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[Mac the Knife]

Just made my request on Amazon for a Kindle Version. Have also ordered the Kindle Fire on the day they announced it. Looks like this one will be a winner.

[mouse]

I was dusting the bookshelf in preparation for my mother in law coming to visit today when I got distracted by "the Black Arrow" and just had to flick through it.  I finished reading it not long ago, it took ages as I had a couple of other books "on the go" too.  I always have my "work book" - the one I take to work, and which has to fit in my work bag with any other gear.  "The black arrow" is too big and heavy for that.

It is an excellent book, but I guess I am "preaching to the choir" as apparently just about everybody here has read it.

I do have one major criticism though, only one but a major one:  Why did the author find it necessary to pepper just about every other page with the "F***" word and other obscenities?  It is totally unnecessary and detracts from what would, otherwise, be an excellent story.

I just can't recommend it to anybody for this reason and this reason alone.

[MamaLiberty]

I do have one major criticism though, only one but a major one:  Why did the author find it necessary to pepper just about every other page with the "F***" word and other obscenities?  It is totally unnecessary and detracts from what would, otherwise, be an excellent story.

I just can't recommend it to anybody for this reason and this reason alone.

Unfortunately, that's a common part of the language for a lot of people these days. I've known Vin for many years, and though HE doesn't talk that way much, he's well aware of the fact that many do - especially the cops and politicians. That language is there because that is how those people would talk. Ever listen to a tape made of a SWAT raid?

I'd really prefer not to read that, or about all the seemingly unnecessary sex either, but that's what he wrote. So, when I read The Black Arrow, I simply skip those parts as much as I can.

I don't have any problem suggesting it as a good freedom read to other people. They can make their own judgments about the language and the sex. I'm not their keeper or their conscience.  A gentle warning about the possibly offensive content is sufficient for me.

[Bill St. Clair]

I would love to re-read it, but my leather-bound hard-cover first edition has gone missing. Sigh... I hope it comes out in Kindle format, but I'll probably have to settle for dead trees.

[MamaLiberty]

I would love to re-read it, but my leather-bound hard-cover first edition has gone missing. Sigh... I hope it comes out in Kindle format, but I'll probably have to settle for dead trees.

Missing? Good heavens! Nobody touches mine. It was a gift from Vin too, so it's off limits. I bought a regular one just so I could loan it out. Hope you find it... and don't wind up with murder charges. 

[mouse]

I do have one major criticism though, only one but a major one:  Why did the author find it necessary to pepper just about every other page with the "F***" word and other obscenities?  It is totally unnecessary and detracts from what would, otherwise, be an excellent story.

I just can't recommend it to anybody for this reason and this reason alone.

Unfortunately, that's a common part of the language for a lot of people these days. I've known Vin for many years, and though HE doesn't talk that way much, he's well aware of the fact that many do - especially the cops and politicians. That language is there because that is how those people would talk. Ever listen to a tape made of a SWAT raid?

I'd really prefer not to read that, or about all the seemingly unnecessary sex either, but that's what he wrote. So, when I read The Black Arrow, I simply skip those parts as much as I can.

I don't have any problem suggesting it as a good freedom read to other people. They can make their own judgments about the language and the sex. I'm not their keeper or their conscience.  A gentle warning about the possibly offensive content is sufficient for me.

I have to disagree with you about obscenities being “a common part of the language these days”.  Most people do NOT talk this way.  That reminds me of what my kids said when they were teenagers and they started to swear all the time and I objected, they would say “but EVERYBODY swears”.  Not so.  When I first started work where I am now there was, and still is, seven men and one woman (me).  On the first day when I realised that swearing seemed to be a part of (at least some of their) language, I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t like it and I didn’t want to hear anyone using that sort of language.

It worked well and now two and a half years later, still nobody swears (at least not in my hearing).

I almost think it is an agenda by the media (print and electronic) to change society, or “shift the goalposts”.  Just about every film that has been made in the last 10 years or so has all the characters swearing “as a matter of course”.  I don’t watch TV myself, but my husband does and just about every Saturday and Sunday evening we end up by arguing because I cannot understand why he would insist on watching one of these films.  In one that was on a few weeks ago (we have been too busy lately to go through this) NOBODY in the film was capable of saying even one sentence with three or four obscenities thrown in for absolutely no reason.  Recently he was watching a film about WWII and it had the politicians swearing all the time, did politicians swear all the time during WWII?

I just think the “black Arrow” story could be conveyed just as brilliantly without all the “colourful language”.  It would still be a brilliant book for the freedom movement and might reach people who don’t want to wade through a sea of silly, pointless, obscenities.

