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August 9, 2006

Interview with Alan Furst

I've conducted a brief interview with Alan Furst, who has written several superb spy novels set in pre-WWII Europe. The interview is now up over at TCSDaily.

Furst's own site is www.alanfurst.net.

I have to tell the story of how this came about, cause it's pretty neat.

Mrs. Chester dragged me shopping one day and I ducked into a Borders in need of a reprieve. Browsing around, I moseyed over to the Mystery/Suspense section to look for Furst's new book, The Foreign Correspondent.

I couldn't find it, so I went to the help desk. There, I saw a stack of copies, along with the entire inventory of everything else they had in stock by Furst. "Are these all on hold?" I asked the staff. "No, we've set them aside because he's supposed to come in today and sign them. He's supposed to be here any minute."

Well, this was cool! So soon enough Mr. Furst did arrive and signed a copy for me. I went and sat down in the cafe. Then a thought occurred to me: why not a blog interview? I asked him and he agreed immediately, saying he loves reading blogs.

Anyway, I thought that was very kind of him and a pretty cool little backstory.

Furst's novels are truly fascinating. You feel as though you are really in Europe right before all hell breaks loose. And in some cases after it's broken loose too.

My favorite is Night Soldiers, probably because it's a bit longer than the others, which means all the more intrigue:

I've also read The World at Night and Dark Voyage:

Those were both excellent as well. When reading these works, the scope and depth of the changes that were afoot in Europe really begins to dawn on the reader. Most interestingly perhaps is that everyone seems to know that war is coming . . .

Loyal Readers here at Adventures will probably enjoy any of Furst's novels. Go check out the interview too.

UPDATE: Here's a previous post that references his work as well: Through The Looking Glass.

Posted by Chester at August 9, 2006 7:27 AM

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Comments

Wow, you got to talk to this guy ? I LOVE Night Soldiers...my copy is falling to pieces. I will definitely run out and buy this one.

Try Stephen Hunter sometime, he has a book (title is escaping me at the moment), set in the Spanish Civil War that reminds me a lot of Night Soldiers.

Posted by: El Jefe Maximo at August 9, 2006 9:38 AM

I never heard of the guy, but I'll give him a try.
Except for the moonbats, today is the same way. Anyone rational can smell war in the air. It's gonna be a biggie. PRESIDENT Bush will get blamed for it. After all, he caused global warming and the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Posted by: grumbler at August 10, 2006 1:00 AM

http://www.powerlineblog.com/powerlinenews/video2/

Streaming Video of Ahnadamnutjob claiming Iran has built an atomic bomb. I hope it's a translation error. I'm suprised the MSM hasn't been allover this. Anyone that wants to impeach PRESIDENT Bush should be jumping for joy now. I have voted a straight Republican ticket since Goldwater (a bit liberal for me, but better then most) and if the Iranians have built a nuclear device, PRESIDENT Bush SHOULD be impeached for failure in acomplishing his number 1 job, protecting America.
Plus impeaching PRESIDENT Bush will pass the button on to cheny, who has the stones to use it.
PRESIDENT Bush appears to be all hat and no cattle. He talks a good game, but he has been naval gazing while our enemies have been working.

Posted by: grumbler at August 10, 2006 1:22 PM

I found Furst this summer and have read several of his books so far. He is an excellent writer and the history is spot on. There also seems to be a bit of tradecraft in the books, right up there with Charles McCarry.

http://www.amazon.com/s/104-6059749-0373516?ie=UTF8&index=books&rank=-relevance%2C%2Bavailability%2C-daterank&field-author-exact=Charles%20%20McCarry

There is an excellent map at the beginning of Furst's novel "Kingdom of Shadows" that shows the actual borders of the Sudetenland (and how the mountains in that region formed a natural defense for Czechoslovakia), The First Vienna Award (returned to Hungary in November 1938) and Ruthenia which was occupied by Hungary in March 1939. I had looked for maps of Ruthenia on the web and did not find any as good as this one.

Here is some trivia on Ruthenia:

It is now the Ukrainian province of Trans-Carpathia.

The capitol Uzhorod is the seat of one of the Uniate Catholic churches that cause such friction between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Andy Warhol's parents migrated from Ruthenia to the USA. So he may be the most famous Ruthenian-American around.

:-)

Posted by: rich at August 10, 2006 6:36 PM

While we're on the subject of maps of Czecho and Ruthenia...does ANYBODY know where I could find a good road/rail map of pre-1918 Bohemia and Moravia, or, alternatively a guide to changed place names. (Doing a little reading on the Seven Weeks War -- 1866 ,and my maps are inadequate).

Posted by: El Jefe Maximo at August 11, 2006 12:31 PM

have you looked for a copy of "Big Boys'Rules" yet?
I think you'd really like this one. Its the history of the SAS versus the IRA that has amazing parallels with today's WoT. Oh, and its not make believe..

Posted by: playertwo at August 15, 2006 2:32 PM

Posted by: playertwo at August 15, 2006 2:42 PM