Once they were soldiers: Rambo the young Vietnam Veteran disillusioned and ragged. And Teasle, a Korean War Vet and middle aged Chief of Police. Now they are deadly adversaries. Both trained to kill, they are locked in a terrifying man-hunt that is leading them ever closer to a maelstrom of violence and destruction.
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Once they were soldiers: Rambo the young Vietnam Veteran disillusioned and ragged. And Teasle, a Korean War Vet and middle aged Chief of Police. Now they are deadly adversaries. Both trained to kill, they are locked in a terrifying man-hunt that is leading them ever closer to a maelstrom of violence and destruction.
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Add this copy of First Blood to cart. $89.65, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Fawcett.
Last night I finished reading "First Blood," written by David Morrell. The writing is very poor, with many (more than a dozen) "dangling participles" that are just funny--- such as Rambo either knowing dogs were tracking him, or knowing the dogs that were tracking him; such as trees hearing him crash through the trees, or hunters hearing him crash through the trees. In later books, as he improved as a writer, these unattached participles became far fewer.
There are also HUNDREDS of incomprehensible sentences, with mangled grammar, incorrect and seemingly arbitrary / random punctuation, and incomplete sentences that have no discernable meaning--- at times one cannot fathom what the writer tried to say. For one of scores and scores of examples of poor writing:
"He looked and ran and looked farther along, but still no tracks in the wet earth, and he thought that maybe Teasle had been slow to leave the cliff, began to worry that Teasel was behind him, coming, watching."
Horrible; just an utterly horrible sentence, and there are a great many such sentences in the book. Clause introductions are missing; sentences that should have ended sooner, weren't; pronouns go missing completely in many sentences, so the reader is left with few clues, at times, to guess to whom the sentences apply.
Another example, a sentence picked at random, from a page picked at random:
"At last returned to his fire, he collapsed head spinning onto the boughs, shivering violently."
One can assume the writer meant that Rambo was shivering violently, not the boughs he collapsed onto---- it is a "dangling participle" that adds ambiguity to the sentence, and it should not be there. At the very least, two commas should be added to the sentence; at best, it would be rewritten. I would have changed it to:
"Shivering violently, he at last returned to his fire and collapsed onto the boughs, his head spinning."
It is Mr. Worrell's first book, and he has improved vastly in his writing skills since then. It "First Blood" was the first book of his that I had read, I would not have bothered reading any of his others.
stahlhelm
Dec 31, 2009
First Blood - non stop action!
From the first to the last page, this is a non stop action book. Completely unlike the movie, Rambo pushes and pushes law enforcement until the final, bloody end. If you are familiar with the movie, you will be completely surprised the direction Rambo takes you. Great, fast read, you won't be disappointed.
MisterD
Oct 26, 2009
thoughtful action adventure
First, Rambo the movie and Rambo the novel are not the same story. The novel sympathetically portrays the last survivor of a group of Vietnam war buddies who is pushed into a violent rage by a thoughtless law officer who sees only long hair. Unwittingly, the law officer unleashes the pent-up rage of a highly decorated special ops soldier. The novel is fast-paced burn of a read. The novel is not an anti-war novel per se, but rather asks the reader to sympathize with the plight of a soldier trained to kill, but then asked to come home minus the baggage of his bloody war actions. The movie removes this sympathy and replaces it with jingoistic nationalism. Stallone had a chance to produce a movie that would have forced the national conscious to consider the ravages of war and the emotional sacrifices it demands of the soldiers. Instead, the movie gets a happy ending that still eludes thousands of Vietnam Veterans to this day. Read the book only and forego all the movies.
Jekyll
Oct 15, 2009
Book different from movie
Having seen the movie I was anxious to see if the book correlated with the movie and it did not. The book is much different as to content and setting. Rambo is not the same person as the movie and the ending is quite different. It is a good fast read and is exciting and entertaining.