[MamaLiberty]

I just think the “black Arrow” story could be conveyed just as brilliantly without all the “colourful language”.  It would still be a brilliant book for the freedom movement and might reach people who don’t want to wade through a sea of silly, pointless, obscenities.

I think you must live in a sheltered world, dear. That IS how a great many people do talk out in the real world, at least in the US. I've heard it - increasingly -for the last 20 years or so.  That may well not be how they talk in your area or country, but they do here, and especially in the big cities.  Whether or not that is good, bad, evil or just stupid is quite beside the point, since none of us can do a damned thing about it except watch our own mouth - and vanishingly, that of our children. I don't use that language at all myself, but I don't waste much energy worrying about those who do.

And of course he could have avoided all or most of it if he'd chosen to do so. But he CHOSE to use the language of the streets - as HE sees and hears it. That is the power of freedom, in literature as in anything else. His writing, his story, his book, his choice of language and everything else. He also bears the risk of not finding an appreciative market for all that if enough people don't like it.

You have the absolute freedom to read it or not - or just parts of it -  just as it suits you.

[Kregener]

Good GRIEF!!

If Vin's book is not "allowed", then Claire & Aaron's "The State vs The People" would probably get you some prison time...

[mouse]

Good GRIEF!!

If Vin's book is not "allowed", then Claire & Aaron's "The State vs The People" would probably get you some prison time...

Are you getting too "precious" here?  Did I, or anybody else, say "not allowed"?

[gooch]

Somewhere in my short life [I just recently had another of those "anniversary" things] I discovered that Freedom and Liberty Have to apply to everyone at all times or they don't apply to anyone anytime.

Opinions [ such as you and Kregener have offered here] are just like tails ... everybody has one and it is only attached to [IE: relevant to] that one person no matter how loudly it is  uhm ... offered  to the rest of the population.

 

[jamie]

I do have one major criticism though, only one but a major one:  Why did the author find it necessary to pepper just about every other page with the "F***" word and other obscenities?  It is totally unnecessary and detracts from what would, otherwise, be an excellent story.

I just can't recommend it to anybody for this reason and this reason alone.

Unfortunately, that's a common part of the language for a lot of people these days. I've known Vin for many years, and though HE doesn't talk that way much, he's well aware of the fact that many do - especially the cops and politicians. That language is there because that is how those people would talk. Ever listen to a tape made of a SWAT raid?

I'd really prefer not to read that, or about all the seemingly unnecessary sex either, but that's what he wrote. So, when I read The Black Arrow, I simply skip those parts as much as I can.

I don't have any problem suggesting it as a good freedom read to other people. They can make their own judgments about the language and the sex. I'm not their keeper or their conscience.  A gentle warning about the possibly offensive content is sufficient for me.

I have to disagree with you about obscenities being “a common part of the language these days”.  Most people do NOT talk this way.  That reminds me of what my kids said when they were teenagers and they started to swear all the time and I objected, they would say “but EVERYBODY swears”.  Not so.  When I first started work where I am now there was, and still is, seven men and one woman (me).  On the first day when I realised that swearing seemed to be a part of (at least some of their) language, I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t like it and I didn’t want to hear anyone using that sort of language.

It worked well and now two and a half years later, still nobody swears (at least not in my hearing).

I almost think it is an agenda by the media (print and electronic) to change society, or “shift the goalposts”.  Just about every film that has been made in the last 10 years or so has all the characters swearing “as a matter of course”.  I don’t watch TV myself, but my husband does and just about every Saturday and Sunday evening we end up by arguing because I cannot understand why he would insist on watching one of these films.  In one that was on a few weeks ago (we have been too busy lately to go through this) NOBODY in the film was capable of saying even one sentence with three or four obscenities thrown in for absolutely no reason.  Recently he was watching a film about WWII and it had the politicians swearing all the time, did politicians swear all the time during WWII?

I just think the “black Arrow” story could be conveyed just as brilliantly without all the “colourful language”.  It would still be a brilliant book for the freedom movement and might reach people who don’t want to wade through a sea of silly, pointless, obscenities.

Fair enough. It's been so long since I read Black Arrow , I  don't remember much except  that the protagonist was more than a little to perfect.  I don't know about politicians but Nixon and Johnson were incredibly foul mouthed so I suppose most of them are.  As far as the police and military  that kind of language certainly isn't rare. 


The book Unintended Consequences had some people up in arms for similar reasons as well.


The message is what is important to me.

[mouse]

Yeah, I guess I am just nitpicking.  The  message is what is important, not the way it is conveyed. 

[Kregener]

Yeah, my nickname on a dozen other forums is "precious"....Gladys.