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3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Read to ~50% and DNFed. Four deus ex machinas are my limit. Couldn't care about the MC either. Everything always works out to his benefit so there's no stakes or thrills in this 'spy-thriller'. Even the MC himself has no emotional connection to the plot. 1 'more conveniently introduced side-character and Imma snap!' out of 5.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Started and finished date - 18.02.25 to 19.02.25.
My rating - Two Stars.
I really don't like this book, I found it to boring and dull also I hate the cover of book. The atmosphere was okay and the paced of plot was rush. The ending of book was fine and the characters was okay but I would have like them to be flash out bit more
My rating - Two Stars.
I really don't like this book, I found it to boring and dull also I hate the cover of book. The atmosphere was okay and the paced of plot was rush. The ending of book was fine and the characters was okay but I would have like them to be flash out bit more
hate to say it, but i struggled with this book. It's a classic that many know of from stage and screen. But the actual book seems to lack something, it didn't keep me interested. The plot is well known and been repeated many times now, maybe that's half the problem. i knew what was going to happen and felt it took to long to actually happen. For a short story it seemed to drag on in detail and that's the real shame.
so 3 stars for a decent story and a good main character, but loses me while he's going around scotland. picks up again when he returns to london though
so 3 stars for a decent story and a good main character, but loses me while he's going around scotland. picks up again when he returns to london though
Nice, quick read
Short, sweet but compelling read. Loved the old fashioned ways and views!
A good thriller and a great film too.
Short, sweet but compelling read. Loved the old fashioned ways and views!
A good thriller and a great film too.
adventurous
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Two stars - meaning it was OK. Alfred Hitchcock (I'm a big fan) liked it enough to make it into a movie. I think the story could be improved upon so I'll have to track down the movie which is (gasp) over 80 years old!
105-year old British Run or Die spy thriller involving British and Imperial German WWI counterespionage.
My ebook version was a modest 100-pages. It had a 1915 UK copyright. I downloaded my version free from Project Gutenberg.
John Buchan. Was a Scottish novelist, historian and politician. He wrote twenty-eight (28) novels. He’s considered one of the world’s first spy novelists. He passed in 1940. This is the first book in his five (5) book Richard Hannay series. It was first published in a serialized form in a magazine. This was the first book of his I’ve read.
I’m a fan of 50+ year old mysteries and thrillers. This book was an early version of the spy thriller genre. It combined personal and political drama with a Scottish gentleman action-hero. These stories are a pre-cursor to the Political/Techno-thrillers of [a:Tom Clancy|3892|Tom Clancy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1407672935p2/3892.jpg] written during the Reagan-era featuring Cold War Russian antagonists. An example of which was [b:The Hunt for Red October|19691|The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)|Tom Clancy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1281995542l/19691._SX50_.jpg|1112006]. A more recent example would be [b:Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War|22749719|Ghost Fleet A Novel of the Next World War|P.W. Singer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417602303l/22749719._SY75_.jpg|42295119] with Chinese antagonists.
A modern reader would likely to experience some Values Dissonance reading this story. The book was more than 100-years old and written during wartime. Early 20th Century British culture and way of life were somewhat different from today, while attitudes could be considerably different. The story contained narrative which today would be considered: jingoistic, racist, and sexist. For example, there was an antisemitic polemic, and there were no significant female characters.
The writing was very good. It was very British; in the style of 19th Century British public school, Oxford and Cambridge university. (Their graduates knew how to write.) It was also witty in places. There was a single POV. Dialog was written in the vernacular of the time.
Scottish accents were written phonetically, which caused me a bit of head scratching. (I have a hard enough time understanding being spoken to by someone with a Scottish accent.)
Descriptions were good, although they assumed (then) contemporary context. A few words sent me to the dictionary. For example, the protagonist refers to his gentleman's club as “rather a pot-house”. I found that a pot-house was a tavern. (The author was being witty.) I must note that all the German language that appears in the dialog was poorly done. For example, the gender for the noun “boat” was written as masculine, not the proper neuter “das boot”.
The protagonist was Richard Hannay. He was a 30-something, expatriate, Scotsman, who’s made his pile in Africa and returned to Britain to retire. Being a self-made man, hardened by a harsh environment, and being a Scotsman; he had skillz. He was also a gentleman. Franklin Scudder was an American, freelance spy who lived in Hannay’s building. Sir Walter Bullivant was Scudder’s British employer and the British Spymaster at the Foreign Office. Along the way Hannay meets both ‘salt of the earth’ common men and gentlemen (a mixed lot) that help or hinder him with little compunction. The antagonists are an Imperial German espionage ring called the Black Stone. Oddly, the spies go unnamed. However, their leader was Bullivant’s malevolent, fanatical spymaster opposite.
