Any Alistair MacLean fans here?

[pokerfan]

I suppose it's akin to asking if there are any Louis L'Amour fans, but I dearly loved Alistair in his day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_MacLean

The vibrating clangour from the four great piston engines set teeth on edge and made an intolerable assault on cringing eardrums...

[Swede]

1. I read a few of his books back in school.

Ice Station Zebra is the one that sticks in my head. They made a lot of his books into movies,some on them good ones.

[pokerfan]

2. For a time, he was basicaly a screen writer

MacLean was the son of a minister, and learned English as his second language after his mother tongue, Scottish Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, 10 miles south of Inverness.

Compared to other thriller writers of the time, such as Ian Fleming, MacLean's books are exceptional in one way at least: they have an absence of sex and most are short on romance because MacLean thought that such diversions merely serve to slow down the action. Nor do the MacLean books resemble the more recent techno-thriller approach. Instead, he lets little hinder the flow of events in his books, making his heroes fight against seemingly unbeatable odds and often pushing them to the limits of their physical and mental endurance. MacLean's heroes are usually calm, cynical men entirely devoted to their work and often carrying some kind of secret knowledge. A characteristic twist is that one of the hero's closest companions turns out a traitor.



MOTION PICTURES

THE SECRET WAYS Heath Productions, Universal-International, 1961
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE Open Road Films, Columbia Pictures, 1961
THE SATAN BUG Mirisch Corp., United Artists, 1965
ICE STATION ZEBRA Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968
WHERE EAGLES DARE Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1969
PUPPET ON A CHAIN 1970
WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL Winkast Film Productions, 1971
FEAR IS THE KEY Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1972
CARAVAN TO VACCARES 20th Century Fox, 1974
BREAKHEART PASS United Artists, United Artists, 1975
GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS 1977
FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE Columbia Pictures, 1978
BEAR ISLAND Columbia Pictures, 1979
HOSTAGE TOWER GL Productions, Inc., 1980
RIVER OF DEATH Breton Film Productions, 1989
DEATH TRAIN, (DETONATOR) USA Pictures, 1992
THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH Delux Productions, 1995
NIGHT WATCH, (DETONATOR II) USA Pictures, 1995

[pokerfan]

3. kicking

To even the least sensitive and perceptive beholder the Morning Rose, at this stage of her long and highly chequered career, must have seemed ill‑named, for if ever a vessel could fairly have been said to be approaching, if not actually arrived at, the sunset of her days it was this one. Officially designated an Arctic Steam Trawler, the Morning Rose, 560 gross tons, 173 feet in length, 30 in beam and with a draught, unladen but fully provisioned with fuel and water, of 14.3 feet, had, in fact, been launched from the Jarrow slipways as far back as 1926, the year of the General Strike.

Hard to believe that English was his second language.

[vadawg]

10. kinda not in the way you are thinking, he was probuably fluent in english

at the same time as in the Gaelic, english is so pervasive in Scotland and has been for a long time that everyone speaks it fluently though with deviations of accent and dialect. Though most Gaelic speakers will always list english as their second language even if they learned them at the same time.

[pokerfan]

17. no doubt, they hate the english

Continuing with the opening to Where Eagles Dare:

The vibrating clangour from the four great piston engines set teeth on edge and made an intolerable assault on cringing eardrums. The decibel-level, Smith calculated, must have been about that found in a boiler factory, and one, moreover, that was working on overtime rates, while the shaking cold in that cramped, instrument-crowded flight-deck was positively Siberian. On balance, he reflected, he would have gone for the Siberian boiler factory any time because, whatever its drawbacks, it wasn't liable to fall out of the sky or crash into a mountain-side which, in his present circumstances, seemed a likely enough, if not imminent contingency for all that the pilot of their Lancaster bomber appeared to care to the contrary. Smith looked away from the darkly opaque world beyond the windscreens where the wipers fought a useless battle with the driving snow and looked again at the man in the left-hand captain's seat.

Wing Commander Cecil Carpenter was as completely at home in his environment as the most contented oyster in his shell in Whitstable Bay. Any comparison with a Siberian boiler factory he would have regarded as the ravings of an unhinged mind. Quite dearly, he found the shuddering vibration as soothing as the ministrations of the gentlest of masseurs, the roar of the-engines positively soporific and the ambient temperature just right for a man of his leisured literary tastes. Before him, at a comfortable reading distance, a book rested on a hinged contraption which he had swung out from the cabin's side. From what little Smith could occasionally see of the lurid cover, depicting a blood-stained knife plunged into the back of a girl who didn't seem to have any clothes on, the Wing Commander held the more serious contemporary novelists in a fine contempt. He turned a page.

