{"id":6985,"date":"2009-11-02T21:22:09","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T04:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/?p=6985"},"modified":"2009-11-03T10:46:08","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T17:46:08","slug":"charles-saunders-posts-a-guest-blog-at-black-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/charles-saunders-posts-a-guest-blog-at-black-gate\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Saunders Compares Conan and Jack Reacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sidebar_author_saunders\"Charles R. Saunders<\/a>, legendary Sword-and-Sorcery author and Friend of The Cimmerian<\/em><\/a>, has posted a guest blog<\/a> over at the Black Gate website<\/a>. It’s a review of Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” series<\/a>.\u00a0A big reason why\u00a0it should interest readers of \u00a0The Cimmerian<\/em> (besides the obvious), is that Mr. Saunders compares Child’s\u00a0peripatetic protagonist to Robert E. Howard’s Conan.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed CRS’ review. While I don’t read much in the way of contemporary thrillers\/mysteries (there are only so many hours in the day), I do read them every blue moon. Child’s books sound like good reads: hard-edged,\u00a0fast-moving and tightly-plotted. If there are similarities to Conan, so much the better.<\/p>\n

In his review, Saunders points up some of those\u00a0congruences. As he notes, Reacher and everyone’s favorite Cimmerian are both big men. Both are also very dangerous in a fracas. In addition, Conan and Jack both\u00a0thoroughly enjoy the company of women. From that point on, though,\u00a0just judging from CRS’ review, there are a lot of divergences.<\/p>\n

Reacher is a compulsive wanderer.\u00a0Raised an\u00a0Army brat, he followed his father’s footsteps into the military, serving thirteen years as an MP. During that time, he was stationed all around the world. Growing dissatisfied,\u00a0Jack left the Army and\u00a0chose to wander the United States,\u00a0the native land that is like a foreign country to him. As Reacher journeys about America in the novels, he travels light, almost ascetically so. Again and again, he\u00a0stumbles upon bloody mysteries and metes out rough justice according to his own lights.<\/p>\n

To me, this sounds a lot more like Solomon Kane. Solomon\u00a0seems to have spent time in the Queen’s Navy\u00a0before becoming dissatisfied and\u00a0wandering to the ends of the earth. He hoofed it all over Africa with just a rapier and a wheel-lock.\u00a0Just like Reacher,\u00a0SK doesn’t seem particularly interested in\u00a0wealth, nor does he\u00a0appear to have a true\u00a0idea why he wanders.<\/p>\n

Now, it does not\u00a0appear that Reacher\u00a0is any sort of Puritan, but then Solomon was a very odd sort of Puritan himself. Reacher does seem to have a fairly strong code that he lives and\u00a0kills by. I suppose I would say that Jack Reacher strikes me as a\u00a0kind of “post-modern Solomon Kane”;\u00a0a man\u00a0who is driven to wander, though he knows not why and is\u00a0bound by his own code of honor. I find it much easier to envision, just from what I’ve gathered about Reacher, that he would fit into a scenario like “Wings in the Night” much easier than he would “The Vale of Lost Women.” Perhaps I’m wrong. I do appreciate Mr. Saunders bringing these books to my attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles R. Saunders, legendary Sword-and-Sorcery author and Friend of The Cimmerian, has posted a guest blog over at the Black Gate website. It’s a review of Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” series.\u00a0A big reason why\u00a0it should interest readers of \u00a0The Cimmerian (besides the obvious), is that Mr. Saunders compares Child’s\u00a0peripatetic protagonist to Robert E. Howard’s Conan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,30,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motifs-in-rehs-work","category-other-authors","category-saunders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6985"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6993,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions\/6993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}