The story was set months before WWI, although it was written during the very beginning of the war, before the war's severity was universally felt in the UK. Hannay was leading the dully, respectable life of the well-off London gentleman. He willingly becomes a party to a political conspiracy through a fellow tenant in his building (Scudder), because he’s bored and Scudder seems like a “gentleman”, despite being an American. Scudder was murdered. Hannay has to go on the run from both Scotland Yard and the well-organized and financed German murderers. He decamps to Scotland, because (like the author) he’s a Scot and it’s the closest thing to the African fringe he’s familiar with. Through a series of Contrived Coincidences, in which nobody betrays him; he meets all the right folks to Clear His Name. He also meets The Dragon (the German spymaster) through the same coincidences. (The Germans have a secret aerodrome and aircraft at their disposal in Scotland.) Hannay then foils the plot by penetrating the German’s Master Actor disguise through some Sherlock Holmes calibre sleuthing. Job done, he then puts on the khaki to go off and fight in The Great War.
The story’s plot was as comfortable to read as an old pair of shoes. However, I found the coincidences that moved the plot along to be just too improbable for a modern reader of the genre. The author also always chose the most convoluted path. For example, rather than Hannay going to ground in the London Metropolis-- he traipses off to Scotland. In addition, because the book was first written for magazine publication, there were at least three (3) cliffhanger chapter endings that were peculiarly situated for a novella. I also knew too much history of the period, which both helped and hindered me with the fictional story. For example, the real First Sea Lord at the time of the story was Prince Louis of Battenberg. It was not the fictional Lord Alloa.
The world building for the story was authentic. In places it was slightly OTT, although only in the way [a:Ian Fleming's|2565|Ian Fleming|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1364532740p2/2565.jpg] James Bond novels were. Note this story was not historical fiction. There was no edutainment for modern readers. Although, there was this component for the story's original readers through Hannay’s 19th Century MacGyver-like solutions.
I enjoyed reading this book. It was a short, and easy read. However, I liked it more as a learning tool for spy thrillers. The world building was authentic, and I enjoyably applied myself to understanding it. Because the story was only novella-length none of its plot problems bothered me. Finishing the book was easy. Still, I felt I was missing a few things in the story due to the cultural distance of the intervening 100-years since the story was written. So, read this if you are or want to see the roots of the spy fiction genre. I'll likely read the second book in the series [b:Greenmantle|161000|Greenmantle (Richard Hannay #2)|John Buchan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1314968556l/161000._SY75_.jpg|688233] sometime in the future.
Readers interested in books like this should also investigate [b:The Riddle of the Sands|406575|The Riddle of the Sands|Erskine Childers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320486384l/406575._SY75_.jpg|395911] a similarly written piece of spy fiction from the same era.
My ebook version was a modest 100-pages. It had a 1915 UK copyright. I downloaded my version free from Project Gutenberg.
John Buchan. Was a Scottish novelist, historian and politician. He wrote twenty-eight (28) novels. He’s considered one of the world’s first spy novelists. He passed in 1940. This is the first book in his five (5) book Richard Hannay series. It was first published in a serialized form in a magazine. This was the first book of his I’ve read.
I’m a fan of 50+ year old mysteries and thrillers. This book was an early version of the spy thriller genre. It combined personal and political drama with a Scottish gentleman action-hero. These stories are a pre-cursor to the Political/Techno-thrillers of [a:Tom Clancy|3892|Tom Clancy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1407672935p2/3892.jpg] written during the Reagan-era featuring Cold War Russian antagonists. An example of which was [b:The Hunt for Red October|19691|The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)|Tom Clancy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1281995542l/19691._SX50_.jpg|1112006]. A more recent example would be [b:Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War|22749719|Ghost Fleet A Novel of the Next World War|P.W. Singer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417602303l/22749719._SY75_.jpg|42295119] with Chinese antagonists.
A modern reader would likely to experience some Values Dissonance reading this story. The book was more than 100-years old and written during wartime. Early 20th Century British culture and way of life were somewhat different from today, while attitudes could be considerably different. The story contained narrative which today would be considered: jingoistic, racist, and sexist. For example, there was an antisemitic polemic, and there were no significant female characters.
The writing was very good. It was very British; in the style of 19th Century British public school, Oxford and Cambridge university. (Their graduates knew how to write.) It was also witty in places. There was a single POV. Dialog was written in the vernacular of the time.
