Just finished a new novel by a writer I enjoy, does snappy mysteries, cops and bad guys, like that. It was a fun read, right up until I got to the part where the bad guy has a Desert Eagle revolver with which he likes to menace people.Look at the picture. That look like a revolver to anybody here?
And there's a thank you at the end of the book to the writer's gun guy. Want to bet that the gun guy never said that, and that the writer just threw it in without thinking about it?
In Spare Change the cops find ejected shells from the revolver the serial killer used; ouch.
ReplyDeleteMagnum Research even makes the BFR, a 5-shot revolver in rifle calibers. Menacing?
ReplyDeletewww.magnumresearch.com/Expand.asp?ProductCode=BFR45-707
Actually, in Spare Change, they don't find the brass from the revolver, which leads the cops to believe it wasn't fired where they found the gun, because there was no brass.
ReplyDeleteThey were considering getting a diver to check the lake to look for it, though.
Yep, and if the writer had called it a Magnum Research BFR, he could have gotten away with it, but he didn't.
I shot my cousin's Desert Eagle .44 mag. Too much gun for me...
ReplyDelete.44 Mag is not so bad. Gary Reeder's .500 Max BMF has a stouter recoil. Not something I'd want to burn a lot of ammo with, though ...
ReplyDeleteI found the Desert Eagle in .44 was pleasant to shoot, although I'm not a fan of them in general. The gun was so heavy that it soaked up much of the recoil.
ReplyDeleteNever tried the .50 though.
I agree with Dojo Rat. Anybody see the Tomb Raider flicks? Angelina Jolie, with her toothpick-thin wrists, sports a PAIR of desert eagles, and fires them with accuracy at everything.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Right. Those hand cannons would have snapped her bony assed wrists in half on the first shot.
You are looking for verisimilitude in Tomb Raider?
ReplyDeleteOf any kind?
From tomb raider? No.
ReplyDeleteFrom Hollywood, though?
...Also, no.
What I was looking for was huge boobies. Funbags in spandex. Flesh dumplings attached to a psychotic female whackjob. Which I gratefully received, in abundance.
God, I can't wait until porn is shot in zero-G.
Bobbe: The Uranus Experiment: Part 2
ReplyDeleteYeah, writers not researching weaponry adequately is something I find quite irritating --- one of the most egregious was John M. Ford's having the Japanese Army revive the 8mm Nambu pistol (absolute stupidity given its unreliable characteristics and anemic stopping power), then having a character identify it by the brass being slightly smaller in diameter than a 9mm Parabellum (the Nambu used a necked down round, so has a base which is _larger_ than 9mm --- the first issue of _Guns & Ammo_ which I ever purchased had an article on forming brass for the Nambu from .30-30 brass...
ReplyDeleteWilliam
There are a lot of highly technical things about which people don't need to know, and some of the common errors I've just let go: Guys say "clip" when they mean "magazine." Even the cowboy action shooters call their hoglegs "pistols," which isn't accurate in this country -- a pistol has a chamber integral with the barrel, whereas a revolver's chambers *revolve* to line up with the barrel. If you say "pistol," a lot of folks take that to mean "handgun," and that sounds too nitpicky to point it out.
ReplyDeleteBut if you get specific with names, you can't call a Corvette a Ford, nor a Thunderbird a Chevrolet.
Neither can you go on at length about how a safety works when the piece doesn't have one; or wonder why you can't find brass on the ground when the shooter used a S&W .38 revolver. That's just wrong.
Everybody makes mistakes. Goes with the territory, and even double checking you will miss some.
Guys who will go to great lengths to make sure they get a day and date fifty years ago right will toss out made-up hardware without a thought. Bad writing to do so.
Gun nerds step aside. Try being a computer geek and watching anything from Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteI remember when they showed "Jurassic Park" to my graduate Graphics Programming course. Everything was great up until the point where the teenage girls exclaims, "It's a UNIX system!" at which point we all fell about the room.
Luscious mounds of lust pudding.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to knock the shit out of that little brat as well for saying that, too. My wife and I can't watch shows like "CSI:Miami" together, because they always pop up with some uber-technology like a computer system you can navigate by air-touch, like in "Minority Report". I always jump up and down screaming "They can't really do that! We don't have that kind of technology yet, and the police force would be the LAST people to have one even if we did! They're always critically underfunded!"
ReplyDeleteAt which point, she asks me to leave the room and go play on my computer.
Hey Edwin: If you can secure funding, I will GLADLY contribute my talent & lengthy resources to the project.
ReplyDeleteGladly.
Think about it.
I also have been working on a screenplay involving Asian midgets, Emma Thompson in a leather catsuit, a tribe of pygmies on Viagra, an oil field of lubricant, a baboon & JASON STATHAM!
We could even shoot it in Holland, if you like.
What a day! You're the second person wanting me to take the ball and run with it on a business proposition. Sorry, balls in this case. Well, depending on the surgeon on your back surgery ... I guess, we'll wait and see, huh?
ReplyDeleteI'm all for it. We may need to work something out regarding Newton's Third Law.
I'm going to be in the Netherlands, but, considering the Dutch Income Tax Service (no, honest, that's what their name translates to), we may be better off shooting elsewhere. Somewhere tropical, with great beaches, and good diving.
Actually, we may as well combine all good things and pick a spot convenient to Java.
>"Actually, we may as well combine all good things and pick a spot convenient to Java."<
ReplyDeleteWe'll do it in Bali. The women are hot, the diving is amazing, the curry is orgasmic and I have Silat contacts there. The rest of Indonesia can pretty much go ROT. Bali is friggin' paradise, Jakarta is a black-sky cesspool and Sumatra is 115 degrees on a cool day. Sundaland (Lembang area, Bandung)is 50-50, we might get lucky, we might get executed. We also might get Dengue fever. Or leprosy.
We do anything in the Archipelago, we do it in Bali.
I'll bring the beer. I'm afraid you cannot be trusted on this aspect, after our conversation at Norwescon.
"I remember when they showed "Jurassic Park" to my graduate Graphics Programming course. Everything was great up until the point where the teenage girls exclaims, "It's a UNIX system!" at which point we all fell about the room."
ReplyDeleteJurassic Park died for me at the point where the supposed biology research PhD hotshot explains that they can't reproduce because they're all females. I said "Look up parthenogenesis. If you can spell it."
I'm fine with Bali: I love the place. And don't forget the festivals and dances. Know a nice place to stay too, nice cabins up in the mountains, overlooking nice bay ... talk about a place to retire to. Wow!
ReplyDeleteI have (remote) family in Jakarta, and a chunk of them (with some in the Netherlands)are originally from Bandung, as is my first silat teacher, and most of the styles I've studied (pieces of) are Javanese, so I'm somewhat partial to Java. I'll take Bali any day tough.
As to the beer ... the stuff you like to drink, wouldn't it be easier to get some Bintang, dump in a handful of Indonesian palm sugar? It should get you the cloying sweetness and that rich dark color of that candy you drink.
Actually, I found Bintang to be surprisingly good, and inebriating, especially on the hotter days of the week...Which, in Indonesia, is any day ending with the word "day".
ReplyDeleteBintang on tap is stupendous, and in Bali, easily attainable.
NO, I would not put palm sugar in it. If I wanted cloying sweetness, I would grab some little wanita from Cibodas kampung.
Yup, Bintang goes down nice 'n' easy, though I scandalized my family there by downing sateh gambing with it.
ReplyDeleteI meant to toss the sugar in it to get the cloying sweetness of your favored Chimay Grand Reserve ...
Videogames get a lot gun stuff wrong as well. GTA: Vice City had one sound cue that always spoiled the game for me. When you fired the Colt Python there was a sound of an ejected shell hitting the ground.
ReplyDelete