Kootenai River in NW Montana, near Canadian Border

Kootenai River in NW Montana, near Canadian Border
photo by Gene Tunick of Eureka, Montana

Friday, March 9, 2012

Tip O'Day #313 - Realistic Military Thrillers

Guest blogger Harvey Black on visiting actual settings.
Many action-adventure books have been written about World War II, but not so many by writers from one of the Allied countries from the point-of-view of German soldiers. Harvey Black has written three novels about Fallschirmjäger – a German word for ‘parachute hunter,’ the name given to their paratroopers. His first thriller, Devils with Wings - The Green Devils Assault on Fort Eben Emael, was released in the summer of 2011, and Devils with Wings: Silk Drop came out in early 2012.

I have wanted to write a novel since I was a teenager. Enthralled by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, E.E. Doc Smith’s Lensmen series and Edgar Rice Burroughs, I felt sure my first would be of the fantasy or science fiction genre.

Joining the army changed all of that and my new passion became military history. Devils with Wings - The Green Devils Assault on Fort Eben Emael, was based on the adventures of two young Fallschirmjäger paratroopers during the early part of World War II, climaxing with the assault on a supposedly impregnable Belgian fortress.

For both books, I visited the locations in person. For Devils with Wings: Silk Drop, I walked the routes in Crete where my characters would have marched, up to 18 miles. Most of the descriptions in the novels were written in situ, looking at the terrain as the actual combatants would have viewed it. For my third novel, I shall also visit Leningrad and the River Neva in the near future, to ensure that realism is maintained.

To learn more about this author, visit his Amazon.com author’s page.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. I commend Harvey on his willingness & ability to travel; but this sounds like what I would have wanted to do if I could. Sometimes there is no substitute for actually getting the physical 'vibe' of a place.

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