A smile flickered over his face. “I’m not mad—yet. Say, sir I’ve been watching you, and I reckon you’re a cool customer. I reckon, too, you’re an honest man, and not afraid of playing a bold hand. I’m going to confide in you. I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count you in.”
Scottish accents were written phonetically, which caused me a bit of head scratching. (I have a hard enough time understanding being spoken to by someone with a Scottish accent.)
Descriptions were good, although they assumed (then) contemporary context. A few words sent me to the dictionary. For example, the protagonist refers to his gentleman's club as “rather a pot-house”. I found that a pot-house was a tavern. (The author was being witty.) I must note that all the German language that appears in the dialog was poorly done. For example, the gender for the noun “boat” was written as masculine, not the proper neuter “das boot”.
The protagonist was Richard Hannay. He was a 30-something, expatriate, Scotsman, who’s made his pile in Africa and returned to Britain to retire. Being a self-made man, hardened by a harsh environment, and being a Scotsman; he had skillz. He was also a gentleman. Franklin Scudder was an American, freelance spy who lived in Hannay’s building. Sir Walter Bullivant was Scudder’s British employer and the British Spymaster at the Foreign Office. Along the way Hannay meets both ‘salt of the earth’ common men and gentlemen (a mixed lot) that help or hinder him with little compunction. The antagonists are an Imperial German espionage ring called the Black Stone. Oddly, the spies go unnamed. However, their leader was Bullivant’s malevolent, fanatical spymaster opposite.
The story was set months before WWI, although it was written during the very beginning of the war, before the war's severity was universally felt in the UK. Hannay was leading the dully, respectable life of the well-off London gentleman. He willingly becomes a party to a political conspiracy through a fellow tenant in his building (Scudder), because he’s bored and Scudder seems like a “gentleman”, despite being an American. Scudder was murdered. Hannay has to go on the run from both Scotland Yard and the well-organized and financed German murderers. He decamps to Scotland, because (like the author) he’s a Scot and it’s the closest thing to the African fringe he’s familiar with. Through a series of Contrived Coincidences, in which nobody betrays him; he meets all the right folks to Clear His Name. He also meets The Dragon (the German spymaster) through the same coincidences. (The Germans have a secret aerodrome and aircraft at their disposal in Scotland.) Hannay then foils the plot by penetrating the German’s Master Actor disguise through some Sherlock Holmes calibre sleuthing. Job done, he then puts on the khaki to go off and fight in The Great War.
The story’s plot was as comfortable to read as an old pair of shoes. However, I found the coincidences that moved the plot along to be just too improbable for a modern reader of the genre. The author also always chose the most convoluted path. For example, rather than Hannay going to ground in the London Metropolis-- he traipses off to Scotland.
Spoiler
Rather than the Black Stone immediately escaping Blighty by air from their airbase in Scotland, they choose to leave by sea after some delay. (Britannia ruled the waves.)The world building for the story was authentic. In places it was slightly OTT, although only in the way [a:Ian Fleming's|2565|Ian Fleming|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1364532740p2/2565.jpg] James Bond novels were. Note this story was not historical fiction. There was no edutainment for modern readers. Although, there was this component for the story's original readers through Hannay’s 19th Century MacGyver-like solutions.
I enjoyed reading this book. It was a short, and easy read. However, I liked it more as a learning tool for spy thrillers. The world building was authentic, and I enjoyably applied myself to understanding it. Because the story was only novella-length none of its plot problems bothered me. Finishing the book was easy. Still, I felt I was missing a few things in the story due to the cultural distance of the intervening 100-years since the story was written. So, read this if you are or want to see the roots of the spy fiction genre. I'll likely read the second book in the series [b:Greenmantle|161000|Greenmantle (Richard Hannay #2)|John Buchan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1314968556l/161000._SY75_.jpg|688233] sometime in the future.
Readers interested in books like this should also investigate [b:The Riddle of the Sands|406575|The Riddle of the Sands|Erskine Childers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320486384l/406575._SY75_.jpg|395911] a similarly written piece of spy fiction from the same era.
Buchanan’s novel was a thrilling man-on-the-run read, and it was fascinating to see how Hannay escaped time and time again through his masterful use of disguise. You do need to suspend belief a little as there are many ‘too good to be true’ circumstances and I found the ending slightly disappointing. Very interesting to read a novel that spurned a whole genre of spy thrillers.
It seems like many other readers didn’t think it lived up to the movie. I’ve never seen the movie, but it seems to me that the people who enjoyed the movie more than the book largely did so because of the romance and sex appeal.
It seems like many other readers didn’t think it lived up to the movie. I’ve never seen the movie, but it seems to me that the people who enjoyed the movie more than the book largely did so because of the romance and sex appeal.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No