'Magnificent,' he said admiringly. He puffed deeply on an ancient briar that smelt like a fumigating plant. 'By heavens, this feller can write. Banned, of course, young Tremayne this to the fresh-faced youngster in the co-pilot's seat -- 'so I can't let you have it till you grow up.' He broke off, fanned the smoke-laden air to improve the visibility, and peered accusingly at his co-pilot. 'Flying Officer Tremayne, you have that look of pained apprehension on your face again.'

'Yes, sir. That's to say, no, sir.'

'Part of the malaise of our time,' Carpenter said sorrowfully. "The young lack so many things, like appreciation of a fine pipe tobacco or faith in their commanding officers.' He sighed heavily, carefully marked the place in his book, folded the rest away and straightened in his seat. 'You'd think a man would be entitled to some peace and quiet on his own flight-deck.'

He slid open his side screen. An icy gust of snow-laden wind blew into the flight-deck, carrying with it the suddenly deepened roar from the engines. Carpenter grimaced and thrust his head outside, shielding his eyes with a gauntleted right hand. Five seconds later he shook his head dispiritedly, screwed his eyes shut as he winced in what appeared to be considerable pain, withdrew his head, closed the screen, brushed the snow away from his flaming red hair and magnificent handlebar moustache, and twisted round to look at Smith.

'It is no small thing, Major, to be lost in a blizzard in the night skies over war-torn Europe.'

'Not again, sir,' Tremayne said protestingly.

"No man is infallible, my son.'

Smith smiled politely. 'You mean you don't know where we are, sir?'

'How should I?' Carpenter slid down in his seat, half-dosed his eyes and yawned vastly. I'm only the driver. We have a navigator and the navigator has a radar set and I've no faith in either of them.'

'Well, well.' Smith shook his head. 'To think that they lied to me at the Air Ministry. They told me you'd flown some three hundred missions and knew the continent better than any taxi driver knows his London.'

'A foul canard put about by unfriendly elements who are trying to prevent me from getting a nice safe job behind a desk in London.' Carpenter glanced at his watch. 'I'll give you exactly thirty minutes' warning before we shove you out over the dropping zone.' A second glance at his watch and a heavy frown. 'Flying Officer Tremayne, your gross dereliction of duty is endangering the entire mission.'

'Sir?' An even deeper apprehension in Tremayne's face.

'I should have had my coffee exactly three minutes ago.'

'Yes, sir. Right away, sir.'

Smith smiled again, straightened from his cramped position behind the pilots' seats, left the flight-deck and moved aft into the Lancaster's fuselage. Here in this cold, bleak and forbidding compartment, which resembled nothing so much as an iron tomb, the impression of the Siberian boiler factory was redoubled. The noise level was so high as to be almost intolerable, the cold was intense and metal-ribbed metal walls, dripping with condensation, made no concessions whatsoever to creature comfort. Nor did the six metal-framed canvas seats bolted to the floor, functionalism gone mad. Any attempt to introduce those sadistically designed instruments of torture in H.M. penitentiaries would have caused a national outcry.

Huddled in those six chairs sat six men, probably, Smith reflected, the six most miserable men he'd ever seen. Like himself, each of the six was dressed in the uniform of the German Alpine Corps. Like himself, each man wore two parachutes. All were shivering constantly, stamping their feet and beating their arms, and their frozen breath hung heavy in the ice-chill air. Facing them, along the upper starboard side of the fuselage, ran a taut metal wire which passed over the top of the doorway. On to this wire were clipped snap-catches, wires from which led down to folded parachutes resting on top of an assortment of variously shaped bundles, the contents of only one of which could be identified by the protruding ends of several pairs of skis.

I would like to meet one of descendants. Looking back, he has a profound influence on my life: Science and engineering. Mountaineering (leftyclimber, I'm looking in your direction), skiing, EMT training, scuba diving, fencing, rifle and pistol shooting...

[eyepaddle]

4. I'd say yes--even though I've only read a few of his books.

I'd say HMS Ulysses is his masterwork.

