Ernest K. Gann

As part of Silhouette's 20th Anniversary in the year 2000, Diana Palmer is featured in this special 3-in-1 collector's edition, which includes the very first book "Soldier of Fortune", as well as the exciting sequels, "The Tender Stranger and Enamored".Considered one of the top ten romance writers in America, Diana Palmer has made a career of melting readers' hearts with her tender, sensual and intensely romantic tales. These three wonderful stories feature daring, dangerous and passionate heroes who were once mercenaries and worked together in the Central American jungles.

We must award Mr. Gann (The High and the Mighty, Fate is the Hunter) the EAAA--Exciting Aeronautical Adventure Award. What a storyteller! This flying time is set in World War I. The ""Eagles"" are French Airman Paul Chaney and German Sergeant Sebastian Kupper who are fated to become the lofty dualists in the rising climax. Chaney has vowed vengeance on Kupper because of a supposed act of barbarism which he witnessed. But before the two combatants meet, the story meticulously explores the daily actions, philosophies and psychology of both men. Kupper is a slowly disintegrating Ace, a moralist in a split second game that allows no room for hesitation or doubt. Chaney is a man obsessed by his own private war against Kupper, personalizing the ordeal, and in a sense escaping the greater psychological effects of the devastation surrounding him. There are some interesting minor characters: Kupper's aide whom Kupper feels embodies ""the emblem of war-- the helpless, confused, fundamentally barbaric creature swept up and carried on by events and evils over which he had not the slightest control:"" Chaney's bumbling mechanic who provides comic relief and Chaney's Group Captain Jordan, a lovable, frustrated, patriotic ""orphan"" as far as bureaucratic aptitude went. But the essential excitment lies of course in the missions and in the skirmishes with flak leaping from the page. You feel like you've been there.

Although the synopsis reads as though this was a factual account , it is in fact a novel, and an interesting and amusing novel at that , with strong characterisation ( not least of Oscar , the belligerent black cat who is a base mascot ) , some suspenseful moments, and sufficient references to the techniques used in the aircraft to satisfy the pilots amongst us. Like all Gann's books, highly recommendable

Ernest Gann the Sailing Man (formerly Ernest Gann the Flying Man: Fate Is the Hunter, The High and the Mighty, The Company of Eagles) applies his amusing and astonishing savvy to the sea. Mr. Gann has sailed in, and/or fallen in love with many boats, but the love of his life was the Albatross, a brigantine 'with a capricious auxiliary motor dubbed the ""African Queen."" A good deal of acute anxiety afloat related directly to desperate attentions to the recalcitrant Queen. There are tales of storms, looming sandbars, novice-to-veteran seafarers, airy badinage while waist-deep in deck wash, a variety of imaginative machines. Mr. Gann pays tribute to other craft, but from the moment her jib boom skewered the pilot house of a Dutch police boat, to the moment she sailed away with another man, the Albatross was a constant devotion. Although modest in pretensions, Mr. Gann spins out some jaunty maneuvers (including the bleeding-finger school of fishery), but landlubbers will feel at home on the rolling deck. Salty, manfully philosophical at times, with some of the most hilarious machines afloat, this is a brisk, spinnaker-smacking sail.

Of Good and Evil is a novel about violence in society—the hidden violence that suddenly reaches out to touch and terrify the ordinary citizen—and the forces arraigned against it. The time is now. The action takes place in a single day and night. The focal point is the Hall of Justice—headquarters of a metropolitan police force. To this nerve center come the myriad impulses of conflict and tension, of greed, of brutality, of fear, that vibrate endlessly through a great city. The anonymous man staging a spectacular suicide, the malevolent underworld baron plotting to squeeze the marrow from the city's bones, the psychopathic girl of fifteen who accuses two boys of rape, the pusher, the pimp, the murderer—each in turn acts out the demonic compulsions that strain the social fabric. Facing them is the law, the hard-pressed, imperfect human beings who are its enforcers, and the man who is its protector—the judge, struggling to reconcile justice with compassion.

A 16-year-old mathematics genius who discovers the earth is going off its axis attempts to convince the adults of the world that steps must be taken to prevent world catastrophe.

