doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Fiction and the Gunsmith,

JD said he liked Nevil Shute. Look for Shute's "Most Secret", "The Far Country", and "Requiem for a Wren". I'll offer the same lending as previously posted. Also, if you like SF, try to find Robert Heinlin's "Glory Road".

Thanks Mark I have that on a list, is that the book where the South, during the Civil War were armed with AK-47's?

I have all of Heinlein and much of Shute, always looking for more. Shute's In The Wet and Round The Bend have had major influences upon my thinking about politics and sprituality(NOT The Spirit World but spirituality rather than religion), respectively. IMO reading Heinlein is always a quick refresher on the libertarian values that I espouse. And it's obvious that he knew guns.

Another UK author I really like is Jack Whyte. Absolutely nothing to do with guns at all, his Camulod Chronicles have absorbed me for several years now. I've already long since read all the other Arthurian retellings beginning with Malory and I gotta say that IMO Whyte's Camulod series just blows the others away. It's as good IMO as if Patrick O'Brian or Wilbur Smith had written them. Different of course but IMO definitely in the same class of meticulous historian/splendid storyteller.

Possibly my favorite fiction book so far is Robinson Crusoe. Says a lot about my essential character, I'm sure.
Regards, Joe

mike, yes it is.

"Possibly my favorite fiction book so far is Robinson Crusoe. Says a lot about my essential character, I'm sure.
Regards, Joe'

In that case I'll also send "The Earth Abides" you will feel right at home with it.

In the last 2 years I've read a 3-4 versions of the Arthurian legend including 'The Once and Future King". Whyte's is right there at the top. It all started with the Romans!

Anyone interested in the Knightly genre would do well to read Arthur Conan Doyle's "The White Company". An overlooked gem by the creator of Mr. Holmes.

Well I guess that explains why Donald Hamilton the shooter never said anything about writing fiction books. Amazing that two people with the same name had an interest in guns.
S T

I should also say something about "Reflections Man and Boy- An Australian Hunter's Whimsy" by Ron Forsyth (Pseudonym). This is a book I would compare to Ruark's "The Old Man and the Boy" if for no other reason that's is one of must reads out there. 1997, Australia ISBN 0 9589886 6 8

Alan Furst's pre-WWII and WWII spy novels are, excuse me, "Furst rate" and he usually get the guns right, too. Be prepared to visit European "countries" you may never have heard of--many no longer exist. Probably the one to start with is "The Polish Officer." Sad, like what happened to Poland.....

And don't forget Conan Doyle's Sir Nigel and the Professor Challenger stories including The Lost World.

An interest and an uncle in experimental aviation led me to try Dean Ing's works. Most are well worth reading although fanciful at times. He, too, knows guns quite well and also how to fabricate things with his hands. He also knows hard science and his expertise shows in his writing. For instance he and the Rutan brothers run with the same crowd, the Society of Experimantal Test Pilots. Just FYI these are the astronauts among others and one of the Rutans (Dick?) holds the first non-stop global circumnavigation record along with his copilot, a female whose name has become lost in my CRS. BTW most of these SETP guys look down on Chuck Yeager as a jumped-up grandstander who, after first disobeying orders, then took credit for another man's prior accomplishment(breaking supersonic). That should give you some idea of their relative level of knowledge, experience and expertise. Dean Ing is one of them and writes a good thriller most of the time.

Kinda reminds me of Robert Heinlein and Jerry Pournelle, all are/were hard scientists and libertarians. Pournelle hasn't written any fiction lately that I've seen, but many if not most of his older works are worth reading and reflect a hard-nosed libertarian attitude as well as a knowledge of guns, war and history. His sometime partner(!?) Larry Niven however is IMO a typical SoCal trust fund baby who's never grown up and knows next to nothing about guns. His (Niven's) works, although entertaining in a rose-colored way, IMO are more suited to gentle people like him.
Regards, Joe