Underused Countries and National Pride, the technothriller way.
- Thread starter MacCaulay
- Start date
China's motivations are exceedingly weak, but it was a fun read...
They never actually reached Singapore, but as I said Singapore did get hit by a few Scuds.
Most unique technothriller i read (i havent read that many though) had Hamas as the main country/group. It was titled barricuda or something and part of a series. It involved Hamas getting a nuclear sub that is undetectable from Russia and then going apeshit on the USA. Oh and the Hamas SAS go and do a jail break in Israel. I dont think alot of books have real live terrorist groups as the good guys for understandable reasons of course.
I would love to see some eastern europe as the good guys. And stuff in the balkans, im always up for Serbia.
I would love to see some eastern europe as the good guys. And stuff in the balkans, im always up for Serbia.
Not really a techno-thriller, but the background for a game mod was that German peacekeepers in the Balkans get in a war with Serbia after a small skirmish started by an unknown sniper, which escalates rapidly.
MacCaulay
Banned
I think Adam and LightInfa pointed out a big part of the whole technothriller genre. There are many subgenres in it, much like Science Fiction.
If I were to say that RoboCop and 2001: A Space Odyssey were both science fiction and thus should both be judged by the same measurement as films, people would think I was crazy.
The same seems to be true for technothrillers. There does some to be certain subgenres that have developed:
There's the Character Study: Where a small cast is examined and the plot revolves more around what the people do as opposed to their machines. I would put Tom Clancy's Cardinal of the Kremlin, and Red Rabbit in this category. Red Army also would go in this one.
Then there's War Fiction: There's many names for this one. It's what you first think of when you think of "technothriller." High-tech and in-depth gadgetry, very realistic treatment of militaries and politics. Larry Bond's Vortex and Red Phoenix, Ed Ruggero's 38 North Yankee, and Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising come to mind.
There's also (in my opinion) the most misunderstood subgenre: Situation Drama, where the plot is juryrigged to put our "heroes" in a situation they wouldn't normally be in to see how a unit/population/whole military would handle it. It's normally considered to be "an unrealistic scenario," or "ASB." The point of the book is not in how the people get in the situation, but in how the people and the military react. I would put forward Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor, Rainbow Six and Executive Orders, and Harold Coyle's God's Children.
The last and probably most popular (but maligned) subgenre would probably be the Gear Porn. These are books where the hole point is obviously not to make a realistic effort towards prognostication, but to set up two big, bad ass armies across from each other and let them pound for awhile to show some good fight scenes. I'm thinking of the two most egregious writers of gear porn, Larry Bond with Cauldron (Poland and Hungary vs. Germany and France? I don't give a shit why they're fighting. I want to see a T-72 against a LeClerc.), and Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon (a division of T-55s vs. a brigade of Type 88s? Sure. I'll go along for the ride.).
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Sachyriel
Banned
I know this will anger you, but I gotta ask, is End War Gear Porn or another sub-genre? Because it does seem a lot like it.
MacCaulay
Banned
Yeah...I'd say it's Gear Porn. It doesn't mean it's not a terrible fucking book, but it's probably Gear Porn.
It's got all the hallmarks. Think about it from a dumb American's standpoint. The kind that doesn't know crap about Canada: they can read that book, and they don't have any emotional attachment to the geography in it. The Russians could drop an A-bomb on Winnipeg and 1/2 of America probably wouldn't know what country that was in.
So instead of concentrating on "oh, crap! They just blew up New York!", the reader is saying to himself: "Cool! F-35s and stuff!"
Flocculencio
Donor
Seconded.
There was a Singaporean writer who made an attempt at writing a spy thriller.
It was a rather unrealistic plot- IIRC the premise is that some secret treaty signed between the British Empire and the Malay sultans and then lost during the colonial period would cast some doubt upon Singaporean sovereignty were it to surface. A Singaporean agent has to race against a band of Malaysian extremists who want to recover the treaty and use it to provoke Malaysia and Singapore into war.
Utterly forgettable- I can't even remember the title. And that may not even have been the plot.
RUNVS
Banned
That would end well for Australia (unless the conflict is decided over a game of cricket).
The Sandman
Banned
Actually did read one with Israel involved, a while back, and it was even AH.
It was titled If Israel Lost the War, and the basic POD was that Israel doesn't launch the preemptive strike during the Six Day War. Instead, the Arabs get off the first strike, the IAF is swamped and obliterated, and the rest of the nightmare proceeds logically from there.
It also devotes quite a bit of time to the aftermath, which is interesting in its own right (in a horrifying sort of way). Needless to say a good read, but not really a fun one.
It was titled If Israel Lost the War, and the basic POD was that Israel doesn't launch the preemptive strike during the Six Day War. Instead, the Arabs get off the first strike, the IAF is swamped and obliterated, and the rest of the nightmare proceeds logically from there.
It also devotes quite a bit of time to the aftermath, which is interesting in its own right (in a horrifying sort of way). Needless to say a good read, but not really a fun one.
wouldnt or would? because i imagine if this happened 6 years ago and it was decided by a cricket match it would end rather well for australia. today, not so much
speaking of which, i vaguely remember some guy was writing a technothriller about oil being discovered on antractica and australia trying to claim it with the yanks support against the chinese and Russians (who had a secret ally in France
). looked to be basically F-111 porn, though could have been interesting.Dale Brown
well, how bout the influence of Dale Brown's technothrillers ? He tends to use alot of ex-Soviet republics as protagonists- esp involving an evil, nefarious Russia. Hmmm, maybe other technothrillers should capitalise on a wacko ex-Soviet republic dictator along the lines of Belarus' Aleksandr Lukashenko or Turkeminstan's ex-leader-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev...
well, how bout the influence of Dale Brown's technothrillers ? He tends to use alot of ex-Soviet republics as protagonists- esp involving an evil, nefarious Russia. Hmmm, maybe other technothrillers should capitalise on a wacko ex-Soviet republic dictator along the lines of Belarus' Aleksandr Lukashenko or Turkeminstan's ex-leader-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev...
Flocculencio
Donor
Reminds me of that Clive Cussler one with the treaty handing over Canada to America.
Yeah, you see that might not even have been the plot. It was just so forgettable.
Flocculencio
Donor
Don't know about that- does Australia have much of an independent power projection capability?
NothingNow
Banned
IIRC: it's pretty much just F/A-18s, F-111s, and Subs untill the Canberra class LHDs come in to service. The Canberras could in theory opperate F-35Bs (VSTOL variant) as fighters and strike aircraft. F/A-18s and/or F-111s with an A330 MRTT for in flight refueling could strike well away from the Mainland.
MacCaulay
Banned
I'm also kind of wondering just how the RAAF and RAN would fair against the Indian Navy. Sure, the Australian Navy could go into the Indian Ocean, but it'd be a surface action group (albeit a well stocked one). The Indians could try and push down to Australia, and they'd be able to make the attempt with an actual carrier group flying either Sea Harriers or MiG-29Ks, but they'd be up against a sub presence and F-111s doing anti-ship strikes with Hornets flying top cover.
It's not a walkover for either of them.