Sri Lanka It's Happening

May 2, 2004

The Veteran author Frederic Forsyth has definitely lost it with the veteran.

I gave up on Forsyth after reading the fourth protocol, which i thought was not worth the paper it's printed on at the time. But then the events of 9/11 changed perspectives.

I wasted the whole of labour day reading through the veteran, this book is four years old but I haven't read that many novels since leaving the university four years ago. Read even less since joining Rad Inks. Over the past year I have read only a handfull of novels - though i have read countless books on software.

The book smells like a collection of short stories but short stories shouldn't have elaborate plots, the first short story, the art of the matter has one. The second one is very thin and forsyth has clearly shown that he clueless about computers.

The third, the miracle sounds like a rehash of the shepherd though it's much less pausible than that earlier work. The end is a tragic disapointment, not about the way the story ends but the way he has sold himself short.

The fourth one is not a story the first one looks interesting till the half way mark. It smells like the 'faction' that he used to write. At the half way mark he should have stopped, (though he would have been considered a much better writer if he had stopped after writing the day of the jakal) instead he probably ran out of ideas and decided to re hash rip wan winkle. Nothing more needs to be said.

He has been left with out a role to play, very much like some of the people he used to write about.

Posted by raditha at May 2, 2004 1:46 PM