Hell, at least they were Spartans*. Somebody wrote about an bunch of effete Athenians, of all people, not only defeating an army of Persians at some place he named after an Olympic event, he had them force marching over twenty miles back to Athens in about 7 hours to prevent Xerxes from landing the rest of his army.
C’mon, a bunch of philosophers and farmers holding off the Persians?
*ETA: Well, at least 300 of them were Spartans.
Xerxes? The guy that invented the copier? The guy who went BrrrXerxes in the winter? That Xerxes? Nah, nobody’d believe that.
I read a book about the Pacific War against Japan: it was going fine, until the writer just couldn’t figure out how to end it, except by a campaign of tedious island-hopping against an entrenched and fanatical foe that would have run for years, with no exciting set-piece naval or land battles, just slow brutal grinding. He’d written himself into a corner.
He obviously just wanted to get the book finished, so he wrote in this ridiculous deus ex machina which involved the Americans having had all along a secret team of brilliant scientists who cooked up this amazingly advanced “atomic” super-bomb, which of course was orders of magnitude more devastating than anything previously imagined.
Once this “atomic” super-bomb had been deployed a couple of times the Japanese, realising that they were hopelessly outgunned, abandoned all their martial vigour and just meekly surrendered in a matter of days. C’mon, that’s just lazy writing: the really annoying part is that the writer didn’t even bother to foreshadow the development or use of this amazing weapon: it was just introduced out of the blue in the last couple of pages, like “Oh, here’s this war-winning miracle weapon that we happen to have secretly invented. BOOM. The End.”
You mean like that unbelievable story that JFK was assassinated by a lone gunmen with mediocre marksmanship skills who was aiming from several stories up at a moving target while using a second-rate rifle? And that beyond that one delusional loser, there was no one else involved in the murder of the leader of the most powerful nation in the world? Don’t insult my intelligence. The only thing less plausible is that absurd rumor that men have landed on the moon.
And don’t get me started on how a team like the New York Mets–one of the worst in baseball history–could win the World Series after being in existence for only seven years and never even coming close to a .500 season. Everybody knows 1969 was the year the Chicago Cubs won the NL pennant only to be swept by the O’s in the Series.
And it’s obviously plagiarized from the Cortés saga, which is as unbelievable as that one. Man, he didn’t even change the main parts of the plot! I mean, it has superstition, plague, internal intrigue…
It’s one thing to write unbelievable fiction, but to plagiarize unbelievable fiction?
I remember this dreadful “alternate history” espionage thriller in the Tom Clancy mode of a few years back {can’t remember the author or title, sorry} which posited an Arab terrorist attack on the United States: it was just a thinly veiled {ahem} piece of Muslim bashing.
The arch-villain, who was pure Ian Fleming, was a wealthy Saudi industrialist: for reasons best known to himself, he’d conceived a grudge against the US and moved to a cave in Afghanistan, where he lived as a sort of fanatical Muslim hermit in the Mad Mahdi mould - all burning eyes and flowing beard - who masterminded terrorist attacks on American embassies.
Anyway, he conceived a dastardly masterplan {Bwahahah!} involving a strike at the very heart of the Great Satan, New York City, with aeroplanes. American aeroplanes. Somewhat implausibly, he dispatched a couple of dozen zealous Arab henchmen to America, all afire with dark religious zeal, where they lived and worked as sleeper agents, all the while learning to fly. {You can see where this is heading, can’t you?}. Rather unconvincingly evading the US authorities, they enroll in flight schools: but {cue ominous music} they don’t need to learn how to land. Dah dah dah dah!
This fails to attract anyone’s attention, of course, since the CIA and FBI are too busy infighting and {presumably} investigating UFO sightings, and one fateful morning the steely fanatics journey to New York City, where, managing to evade the apparently non-existent airport security, they catch various commuter flights. Suddenly, they whip out their Stanley knives! Armed only with lowly office supplies {yes, office supplies}, this dastardly band of a mere score of dusky brigands seize the planes! America in peril!
