I Like Action Novels (So Sue Me)

The book I've been reading, slowly, for a few months now is Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (2008), by David Michaels. And if that isn't confusing enough, "David Michaels" is a pseudonym for not one, but at least two authors writing stories for Ubisoft Entertainment. According to Wikipedia, this book was actually written by Grant Blackwood, a Navy vet who has co-authored novels with Clancy and Clive Cussler. And I just found out he wrote a sequel to this novel that was published in March.

If you didn't know or hadn't already guessed, this book is based on a popular video game. Why would someone like me be reading a novel like this? It started last year, when I started getting really nostalgic over G.I. Joe. I was a huge fan as a kid, and the magic all started coming back as I viewed some old episodes of the '80s cartoon on YouTube. Then I found a way to get the entire collection of Marvel's G.I. Joe and G.I. Joe Special Missions comics on my computer, which I'm still working my way through (I just finished #71 of the main series).

I've become anti-military over the past year, but I still enjoy military fiction. At least no one actually gets hurt. I found the Ghost Recon games and novel while searching for something that was like G.I. Joe but more realistic. Basically, I hate Cobra. They seem to have more fans than the Joes nowadays, but I always thought they were stupid. My brother had a Zartan figure and a Destro we found somewhere, but that's the only Cobra stuff we ever had as kids. Thank you, parents! It was that realistic-but-slightly-experimental Joe stuff that I always loved. And that's exactly what I get with Ghost Recon, minus the awful villains that Hasbro created for Cobra.

So how is the book? About what you'd expect from a novel based on a video game marketed to teenagers and young adults. It's candy fiction, but there aren't too many embarrassing one-liners or physics-bending stunts. Hard to say whether I'll get the sequel or not. I actually like this book better than a Cussler adventure novel I read recently, The Mediterranean Caper (1973), which had a lot of silliness. But that was his first novel, and a lot of people don't like it.

I just finished the climax of Ghost Recon, and the loose endings are beginning to be tied up now that the big assassination mission in China [SPOILER ALERT] has been successfully completed. I didn't expect them to fail, of course, but they have more wounded to take home than I expected. It's nice that they weren't made out to be supermen.

I'm looking forward to finally finishing this book and moving on to something more grown-up. Since I'm working on my own suspenseful story now, I might go ahead to the third book in John le Carré's Karla trilogy, Smiley's People (1979). It's about time, considering that I started reading the trilogy about a decade ago. It's not easy reading! But the second book, The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), is my favorite action novel of all time, so I have high expectations for this one.