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Blogs by Ed Zaruk
Thriller Writers I Read
10/23/2009 7:51:06 PM
MacLean is one of the Masters of seas stories
Alistair MacLean was the son of a minister, and learned English as a second language to Scottish Gaelic. MacLean joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving throughout the World War II from the North atlantic to the Straights of Sumatra. After his release from the Royal Navy in 1946, he studied English at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1953. While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the maritime story "Dileas". The publishing company Collins asked him for a novel and he responded with HMS Ulysses MacLean's
I personally like MacLean's books because they have an absence of sex. Most are short on romance because MacLean thought that such diversions merely serve to slow down the action. A view I don’t share. His heroes are usually calm, cynical men entirely devoted to their work A characteristic twist is that one of the hero's closest companions turns out a traitor. I enjoyed his variety of exotic parts of the world as settings to his books, especially the sea and the Arctic north. He died Munich in 1987, and is buried in Céligny, Switzerland.
Altogether, MacLean published 28 novels. The plots in some of his later novels I found beyond belief, but these ones I thoroughly enjoyed reading. You’ll have to borrow them from the library, or find used ones.
1955 HMS Ulysses (Just a superberb read)
1957 The Guns of Navarone
1957 South by Java Head
1959 Night Without End
1963 Ice Station Zebra
1967 Where Eagles Dare
1968 Force 10 From Navarone
1970 Caravan to Vaccarès
1971 Bear Island
1974 Breakheart Pass
1984 San Andreas (one of his better later novels)
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October 2009 Blogs
• Thriller Writers I Read - Friday, October 23, 2009
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