Rogue Warrior Series

[PMP Webmaster]

Zanshin made mention in the Directory Discussion thread of the Rogue Warrior series. I've read the original "non-fictional" Rogue Warrior as well as Rogue Warrior: Red Cell and whatever the third book was after that. I'll be honest that I did like Marchinko's bio a lot (I've got a soft spot for specwar "tell all" books, no matter how vague or embellished they might be).

His fictional books I remember to be all right, although it's a little strange to read first person accounts from a guy who is essentially making himself his own action hero...but let's be honest, anyone who has founded his own badass anti-terrorist special forces unit IS an action hero.

I tend to put books like the Rogue Warrior series and Charles Sasser's Delta Force novels in a certain chest-thumping category of their own. It's not that they can't be good, but it's that (In My Humble Opinion) these guys expect their military street credit to carry their fiction for them because they can "tell it like it is", filling the books with a lot of that "Unlike Hollywood action films / pulp adventure novels, Major Stone knew that you had to blah blah blah or you'd get yourself killed" nonsense. As soon as I see one of these in a book, no matter how good it is, the work gets dropped down a couple of notches in my mind. I'd rather the authors just apply their knowledge and experience to the books and make them what they want to see, rather that use them as an oblique method of trash-talking other writers who don't "know what REAL COMBAT is like". If I want to read exacting accounts of what "Real Combat" is like, I'll read some non-fiction.

Robert E. Howard was a man who rarely left the tiny town of Cross Plains, Texas, never killed a slavering demon with an ancient crusader's broadsword, never ventured the wilds of Afghanistan with a pack of bloodthirsty Turkoman raiders and certainly never sailed the northern seas with a savage crew of Jutes and Danes pulling at the oars, but he was a natural storyteller and could drop you into any of these settings like he'd seen and done these things himself. To me, it's storytelling talent that makes good writing, not just the old mantra of "write what you know". If that was the only way to produce good fiction, we'd have no Fantasy or Sci-Fi books, and historical novels would probably be pretty boring.

Anyhow, rant concluded. That all being said, anyone else care to comment on the Rogue Warrior series?

[zanshin2000]

Good points. I don't think it's their intention to obliquely bash other writers per se, it's just part of the testoserone level. It's good stuff, but it is a different category altogether isn't it? In any case, it's great reading! But now, I'm about to read some more Death Merchant titles......

[PMP Webmaster]

Last night I just finished Rogue Warrior: Violence of Action. This book was written in 2002 - I believe it was the first (and last?) fiction novel Marcinko wrote after 9/11/01. It's also the first that, as far as I can tell, doesn't involve his previous books' co-author John Weisman, who apparently is no longer writing with Marcinko for whatever reason.

Here's a link to the Amazon.com listing for Violence of Action:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743422465/ref=pd_sxp_f/103-6660841-5089439?v=glance&s=books

This is the first Rogue Warrior novel I've read in a long, long time. It was pretty entertaining, certainly a fast, fun read, but I'm still uncertain how I feel about the whole idea of making one's self into a fictional action hero. On one hand, it's a pretty arrogant thing to do to go on about you bagging women left and right (he mentions no less than three times the length of his "Little Rogue" in this book), blackmailing the highest levels of government when they try to backstab you, and in general running rampant over everything in your path. On the other hand, if there's anyone who's got a right to be arrogant about their exploits and capabilities, it's a guy like Richard Marcinko. Serving as a SEAL in Vietnam and then having a long career in naval SOF, and founding your very own elite naval counterterrorist unit, then getting scrapped by the brass, jailed, then coming out on top with a bestselling bio and a series of popular novels, while founding your own security consulting firm, sorta gives one the balls to say what Marcinko says without sounding like you're full of crap.

So in the end, I would recommend the book to anyone who wants an action/pulpy read that's got a lot more spice and humor to it than just another monthly installment of Mack Bolan capping people with "Whisper" and "Thunder".

[jimpickens]

I've always liked the Rouge Warrior series next to Stephen Hunters books are the best action books to come out of the 90s.