If you guys are like me, you get a lot of modeling inspirations from what you read. I read a lot of non-fiction historical stuff of course, to get the details right but every once in a while I like some brain candy too to get some creative juices flowing.
I think one of my favorite books is “Blue Lightening” by Charles Stella (a story of an A4 pilot in SEA) and then there’s the popular “Flight of the Intruder” by Coonts and from the Korean War, there’s “Bridges at Toko-ri” by James Michener. Clancy’s cold war thriller “Red Storm Rising” also had a lot of good aviation sub-plots in it.
What are some of your favorites?
One thing I can’t find much of is aviation fiction that takes place in the WWII era. Anybody know of any?
Mine is the Punk series by Ward Carrol. He used to be an F-14 RIO so it is a pretty realistic story line about life in a squadron. Then I have Shatterd Bone Written by a Bone drive and of course the ones you said.
For my money, one of the best aviation novels about World War Two is “Piece of Cake” by Derek Robinson. It covers the exploits of an assortment of RAF fighter pilots from September 1939 through September 1940. This is a dark and brutally honest study of the interpersonal dynamics of a group of young men who are forced by the realties of war to abandon their illusions of galantry and honor and become methodical killers in order to survive (many of them do not). There are no real heroes here. Characters with the apparent makings of conventional fiction heros are introduced, only to have them die in the next chapter as the result of an engine failure on takeoff or the incompetence of Figher Command. These are vulerable people in a real war.
This book was the source of a mini-series that ran on the BBC in the early eighties. Copies of both the book and the series are kind of hard to find, and not cheap when found, but definately worth the expense.
Incidently, the author, Derek Robinson, has written a number of fiction books on wartime aviation, among which are “Goshawk Squadron”.
Fiction? James Bradley’s book ‘Flyboys’ is complete fiction. 250 of the 342 pages have nothing to do with the book. The book is supposed to be about nine forgotten WWII Navy flyers, one of them was George HW Bush. Bush’s name isn’t mentioned until page 79. The recount of his crash isn’t told until page 194. Huh? This is one of the worst books I have ever read. If you want to know about downed Navy flyers, skip this book. But if you want to know about Japanese cannibalism, American Indians, the rape of China, American atrocities, Japanese internment, the bombing of Europe, and other American Imperialisms, then this book is for you. Bradley definitely has an agenda and it is he hates America.
Right up there with ‘Flyboys’ garbage is Ronald Takaki’s ‘Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb.’ Another complete waste of time. He practically rewrites the history of how and why the US dropped the bomb on Japan. Don’t waste your time.
I know what you’re saying, I mentioned two horrible boooks, not one that I liked. Sorry. I just want to make sure you guys don’t waste your time like I had to. I majored in history and I had to read books like the trash above.
If you want to read a GREAT book, read ‘The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors’ by James D. Hornfischer. It’s not fiction but it is superb. It’s a story of Taffy 3 during the Invasion of Leyte, Philippine Islands, October 1944. Wow! Gripping, inspirational, spectacular, and breathtaking. What the crew of the Samuel B. Roberts did is awe inspiring. It will bring tears to your eyes. You will not be disappointed. This is a book you will want to read more than once. Read this book!
For me, my favourite book of all time fits ‘loosely’ into this category: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
I first read this book in high school, and have read it at least once a year since (that’s over a decade ago now), which rates this book as my most frequently read novel.
The dark humour is spot on. For those unaware, Joseph Heller was a bombardier on B-25s.
A great read - if you love novels with humour, this is the one for you.
Another one I read (again, during high school, but not since) was Dauntless, about the battle of Guadalcanal.
I’ve read tons of really good aviation books here! Of course, most of them are true accounts, biographies, memoirs, etc. It’s rare when I read fiction. But if I had to go with one fiction book, I would have to say Flight Of The Intruder by Stephen Coonts. I even really liked the movie too. Good stuff![tup]
Oh yea, I forgot about that one. Good book. It’s been a very long time since I read that one.
Ranger2Seven, I meant books that were intentionally fictional. [:D]
Didn’t W.E.B. Griffin write a book, or a series of books about WWII Marine Aviators among his many books about the Marine Corps? I vaguely remember perusing through one in a book store or library one time and reading about Marine pilots in the South Pacific and their Grumman Wildcats (may have been on Wake).
Yes, I know. Lo siento. I just hate those two books.
Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale. (quote from some guy)
This book starts in the last days of WW2 with an American pilot shooting down a German pilot, then getting shot down himself and they both wind up in the same hospital… THe German vows to get the American, and years later, he forms a squdron of rebuilt Messershmitt 109s and the first thing they do is shoot up an airshow featuring the Confederate Air Force’s warbidrs. They even manage to sneak up on and shoot down some cruising USAF F-5s…
Then it kinda goes to the American pilot organizing a unit of Allied warbirds and pilots to hunt down the Grmans, who are at their secret base in Arizona.
It’s a pretty good ride, for fiction.
Another was Len Deighton’s Bomber, a story of an RAF Lanc crew.
Overall, I avoid fiction from WW2 and mostly read non-fiction, but there’s always exceptions…
I’ve read many of Griffin’s work. While they are not “avaiation books” so to say, there is much mention of the aircraft used by the various characters.
Oneof the books I liked was Ken Follet’s “Hornet Flight”. The protagonists are challenged with escaping Nazi-held Denmark in an old deHavilland Hornet Moth.
Follett has written several WWII based books that I found good reads.
Great thread, by the way. Looks like I’ll have to check out some of the Coonts books.
Dave Dawson in the/with the/and the/ whatevers. It is a series of kid’s chapterbooks (~200p) from WWII that I grew up reading…a lot of fun, and probably why I like WWII warbirds so much. Anyone know of a 1/48 Stratohawk kit?? [:D]
I love Follet’s “Night Over Water” about the Atlantic Clipper flight from Europe to US as WWII broke out overnight…lots of drama and soap…but a very good spy read too!
Some of the non-fiction stories I’ve read seem to be fiction as the stories are sooooooo fantastic!
Dale Brown has a series of books, most of which use military aircraft as a main ingredient. The conceptual aircraft may stretch credibility a bit, but thay are fun reading.
In the 1980s, there was an author named Peter Albano; who wrote a series called “The Seventh Carrier”. It was about a Japanese Supercarrier that was supposed to be part of the Pearl Harbor Force, but was trapped in ice until 40 years later. It breaks loose, attacks Pearl Harbor, and then ends up becoming the only hope of the free world during a jihad when a Chinese Particle Beam satellite renders all jet and rockets inoperative. It uses all sorts of WWII aircraft and ships throughout the series. They weren’t too bad.
