FWIW, I also didn't care much for the plotline in Gateways (I just finished reading it a week or so ago). I'll echo the anti-Dad comments expressed above. I really enjoyed large parts of the book (the neighbor and her poodle were great), but "Dad happens to be Rambo" and gets all chummy with Jack just didn't work very well for me.

Hunter

FWIW, I also didn't care much for the plotline in Gateways (I just finished reading it a week or so ago). I'll echo the anti-Dad comments expressed above. I really enjoyed large parts of the book (the neighbor and her poodle were great), but "Dad happens to be Rambo" and gets all chummy with Jack just didn't work very well for me.

Hunter

Dad wasn't "Rambo," and the poodle was a Chihuahua.

Ken V.

I felt the same way when I read it. For me, it kind of took some of the magic away from Jack. The idea of Jack being a normal kid who made a gigantic decison and assumed a huge responsiblity and ended up with a very unique and dangerous lifestyle was kind of belittled by the idea that he comes from a family of tough guys.

I have to assume you never spent any time in military service. Very few "tough guys" actually spend time in the military -- there's a weeding process even when they're drafting folks. No sniper I ever met was a "tough guy". Don't believe the crap in the movies and the recruiting adverts, bigtime crock of shit.

Most of what I know of my father's service record I learned from an FoIA request after he was dead (only a few years back, maybe 15 or so). It was "friendly fire" on that Korean hilltop that crippled him 2+ years before I was born. A US mortar shell that killed most of his squad.

Admittedly, I had little to do with my father -- my mother divorced him when I was 8 (that's when the random drunken beatings stopped), the next and last time I met him was when I hitched from Travis AFB down to San Diego when I was 20, we had nothing in common except our name (he was Jr., I'm III), our blood type and a tendency to self-inflict liver damage. He had a whole dozen books in his apt, all crappy best-seller crap, in my barracks room up at Travis I had a couple thousand SF novels.

The thrill of keeping a huge secret like that from your own family is alwasys more exciting than having them know. It's a little like Superman telling Lois Lane that he's Clark Kent -- it should never really happen, becasue once it happens the magic is never quite the same.

I assume that means you close your bedroom door when you ... (sorry, I was about to get personal).

I never got a thrill from keeping a secret. Not that I compulsively tell people stuff -- the IRS and other FedGoof groups will have to use the traditional methods they inherited from the Inquisition to get me to "volunteer" information. Most of what I divulge under duress will be the best lies I can think of. Most of my "secrets" are stuff that I'm ashamed of. And a couple that could get me a boyfriend named Bubba in a small cage. Those are overlapping sets. I was well into nominal adulthood before I found the Zero Aggression Principle.

Dad wasn't "Rambo," and the poodle was a Chihuahua.

D'oh! I knew I was misremembering the dog. Sorry about that.

And no, Dad wasn't "Rambo," but that's how it all felt to me. It just didn't work for me.

Hunter

D'oh! I knew I was misremembering the dog. Sorry about that.

And no, Dad wasn't "Rambo," but that's how it all felt to me. It just didn't work for me.

Hunter

Well, as for Jack's father is similar to Thomas Beckett(Tom Berenger) in "Sniper". Not Rambo.

D'oh! I knew I was misremembering the dog. Sorry about that.

And no, Dad wasn't "Rambo," but that's how it all felt to me. It just didn't work for me.

Hunter

Well, let's get it clear, sickthing. (For me own mind, anyway ). Jack's father was a Marine sniper in Korea. He was a long way from home, he was freezing, and he was frightened as maybe you and I have not known fear. But he did his job. Not because he felt any holy mission or cause, but because there was nothing else he could do. And I think I understand his mindset on that lonely, fucked-up hill. "Just DO it--other Marines are counting on me. I CAN'T let them down. OK...anybody who look's like he's giving orders or who has a radio...Oh, dear God...COME ON, TOM! YOU'RE A MARINE! SEMPER FI! If I don't and they take me...we know what they do to sniper prisoners..."

That's how I read it, anyway. I doubt Jack's dad would even go see a Rambo flick.

Well, let's get it clear, sickthing. (For me own mind, anyway ). Jack's father was a Marine sniper in Korea. He was a long way from home, he was freezing, and he was frightened as maybe you and I have not known fear. But he did his job. Not because he felt any holy mission or cause, but because there was nothing else he could do. And I think I understand his mindset on that lonely, fucked-up hill. "Just DO it--other Marines are counting on me. I CAN'T let them down. OK...anybody who look's like he's giving orders or who has a radio...Oh, dear God...COME ON, TOM! YOU'RE A MARINE! SEMPER FI! If I don't and they take me...we know what they do to sniper prisoners..."

That's how I read it, anyway. I doubt Jack's dad would even go see a Rambo flick.

All of what you say may be true, I agree totally with your last line. Question? In what way is this an argument for the book? Personally I'd argue the point that the father and the son had more in common with each other than either of them ever thought, and not just in combat. Ironic almost that Tom feels the need to hide his past and Jack needs to hide his present status. Both feeling the other would disapprove.

At least that's my take.

All of what you say may be true, I agree totally with your last line. Question? In what way is this an argument for the book? Personally I'd argue the point that the father and the son had more in common with each other than either of them ever thought, and not just in combat. Ironic almost that Tom feels the need to hide his past and Jack needs to hide his present status. Both feeling the other would disapprove.

At least that's my take.

Maybe that's what Paul was thinking too, Ken. The hombre can be subtle in his fiction. (Amazing, considering he's a drummer...:p )

All of what you say may be true, I agree totally with your last line. Question? In what way is this an argument for the book? Personally I'd argue the point that the father and the son had more in common with each other than either of them ever thought, and not just in combat. Ironic almost that Tom feels the need to hide his past and Jack needs to hide his present status. Both feeling the other would disapprove.

At least that's my take.

That's a pretty good assessment.

Ken V.

That's a pretty good assessment.

Ken V.

I agree. I hadn't quite thought of it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense.