I know. Gripes about this and similar Hollywood gun tropes are common. But I ran across some real headscratchers in my latest read.

I started reading a series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, whose novels are mostly sci-fi and/or military action thrillers.

The series I chose was about a second American Civil War, and it naturally involves a lot of gunplay. I'm still pretty early on in the first book, and already I've run into stuff like a character who "racked the barrel of his shotgun to load another shell" or another character that "pulled back the slide of his pistol to decock it before putting it back in its holster".

C'mon, man... If you're going to write gun-centric military novels, you - or at a minimum your editor - should at least be mildly familiar with how guns function.

That's pretty cringy.

I have lost count of the number of times that a character has clicked the safety off his (or her) Glock.

Another favorite is pointing a 1911 at someone, finger on trigger, ready to shoot. With the hammer down. And I’m not talking about the Para-Ordnance LDA.

"With a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window".

A safety on a revolver or a " Silencer " ...

And confusing cartridges and bullets. Sheesh.

I used to get a kick out of the weirdness of the 'Executioner/Mack Bolan' pulp novels. I remember him using a .444 Marlin as a sniper rifle or some such.

There have been a number of thrillers written by or under the name of a former military sniper. It’s been a while so I no longer remember the book or the (supposed) author, but one had the hero being chased all over the landscape by someone shooting at him with a suppressed M14 rifle. Okay so far, but the shots were totally silent: no noise whatsoever, and no indication subsonic loads were being fired. Rather than think that the guy whose name was on the book was that ignorant, I suspect he just gave permission to be given the credit and probably never even read it himself before it was published.

That was not the only example I recall, and I usually avoid tales written by total hacks, but when it’s someone who is supposed to know about guns—?

Try Brad Taylor's Pike Logan series. He's pretty good on guns, with the possible exception of silencers. Some of his "operator" chatter is cringy, but I can tolerate that. Bad writing concerning guns frustrates me. My late MIL used to write professionally (including for the Army) and she gave me a book entitled "A Writer's Guide to Guns." It's out of date now, although I see more current versions on the market. It told you everything you needed to know to describe a huge variety of guns and how to work them. Our conversation about the book started when I was showing her a Beretta 86 (long since gone) and she stared at it for a minute, picked it up and opened the chamber to ensure it was unloaded. As you know, the 86 as a somewhat unique tip up barrel system. Smart woman until Alzheimer's ate her brain.

Today I read about a silenced knife...

quote:

Originally posted by ffips:
Today I read about a silenced knife...

Apprentice:

In Don Pendleton's The Executioner series, Mack Bolan frequently uses a Marlin .444 lever-action rifle as a specialized sniper weapon, particularly in the debut novel War Against the Mafia (1969).

What is ironic, funny, sad, is the I re-read that book along with a few others in the early part of summer last year.

As the series developed and continued for the most part, Mr. Pendleton started using more appropriate weapons for the task.

quote:

Originally posted by dsiets:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by ffips:
[snip]

I went back to find it and can't. I was reading on my Kindle and reported it. I have sincere doubts it got fixed that quickly.

From memory (which may be compromised) it read something like "Joe pulled out his silent knife and attacked." This was in the middle of a fight scene, Joe wasn't hidden and there was no reason for a silent anything."

Could have been the author meant "Joe pulled out his knife silently." Those types of errors are often overlooked during editing.

It did cause me to stop and wonder "What?"

Somewhat in line with this topic - Years ago, we had a crime reporter for the Indianapolis Star paper. I quit counting the number of times his column would state "the suspect was armed with an automatic revolver".

quote:

"racked the barrel of his shotgun to load another shell"

Maybe it was a Winchester 1911. Instead of a normal cocking handle (which Browning had a still-in-effect patent that Winchester wanted to avoid paying a royalty on), one grasped a knurled section of the barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by randyman:
I quit counting the number of times his column would state "the suspect was armed with an automatic revolver".

Well, not absolutely impossible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...y_Automatic_Revolver

About that knife-didn't they write a Christmas song about it? Silent Knife?

An episode of Forensic Files made the claim that "silencers are illegal because they don't leave rifling marks on the bullets."

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by randyman:
I quit counting the number of times his column would state "the suspect was armed with an automatic revolver".

Well, not absolutely impossible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...y_Automatic_Revolver

The guy probably saw "The Maltese Falcon" a couple times.