Friday 20 March 2020

Americans Abroad

Americans abroad in World War II fiction remind me of Earthmen off-planet in American sf and vice versa. See High Treason.

A successful American-Filipino ambush of a convoy of Japanese trucks in John Grisham's The Reckoning contrasts sharply with an unsuccessful Aenean ambush of a Terran convoy in Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return. Grisham has incorporated an important episode of American military history into what would otherwise have been another of his legal thrillers. Anderson incorporates many historical events, including the London Blitz, into his sf.

This is the time of night when I read authors other than Anderson but then find something that I regard as relevant to the blog in any case although others might find some of the connections that I make a little bizarre.

However, this is deffo the last post tonight. More Grisham, then bed. Good night.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Strictly speaking, it was not a CONVOY Ivar Frederiksen and his friends incompetently tried to ambush in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, it was a patrol. The Imperials were searching for signs of guerrilla activity.

I have read some of Grisham's legal thrillers myself, and enjoyed them. And I would like to do the same to the apparently analogous thrillers written by the grandson of THE Tolkien, Simon Tolkien. He too, like Grisham, is a lawyer (barrister in the UK).

Ad astra! Sean