Raritania
Friday, January 28, 2022
Why Do Writers Write About the Writing Life So Badly?
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I have long felt that writers in every medium are overly prone to writing about writers, and that this is mainly a reflection of self-involv...
Revisiting Robert Ludlum's
The Bourne Identity
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When I first started reading Robert Ludlum my first (even though it was long before the movie) happened to be The Bourne Identity , which I ...
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
On Depicting Stupidity
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I have often had occasion to remark how crude and foolish--and simple-mindedly prejudiced--popular culture can be when it attempts to convey...
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Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Of Thomas Magnum and Harmon Rabb
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A long time ago I ran into a post in a Google group raising the question of whether JAG 's Harmon Rabb was "Thomas Magnum in Disgui...
World War II Counterfactuals, Again: Axis Victory as Heroic Failure
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At this stage of things I rarely run across anything about World War II counterfactuals that I have not encountered before (and that usually...
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
The Early Robert Ludlum Novels: Some Notes
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Robert Ludlum's name has long been synonymous with the type of thriller he increasingly produced in the late '70s and '80s, and...
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Revisiting the Battle of Britain, the Blitz--and British Bankruptcy
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In considering the air war fought between Britain and Germany in 1940-1941 (the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz which followed it) it seems...
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Social Class in Robert Ludlum's Novels
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I remember years ago reading James William Gibson's comment on the Tom Clancy-style military techno-thriller as a white collar counter...
Monday, January 10, 2022
Making Sense of WGN's Transformation into NewsNation
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I recall being perplexed by WGN's decision to become a part-time news channel ("NewsNation"). After all, we had been hearing f...
Remembering Larry Bond and Patrick Larkin's
Cauldron
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At this stage of things there seems little more worth saying about just how far removed from reality the realism-peddling military techno-th...
Just How Realistic Was the "Realistic" Techno-Thriller?
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The military techno-thriller has always been sold on the basis of the plausibility of its scenarios, and the realism of their treatment. The...
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Why
JAG
Was an Older Person's Show: Reflections
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Donald Bellisario's JAG had a ten season run and provided the platform for the launch of one of the twenty-first century's biggest ...
On the Reputation of CBS as the Older Viewers' Network
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I have recently had occasion to think about CBS' reputation as, well, an older person's TV channel. One explanation for that reput...
Monday, January 3, 2022
How Has Robert Ludlum's Readership Held Up Over the Years?
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When I was researching The James Bond We Forget I found myself looking for empirically useful indications of the readership of the James B...
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