{"id":466,"date":"2009-10-04T21:22:55","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T01:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=466"},"modified":"2009-10-04T21:22:55","modified_gmt":"2009-10-05T01:22:55","slug":"stephen-hunters-latest-may-be-his-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/stephen-hunters-latest-may-be-his-best\/","title":{"rendered":"STEPHEN HUNTER\u2019S LATEST MAY BE HIS BEST"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are knowledgeable about firearms and enjoy good fiction, you know how little of the latter embraces the former. This is why novelist and movie critic Stephen Hunter\u2019s series about gun-wise protagonists, two generations of a Southern-bred military family, have become so hugely popular among us \u201cgun people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My own favorites in the series include \u201cDirty White Boys,\u201d \u201cHot Springs,\u201d and \u201cPale Horse Coming.\u201d The latter uses the device of real characters with slightly altered names when mid-20<sup>th<\/sup> Century lawman Earl Swagger assembles the great gun experts of the period as a posse seeking justice in the Deep South.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter does something similar in his latest in the series as Swagger\u2019s son, retired Vietnam era super-sniper Bob Lee Swagger, decides that it\u2019s once again \u201ctime to hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suppose that someone murdered lefty icons such as Jane Fonda, Bernardine Dohrn, and Bill Ayers with a high-powered rifle from long distance. Suppose the quintessential Marine Sniper, Carlos Hathcock, was still alive and framed for the murders, then murdered himself?<br \/>\nAnd suppose Bob Lee Swagger joined up with real-life Marine sniper Chuck Mawhinney to right the wrong?<br \/>\nAnd suppose it all wrapped up to the tune of Marty Robbins\u2019 classic cowboy ballad, \u201cBig Iron\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what you\u2019re looking at in the latest novel in Hunter\u2019s series, \u201cI, Sniper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And, best of all, Stephen Hunter\u2019s masterful writing and plotting craftsmanship allows it to happen within that rarely achieved \u201cwilling suspension of disbelief,\u201d which is exponentially harder to achieve when technical devices and protocols are involved, and when the audience knows those devices and protocols.<\/p>\n<p>The novel\u2019s title is a play on words that derives from a piece of gear that is a key to the plot: \u201ciSniper.\u201d Though there\u2019s a computer game of that name, in the book it\u2019s a sophisticated, computerized telescopic sight that\u2019s only a few years out from actually existing at the level it does in the novel.Clearly, Brother Hunter has done his homework.<\/p>\n<p>Hie yourself hence to the bookstore and reserve yourself a copy of \u201cI, Sniper\u201d by Stephen Hunter via Simon &amp; Schuster. I\u2019ve just finished reading an advance proof copy, and I have to say it\u2019s the best fiction I\u2019ve read this year.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-465\" title=\"hunter-book\" src=\"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hunter-book.jpg\" alt=\"hunter-book\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hunter-book.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hunter-book-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are knowledgeable about firearms and enjoy good fiction, you know how little of the latter embraces the former. This is why novelist and movie critic Stephen Hunter\u2019s series about gun-wise protagonists, two generations of a Southern-bred military family, have become so hugely popular among us \u201cgun people.\u201d My own favorites in the series [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}