It is a relentlessly grinding death spiral of a Dido class light cruiser leading the escortof a convoy to Northern Russia. It pretty much demolishes the "war as sport" image that you might get from some of his other books.

I read it when I was about twelve, the passage in the book about an escort carrier being hit by a U-Boat and spilling burning fuel and engulfing the swimming crew still sticks with me to this day. It's out of print, but I just found my old copy in my parents storage shed, and I have been considering giving it a re-read.

[pokerfan]

6. That was his first novel and it's a good read

Inspired by this true story:

In July 1942, convoy PQ 17 suffered the worst losses of any convoy in the Second World War. Under attack from German aircraft and U-boats, the convoy was ordered to scatter, following reports that a battle group, which included the battleship Tirpitz, had sailed to intercept the convoy. Only 11 of the 35 merchant ships in the convoy succeeded in running the gauntlet of U-boats and German bombers. This Convoy is said to have inspired Alistair Maclean to write his first Fictional Novel H. M. S. Ulysses.

[eyepaddle]

7. Interestingly enough, he actually mentions PQ 17 in the book.

In fact there is a small footnote somewhere giving the (very brief) gist of it. ONce I finish the book I am currently working on I think I will re-read Ulysses.

[pokerfan]

12. PQ-17

PQ-17 was a World War II convoy carrying war matériel from Britain, Canada and the USA to the USSR. PQ-17 sailed in June-July 1942 and suffered the heaviest losses of any Russia-bound (PQ) convoy, with 25 vessels out of 36 lost to enemy action. The reason for these losses was that the disastrous order to "scatter" was given due to supposed sightings of German warships in the area. This meant that every merchant ship had to make its own way to Murmansk without naval escort. These unprotected ships were therefore easy pickings for the German planes based in nearby Norway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_PQ-17

[GCP]

8. That is really an excellent book

Very harrowing.
I loved Alistair Maclean books back in the 60s.

[Pharlo]

5. I like Alistair MacLean,

I like Louis L'Amour as well. Hell, toss in Jack Higgins too.

[mix]

9. His were some of the first books I read as a child.

I remember coming across his books at the grocery store check-out, at the Safeway in the 70s. My mom would let me get one every now and then, I remember Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare, loved them! Shortly after I became an Ian Fleming fan.

[pokerfan]

14. me too

Parents kept me short on candy, long on books.

[jeff30997]

11. Alistair Mac what ?

Please tell me about him.I love to learn.

I'm serious.Please give me some links if you don't want to

explain who is this person pokerfan.

[pokerfan]

13. you know him

if only through his movies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bsrb8akikM

[jeff30997]

15. The Guns of Navarone

I've seen that great movie 4-5 times but I still don't know who you're

talking about.OK I'll go to IMDB.

Well tonight at least I learned that you are a good movie critic pokerfan. :)

[pokerfan]

16. you flatter me, sir

A small dusty man in a small dusty room. That's how I always thought of him, just a small dusty man in a small dusty room.

No cleaning woman was ever allowed to enter that office with its soot-stained heavily curtained windows overlooking Birdcage Walk: and no person, cleaner or not, was ever allowed inside unless Colonel Raine himself were there.

And no one could ever have accused the colonel of being allergic to dust.

It lay everywhere. It lay on the oak-stained polished floor surrounds that flanked the threadbare carpet. It filmed the tops of bookcases, filing cabinets, radiators, chair-arms and telephones: it lay smeared streakily across the top of the scuffed knee-hole desk, the dust-free patches marking where papers or books had recently been pushed to one side: motes danced busily in a sunbeam that slanted through an uncurtained crack in the middle of a window: and, trick of the light or not, it needed no imagination at all to see a patina of dust on the thin brushed-back hair of the man behind the desk, to see it embedded in the deeply trenched lines on the grey sunken cheeks, the high receding forehead.

And then you saw the eyes below the heavy wrinkled lids and you forgot all about the dust; eyes with the hard jewelled glitter of a peridot stone, eyes of the clear washed-out aquamarine of a Greenland glacier, but not so warm.

He rose to greet me as I crossed the room, offered me a cold hard bony hand like a gardening tool, waved me to a chair directly opposite the light-coloured veneered panel so incongruously let into the front of his mahogany desk, and seated himself, sitting very straight, hands clasped lightly on the dusty desk before him.

[petronius]

18. I've liked what I've read - I remember especially liking the short story collection