Someone once called him the poet laureate of the American armed forces. I won't argue.
But, Mr. Griffin, I'm afraid you've so far earned an "incomplete" In "The Corps 501."
We need a final volume, Sir, set in Vietnam. Ken McCoy would be a colonel, commanding the 9th of the Third. Fleming Pickering is secretary of defense, and his son, Malcom, has at last learned to keep his pants zipped during office hours. Ellen Feller, finally released from St.Elizabeth's, operates a high-end brothel in Saigon.
Would it help if we said "Please?"
3 comments:
As much as I get sucked into his books, I always end up a bit irked at the "fluffiness" of his books. By using a lot of unnecessary plot recaps and never using an acronym where a long-ass name or title will do, WEB pads his books so much that I feel cheated by the end.
Since he's counting on readers living vicariously through his main characters, the characters never suffer (much) or have flaws (unless getting too much sex is a flaw). They all live high on the hog through their connection to the rich and powerful -- or are rich and powerful themselves. All that, and I still go back -- but to paperbacks only.
I've never read a word he's written, and don't feel the loss.
There: Don't you feel inferior now? Neener neener.
It's stuff I haven't read that makes me feel inferior.
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Cowboy: I'm pretty sure it's the characterizations that keep readers with "The Corps," and vicarious living is, as you say, probably the reason.
(One critic tore into Ian Fleming for creating a shallow, vain, egocentric James Bond. Another replied, "So what? We don't want to have dinner with Bond. We want to be Bond.")
"The Corps" fans also like Griffin's usually dead-on accuracy on small-arms technical matters, right down to such trivial things as first-time figuring out how to make the M1 Carbine sling fit round the oiler.
Not to mention the obscure history, which checks out, such as the French turning over GIs who escaped Bataan and Corrigidor to the Japs in Vietnam.
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