Now their fiendish plot is revealed: they are to crash the planes, with all on board, into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and possibly Graceland. It’s a suicide attack! Are there no depths to which they will not stoop in their heathen zealotry? There are women and children aboard - have the dusky cads no mercy? Bwahahahah! Take that, infidel American dogs! Soon we shall be in Paradise, by the Prophet’s beard!
Overlooking the sheer implausibility of this scheme to capture the planes, they manage to actually steer them, due to their incomplete piloting skills, into the Twin Towers, the dark heart of capitalism, which naturally, in the best Hollywood style, tumble burning into the early morning streets of New York. Carnage! Panic! The nation is paralysed! Extras run around screaming America has nursed a viper {actually a couple of dozen vipers} in its bosom, and is repaid by swarthy foreign treachery! {I think the Pentagon, Graceland and possibly Disneyworld too may have also been destroyed, but I confess to having skipped large chunks at this point}.
Triumphant cackles from the Muslim madman in his mountainous lair. In his best Bond villain style, he issues a gloating communique about how he has humbled American might! Allah is great! Wild ululating from attendant minions! But now the President sternly addresses the nation: this cowardly act of violence on American soil will not go unpunished. Amidst the grieving, there must be a steely and terrible revenge on these barbarians who dare to attack innocent men, women and children. America stands strong, and will be avenged on its foes. {cue “The Stars And Stripes Forever”} To be continued…
Actually, I believe there was a sequel, which I didn’t bother with, which apprently involved Saddam Hussein, presumably on the basis that he too was an Arab and therefore evil, and some missing nerve gas. Anyone read it?
…or how about that tale on how Kublai F-ing Kahn’s fleet was decimated by timely typhoons?
Divine wind, my foot. More like Deus Ex Machina.
What about that whole implausible dealie in that “The War To End All Wars” book where British and French generals killed off practically an entire generation of young men because they just couldn’t figure out … despite repeated demonstrations offered by the Germans … that human wave assaults don’t work against machine guns and modern rifles? Who’d believe top of the line generals would be so completely, ludicrously stupid? The pacifist tone of that book was just TOO over the top for its own good.
This whole “World War II” thing in fiction is highly improbable. I mean, the big turning point in the supposed European campaign is the same thing that happened to Napoleon! Whatever happened to originality? And are we supposed to believe that a bunch of giant tanks that were able to take over most of Europe were brought to their knees by snow? I’m also surprised by the lack of Jewish characters.
Now I know where that stupid plot twist in that book I read about England and the Spanish Armada came from. Geez, you’d think the miserable hack who wrote that story would rip-off something that was more clever.
Yah, I read it, but I ended up throwing the book against the wall in disgust. The President on whose watch this happened manages to convince everyone that it was the fault of the previous President. The Muslim terrorists are based out of Afghanistan so he invades Afghanistan and puts them out of power, that part was fine. Then he somehow convinces the American people that Iraq was somehow involved in the plot, too (despite overwhelming evidence that it wasn’t) and that it possessed weapons of mass destruction as well, and is on the point of nuking American cities, despite the fact that the country is swarming with weapons inspectors who can find no such weapons.
The press turns from a watchdog to a lapdog on this, Congress rolls over as well, and before you know it, America invades and occupies Iraq for no particular reason! It’s freaking ludicrous! I mean, it requires you to believe that one group of men completely hoodwinked an entire nation! In real life, Congress would have refused to support the invasion (hadn’t we JUST invaded Afghanistan) and the press would have been all over these guys and their transparent lies about Saddam and 911, and WMDs. The whole thing is just an enormous insult to the American people and its institutions. I don’t know why the guy bothered to write it.
What happened to evil Arab zealot Bond villain dude from the first book? Was he in the sequel, or did he just get written out?
I also read that story and had precisely the same reaction.
Oh, and I just finished Emperor by Stephen Baxter, which seemed promising, but which had, as a crucial plot point, a prophecy which had been sent back in time, was incredibly central to this long multi-generational family, but at one point was burned, and NO ONE IN THE FAMILY HAD EVER MADE A COPY OF IT, despite it being only 16 lines long. Shee-eesh.