Ernest K. Gann, author of ''Island in the Sky'' Goodreads Member Review: KOMET (Sep 21, 2015 5 of 5 Stars) it was amazing:aviation-general, ernest-k-gann, mass-market-paperbacks Ernest K. Gann, in his day, was one of those aviators with a gift for conveying to the general reader the thrills and perils of flying. And in "BLAZE OF NOON", he succeeds brilliantly. The story begins in September 1925 with the 4 McDonald brothers (Roland, Keith, Tad, and Colin) demonstrating their flying skills at a county fair in Iowa. This is the era of barnstorming, when active pilots, many of them --- like Roland the oldest brother --- First World War veterans who first experienced flight in a flimsy Curtiss Jenny trainer at one of the Army stateside airfields hastily created after America's entry into the war and later became either instructors or seasoned combat pilots over the Western Front. After the war, being enamored of flying and at a loss what to do in civilian life, several of these pilots found ways to keep aloft. Barnstorming, despite being a precarious livelihood, offered the way out of a life lived in the doldrums. Aviation was a wide-open endeavor in the U.S. during the early to mid-1920s. But by the time the reader meets the MacDonald brothers, it is becoming increasingly clear to Roland that barnstorming is losing its appeal. (Aviation is fast becoming a serious business, with the federal government establishing rigorous standards for pilots, mechanics, and aircraft manufacturers.) He persuades his brothers to follow him to New Jersey, where he meets up with Mike Gafferty, an old friend and fellow aviator who runs a business flying mail for the Post Office Department from New Jersey to Upstate New York and Northeast Ohio. Though now assured of steady paychecks and a more settled way of life, the MacDonald brothers find that the risks inherent with pitting a Pitcairn Mailwing radial-engine biplane against the vagaries of the weather can exact a high cost. For instance, one night when Roland is hard pressed to arrive at his destination with a load of mail, he makes a calculated gamble while in the midst of a menacing storm front in winter. "He patted the pint of whisky and thought of Albany as he gritted his teeth and pulled up into the low overcast. Then he concentrated with all his will on the turn-and-bank instrument, relating it to his compass, which for a time held obligingly at eighty-five degrees. When he reached three thousand feet he leveled off - or assumed he did, since the altimeter and air speed held steady. Now would come the test, not of the theory but of himself. He would have to endure this new and strange flying sensation for exactly twenty-one minutes. Then, according to his figures, he could let down until he broke out of the overcast and Rochester would be just ahead. This is nail-biting stuff! There is also romance, brotherly devotion, and a few snippets of life characteristic of the 1920s. Reading "BLAZE OF NOON" has been a thoroughly rewarding experience. I highly recommend it to any reader who loves thrill-seeking tales.

Discusses the creation, cast, and episodes one through fourteen of the science fiction television series that remains popular despite its original run of only three years.

Ernest K. Gann’s classic memoir is an up-close and thrilling account of the treacherous early days of commercial aviation. In his inimitable style, Gann brings you right into the cockpit, recounting both the triumphs and terrors of pilots who flew when flying was anything but routine.

The author of The High and the Mighty surveys the seat-of-the-pants flying scene of the '30's and reminisces about the early days of air mail, cargo transports and the first passenger lines. There's a lot less of the controlled hysteria of Richard Bach's A Gift of Wings (KR, p. 655) but just as much passion in Gann's nostalgic recall. The book features eighteen paintings by Richard Parks of old planes -- which accounts for the steep price. Gann strives for general interest as well as to hook aviation buffs, and spools out the John Wayne manliness with modest enthusiasm. The principal characters really are the crafts, but there are also many mute, inglorious airmen who strongly captured Gann's heart. Among these is one of Gann's earliest employers, who ran a tiny flight school and air circus -- until he failed to pull out of a spin during a Sunday afternoon show and became Gann's very first friend lost to the sky. Fortunately, the technical descriptions do not overburden the text. Gann seldom allows the sense of privileged adventure to fade even for a sentence.

The third and final volume of "The Regiment" trilogy by the author of many historical adventures, this completes the story of Sir Murdoch Mackinder's military career - covering his covert operations in Yugoslavia, fighting alongside Tito's Partisans, and culminating in the Battle of the Bulge.