I've started on Mike Lunnon-Wood's Dark Rose, in 1995 a thirty-seconds-into-your-future thriller and now accidental AH, where the Palestinians and Libyans take over Ireland. Why? Because that's an insane premise that I thus must read, and Lunnon-Wood did some good army thriller work with Long Reach so here we go.
4%, and SPOILERS ahead:
The first thing that's noticeable is the plan for the takeover is mental. Palestinian financiers are using dodgy financial dealings to take over businesses and property and basically buy out Ireland, with violence to be used later if that doesn't work on its own (and the guy who'll be leading said violence is pretty sure it won't). A serious of quiet kidnappings and threats are used to blackmail various parts of the Irish state so they can't do anything, up to and including the taoiseach. Only two students notice in time and warn the British embassy.
So this is a very, very, very silly way to do it but I assume Lunnon-Wood knows this because he doesn't dwell on it. On paper it would be better to show the discovery of the plot instead of just "oh yeah we spotted this thing, British Embassy" but in practice, no, better to go "sinister Palestinian financiers take over everything and abduct the Taoiseach's son" in the first few pages of chapter one and just got on with "it happened" so you can do your plot of Irish rebels and British support VS Libyan-Palestinian takeover. (The nature of the enemy does feel, as I think Coiler's talked about, this post-Cold War moment where there's no Soviet Union to use for technothrillers and invasion stories, so writers are going "right who did I read about in the paper today, THEY'LL do") Somewhat iffy bit where we're told the Irish blithely don't notice because they're too into The Promise Of Open Borders.
Did like a British spy asking the Irish whistleblowers why they went to them, and then going "right but why did you REALLY do it" after a long paragraph about Britain's Defence Mentality, and the whistleblowers admit they went to the Yanks first and the Yanks went "that's horseshit, fuck off".
4%, and SPOILERS ahead:
The first thing that's noticeable is the plan for the takeover is mental. Palestinian financiers are using dodgy financial dealings to take over businesses and property and basically buy out Ireland, with violence to be used later if that doesn't work on its own (and the guy who'll be leading said violence is pretty sure it won't). A serious of quiet kidnappings and threats are used to blackmail various parts of the Irish state so they can't do anything, up to and including the taoiseach. Only two students notice in time and warn the British embassy.
So this is a very, very, very silly way to do it but I assume Lunnon-Wood knows this because he doesn't dwell on it. On paper it would be better to show the discovery of the plot instead of just "oh yeah we spotted this thing, British Embassy" but in practice, no, better to go "sinister Palestinian financiers take over everything and abduct the Taoiseach's son" in the first few pages of chapter one and just got on with "it happened" so you can do your plot of Irish rebels and British support VS Libyan-Palestinian takeover. (The nature of the enemy does feel, as I think Coiler's talked about, this post-Cold War moment where there's no Soviet Union to use for technothrillers and invasion stories, so writers are going "right who did I read about in the paper today, THEY'LL do") Somewhat iffy bit where we're told the Irish blithely don't notice because they're too into The Promise Of Open Borders.
Did like a British spy asking the Irish whistleblowers why they went to them, and then going "right but why did you REALLY do it" after a long paragraph about Britain's Defence Mentality, and the whistleblowers admit they went to the Yanks first and the Yanks went "that's horseshit, fuck off".