Getting into the spirit of this thread, did anyone else read that book where, despite (as in real life) Gore winning a majority of the national vote in 2000, a collection of peculair circumstances (a “caterpillar ballot” or something like that was one of them) resulted in, what was that guy’s name, George W Bush or something, squeaking out a narrow victory in Florida, thus winning the national election? There were just SO many things that all went wrong at the same time… I just remembered, maybe the most implausible was that Bill Clinton, who we all know is an incredibly smart guy and a brilliant politician, so Bill Clinton decided to (get this), GET BLOWN IN THE OVAL OFFICE! WHILE HE WAS PRESIDENT! Which of course interfered with his popularity (oh, yeah, and then he was IMPEACHED but found innocent. Riiight… suuure…) So, anyhow, Clinton pulls a total boner (so to speak), meaning Gore suddenly can’t ride the coat tails of an incredibly successful two-term president, and then there’s all the aforementioned weird shit going on Florida, and presto, George W Bush becomes president. INCREDIBLY implausible. But nonetheless chilling.
Oh, that, well, he’s vaguely mentioned a couple of times as a threat, but he’s a really peripheral character. I mean, it’s like he had practically nothing to do with the original plot. All I can figure is that the author is saving him for another book, although he’s such a bad writer that I figure the author could have just as easily forgotten about him. In any event, given the way his two first books, I don’t want to read any more of his stuff.
There are a couple that I’m trying to figure out.
The first one, a serious one, has authoritarians dismantling the Weimar Republic. This, by itself, is highly plausible. What struck me as implausible was who the leader was. Some dashing Junker, like Franz von Papen? A powerful businessman, like Alfred Hugenberg? A well-connected plotter, like Kurt von Schleicher? A war hero, like Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck?
Would you believe a former Army corporal who wasn’t even a native, couldn’t get into the profession he wanted, had been jailed for trying to overthrow the government, and whose organization, just five years earlier, won just 12 of 491 Reichstag seats?
Implausible.
On a lighter note, the story that both National League baseball teams in New York City left it at once to go to California is also odd. One of the teams having a building project rejected by Robert Moses, who never saw a project he didn’t like? Both owners (who were rivals) agreeing to do this together, when the sensible thing would be for one to stay and take advantage of the other? One of them abandoning their commitment to Minneapolis, and the other hoodwinking the Wrigleys to Southern California rights? All silly.
So…Hitler has a massive stockpile of chemical warfare agents, including nerve gasses that the Allies didn’t even know existed, and he won’t use them because he got gassed at Ypres? And he cares about Allied retaliation in kind?
Completely ridiculous. That’s as bad as those alternate histories where they discover nukes early (or some alternate civilization finds them), and decide not to use 'em for moral reasons or some crap like that.
Heh. I remember leafing through that one in the bookstore, once. The best part was that after Cap’n Stew ditched Little Boy, Bockscar duly made it’s run with Fat Man…and was forced to drop it through clouds due to bad weather, and *missed the target completely.*Total wank.
Aw, he was my favourite character, in an over-the-top Sax Rohmer, Ming the Merciless kinda way: I could just picture him puffing on an opium pipe and plotting to abduct wealthy blonde heiresses for his white slavery ring.
I read a very improbable history that centered on the “Battle of Midway” (in the Pacific). One side (the Americans) had the odds stacked against them but pulled it out because they could read the other guy’s (the Japanese) code. Not completely. They could only read the bit they need to know where the Japanese were going. The rest they could not read.
Then the Japanese missed the entire American fleet because a single plane was late in taking off. But the Americans found the entire Japanese fleet when their planes followed a Japanese destroyer to their target.
Fun to read on the airplane, but not the sort of thing you buy in hardback.
I don’t know why either but apparently it’s going to be a series. I hear the next one involves Iran.
I read this while drinking, and thouroughleynessbygolly enjoyed it!