't see, but that's about it. Can I write a sex scene? Sure, they're easy. I've gotten requests from lady friends of mine for erotica (don't ask, long story). But are they necessary? No. Did I need intimate details to add to the plot, the character, or anything related to the story? No.



Frankly, I think a PG-13 novel requires more skill than an R-rated (for nudity/sex). I find that sex sequences are a cheat, sort of like premium cable—just because you can use four letter words doesn't mean you have to write them into every single line.



I have actually made my lack of OSS's in my novels work for me.



The character of Sean A.P. Ryan has had a long term girlfriend....they've never had intercourse because every time they do, someone tries to kill them.



The character of Giovanni Figlia is happily married with two children; I can leave him and his wife alone and move on to something plot related while they're busy in bed.



Maureen McGrail is out of her own country, single, and is usually too busy to stop, slow down, and make out with a random hero.



Scott Murphy and Manana Shushurin have just met; while they have an intimate moment, everything that interests me happens later.



Just because an author can throw in a sex scene doesn't mean s/he must do so. Doing sex scenes well takes skill, and making them relevant takes talent; most people don't have it. Joss Whedon's “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” had several moments where our heroine's sex life really was going to get people killed. Sherrilyn Kenyon, a ROMANCE NOVELIST, wrote at least one book where the LACK of sex was a key plot point, and another where intimacy between the hero and heroine was surprisingly crucial to the story.



So, it has been done well. Just not very often.



To answer the opening question: Sex, what is it good for?



In novels... it can be good for something.



It just rarely is.

A Public Service Announcement: How to Spot a Suicide Bomber

I live in New York City, so a certain amount of paranoia is reasonable. How much is too much? Great question. However, given that the New York City skyline has a relatively recent hole in it, I don't think it's too much to consider that someone, sooner or later, might want to consider rendering more damage to the city.



Over the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that most people—even those with limited knowledge of weapons, tactics, explosives, or anything harmful—can plan a better terrorist attack than some of the “masterminds” currently operating out in the world.



For example, one of the most likely scenarios in any major urban environment is suicide bombing. Load some people with bombs onto the A and the 6 trains in rush hour, or in the midst of time square—then you can start seeing examples of terror.



Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all sorts of signs for the simple reason that they are, by definition, all first timers. Israeli counterintelligence wrote the defensive playbook, using pragmatic observation and psychological insight, and came up with a 12-point checklist, 11 for women—you'll see why. If you want to see the list being applied, I recommend Lee Child's novel “Gone Tomorrow.”



Now, the twelve signs that you might be looking at a suicide bomber.....



1. Inappropriate clothing: bulking clothing helps hide the explosive vest. If someone is wearing a heavy coat in spring or summer, that could be a hint. If you're living in the sections of the planet where you have never seen real snow, that's less of a hint, and more like a neon sign.



2. A robotic walk: Bombers walk like a robot for a very simple reason: they're carrying approximately 40 pounds of additional weight. Also, many suicide bombers tend to be high before they go towards their target—raw opium is standard, usually tucked between the gum and the cheek. So, either take the added weight or being high, or both, a suicide bomber walks funny



3-6. Variations on a theme: irritability, sweating, tics, nervous behavior. These people are in the last moments of their lives: scared of the pain, drugged out of their mind. Motivation doesn't matter, nor does sincerity of one's beliefs—they are about to die, they see it coming, and they haven't exactly had to do this before. The stress becomes visible.



7. Breathing. Breaths come low, and controlled. It's more or less a matter of the bomber trying to control their breath so they don't hyperventilate.



8. Staring. No one is 100% sure why, but suicide bombers stare straight ahead, fixed on a target. Perhaps it's tunnel vision, perhaps it's blocking out everything but the thought of being about to meet ones maker. Every image of bombers before they blow up shows them with the exact same stare.



9. Mumbled prayers. To date, everyone who blows themselves up in a suicide bombing has done so for religious reasons. Surviving eyewitnesses have all seen continuous, formulaic incantations on visibly moving lips, usually before all hell breaks loose.



10. A large bag. Fresh dynamite is a stable explosive that needs to be set off by specially prepared blasting caps. These caps are wired with cord to an electricity supply and a switch. A nine-volt battery will do, or a large square battery—these are too heavy for a pocket, usually, therefore, a bag.



11. The most recent point: You can't see the person's hands. If the person's hands are in the bag consistently, it could be resting on a button. In the earlier days of suicide bombings, a good bearhug would pin the bomber's arms to their sides, preventing them from reaching the button. The bombers learned, leading to....hands in the bag.



12. Male bombers only: Recently shaved beards. Usually, this is done so the bomber can blend in better. However, it has an obvious flaw: when they shave off their beards, they're leaving an obvious tan line where the beard used to be, the lower half of the face is paler, since it had not been exposed to a great deal of sunlight in a while.







What do you do when you see someone who might be a suicide bomber? That's for another blog post. However: I wouldn't recommend taking the nearest large object and smacking them over the head with it—for one thing, if they have their finger on the trigger, that might set it off early. The best thing I can suggest (without writing a new article) is to move away, slowly—put distance, and preferably a building, between you and the suspect, call emergency services and report a suspicious-looking person.