Sunday, December 19, 2010

Alistair MacLean. 5 novels


Alistair MacLean. 5 novels
Alistair MacLean | 1900-01-01 00:00:00 | | 1 | Fiction
List:
Bear Island
Ice Station Zebra
Night Without End
Seawitch
The Guns Of Navaronne

Alistair Stuart MacLean (28 April 1922 - 2 February 1987; Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacGill-Eain) was a Scottish novelist who wrote successful thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both having been made into successful films. He also wrote under the pseudonym Ian Stuart.

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The Guns of Navarone is a well-known 1957 novel about World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean that was made into an equally acclaimed The Guns of Navarone film in 1961.

Plot introduction

The story concerns the efforts of an Allied commando team to destroy a seemingly impregnable German fortress that threatens Allied naval ships in the Aegean Sea, and prevents over 1,200 isolated British troops from being rescued. The story is based on the real events surrounding the Battle of Leros in World War II.

The Guns of Navarone brought together elements that would characterise much of MacLean's subsequent works: tough, competent, worldly men as main characters; frequent but non-graphic violence; betrayal of the hero(es) by a trusted associate; and extensive use of the ocean and other dangerous environments as settings. Its three principal characters - New Zealand mountaineer-turned-commando Keith Mallory, American demolitions expert "Dusty" Miller, and Greek resistance fighter Andrea Stavros - are among the most fully drawn in all of MacLean's work.

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Night Without End is a Thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, first published in 1959. It is generally considered one of MacLean's very best, especially in its depiction of the unforgiving Arctic environment; among others, the Times Literary Supplement gave it strongly favorable notices when it came out.

Plot introduction

An airplane crash lands on the Greenland ice cap. A passenger and the flight crew are dead, but one of the pilots has a bullet in his back. A scientific research team based near the crash site rescues the surviving passengers. The only means of contact with the outside world is a radio but it is destroyed.

With not enough food for everyone and no hope of rescue, the leader of the scientific research team, Dr Mason, decides that they must set out for the nearest civilisation. While traveling in an ancient arctic tractor a blizzard starts. It is soon clear that at least one of their number is determined to kill the others.

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Ice Station Zebra (ISBN 0-00-616141-3) is a 1963 thriller novel written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic setting. After completing this novel, MacLean retired from writing for three years.

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Bear Island is a Thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. Originally published in 1971, it was the last of MacLean's novels to be written in first-person narrative. This novel is a Locked room mystery with the added twist that the scene of the crimes is set on Bear Island, an island in the Svalbard archipelago of the Norwegian Arctic.
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