[HN Gopher] Frederick Forsyth has died
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Frederick Forsyth has died
Author : Tomte
Score : 50 points
Date : 2025-06-09 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Forsyth
|
| https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0287046/
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.frederickforsyth.co...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Great books, though not for the faint of heart
|
| The Fist of God is probably one of my favourites.
|
| (I mean, his early books, I really can't recommend his sequel to,
| erm, The Phantom of the Opera)
| mellosouls wrote:
| Ach, great writer of operational background stories; his
| logistical build-up takes up almost the entirety of _Dogs of War_
| for instance. Strangely riveting accumulation of preparation
| notes considering it would probably be unenticing if describing,
| say, conference planning rather than a military coup!
|
| I'm not sure earlier books like that would pass these days
| without considerable liberal angst; that one for instance
| celebrates a certain lost kind of man of action with a brute
| uncompromising view of the mercenary perspective of the world.
|
| For lovers of intelligent action novels though like me, he's one
| of those writers I always considered a sure bet when taking a
| punt with an Audible credit. RIP.
| cptnapalm wrote:
| Dogs of War was good enough for it to be the basis for multiple
| attempted mercenary led coups. Hoare's in the Seychelles failed
| because his forces went in by plane instead of boat and met the
| problems which Forsyth foresaw. Denard's guys (if I remember
| correctly) were given copies of the book with bookmarks to
| indicate what to do next.
| takinola wrote:
| To be fair, Dogs of War was based on Forsyth's experience
| covering real-life mercenaries in the Biafra war.
|
| Fun fact, he started out as a war journalist and got fired
| for playing favorites and slanting his coverage towards one
| side. IIRC, he only started writing as a fallback after that.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| I'll be having a toast to him. The man's character development
| may have been a bit wooden and even absurd at times, but the
| procedural descriptions were curiously captivating, and the plots
| were just wonderful.
|
| Day of The Jackal is a novel I can read again and again across
| the years without ever getting finally bored of it. Dogs of War
| is almost as good and The Avenger is wonderful from start to
| finish, to name just a few praiseworthy examples.
| adharmad wrote:
| Also The Fist of God and Icon, although the ending of Icon is a
| bit rushed.
|
| Another exciting cold war thriller is the Devil's Alternative.
| jcalx wrote:
| I enjoy his writing style, and particularly his willingness to
| indulge in paragraphs of dryly humorous details, usually of the
| technical and operational varieties. For all their flaws, he and
| a few others (e.g. Alistair MacLean) have a particular flavor of
| "very competent protagonist relying on their wits and Very
| Particular Set of Skills" that other authors can't execute quite
| as well.
| bombcar wrote:
| > very competent protagonist relying on their wits and Very
| Particular Set of Skills
|
| Writing these characters without creating Mary or Marty Sues is
| _really damn hard_.
| sherr wrote:
| If you like this sort of thing, a novel I would heartily
| recommend is "Kolymsky Heights" by a much neglected (and long
| dead) author Lionel Davidson.
|
| The Guardian has a short piece from 2014 that describes the
| plot. Great setup and a particular sort of cultural and
| linguistic skillset :
|
| "Porter, however, is descended from Canadian Inuits, who
| remain - physically, ethnically and culturally - virtually
| identical to their Siberian counterparts, despite the
| decades-long political rift between the two."
|
| From : https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/aug/0
| 3/book...
| mellosouls wrote:
| Great great novel. I thought of it for my earlier comment
| in this thread (though decided not to mention), as I
| definitely see Forsyth as an influence on the detailed
| planning in KH.
| malshe wrote:
| I read many of his books growing up. His collections of short
| stories are fantastic. No Comebacks[1] in particular is
| phenomenal.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Comebacks
| zkms wrote:
| His "The Shepherd" is amazing. Linking a PDF of it (it's 29
| pages, and 100% worth reading) and not the wikipedia page for
| spoiler reasons:
| https://www.cessna150152.com/ubbthreads/attachments/13553-Fr...
| npalli wrote:
| My first impression was Frederick Forsyth is still alive??
| remembering him from classics that seemed ancient when I read
| them decades ago. Think Ian Fleming and James Bond type books.
| Toast to him though, great talent nevertheless. RIP.
| mike-the-mikado wrote:
| For those interested: Ian Fleming (1908-1964), Frederick
| Forsyth (1938-2025). So roughly a generation apart, but Forsyth
| lived to 84, while Fleming died at 56 (all those cigarettes?).
| lelanthran wrote:
| What an author; I discovered Day of the Jackal when I was 8-10
| (not sure). Reading it remains one of my most memorable
| experiences of my childhood[1].
|
| I genuinely hope someone thought to play this when he expired.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGd6CdtOqEE
|
| [1] It took a lot of convincing by my older brother that there
| book was, indeed, fiction. TBH, even now, I'm pretty certain it
| was all plausible.
| reddit_clone wrote:
| >Forsyth was a staunch supporter of Brexit, becoming a patron of
| Brexit campaign group Better Off Out, and wrote of his scepticism
| of climate change in his Daily Express column.
|
| Nobody is perfect :-(
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