David Morrell – Tyson Adams

Book vs Movie: Rambo – What’s the Difference?

Did you know the Rambo franchise started with a novel about a man bringing the war back home with him? Let’s watch What’s the Difference and Lost in Adaptation.

Video: Rambo – What’s the Difference? David Morell told me he liked this video.

Video: Rambo – Lost in Adaptation

David Morell’s career was really kicked off with Stallone wanting to make his first book into a movie. It wasn’t just that the franchise allowed him to become a full-time author, it was that he’d been rather savvy in retaining a few of the rights to the character and spinoffs.

Essentially, despite the fact that very little of his character remains in the sequels, Morell wrote the novelisations of the films, keeping his piece of the franchise $$. He has said that those sorts of IP negotiations can make a huge difference to a writer’s career.

Having read several of Morell’s books, I think most thriller fans would enjoy his work. And if you like the entire third act of a film being a buff guy shooting a large calibre machine gun at people, you’ll probably enjoy the Rambo films.

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Book Review: The Fifth Profession by David Morrell

The Fifth Profession by David Morrell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How do you tell if a book has samurai in it? Don’t worry, they’ll put a katana on the cover. A book about ninjas is a little harder, since they are invisible to anyone that hasn’t just been killed by a ninja. How do you tell if a book is a thriller? Don’t worry, they’ll put a gun on the cover.

Professional protectors – the fifth profession…. get it! – Savage and Akira are teamed up to protect a travelling businessman. Things go horribly wrong and Savage is beaten to a pulp after seeing the businessman and Akira killed. Akira is also beaten to a pulp and sees the businessman and Savage killed. And so begins the twist in this David Morrell thriller.

A lot of thrillers take you from point A to point B very efficiently to the point of cliche. Some authors even churn out the same book dozens of times in this manner. The thing that keeps you coming back is the the taut writing, thrills and cool escapism. The strength of The Fifth Profession is that it starts with the standard thriller plot setup and then eschews that for a different plot entirely. It makes the entire story novel. See what I did there?

There are some annoying aspects to Morrell’s novel. David has a habit of hammering certain points and descriptions at the reader, to the point I started assuming everyone had “karate” calloused hands. To some people this could be annoying and enough to throw the book against a wall – which I wouldn’t be doing this since I read this on my iPad. To others the plotting and pacing will keep you entertained, as it did with me.

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Book review, Reading

Book Review: The Protector by David Morrell

The Protector by David Morrell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It surprises me just a little that I only just discovered David Morrell’s books. He writes thrillers, he’s been doing so since before I was born, yet I’d never heard of him, let alone realised he was the brains behind the Rambo franchise…. Okay, that latter point is not a huge selling point, unless you like seeing people sawn in half with a machine gun for the final act of a movie (Hint: my answer is yes).

In The Protector we have a protective services operator, Cavanaugh, protecting a client, Prescott, from two groups who want Prescott dead… Guess where the idea for the novel’s title came from. Of course there is more to Prescott than it first appears, the groups after him are highly resourced, and the straight forward protection assignment goes sideways. Car chases, gun fights, black helicopters, several fires and a knife fight for good measure: you know, thriller.

This book moves at a cracking pace and was very entertaining. I’m definitely checking out more of David’s novels.

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