Armed and Dangerous: A Writer's Guide to Weapons (Howdunit Writing) [Paperback]

Michael Newton (Author)

Book Description

Series: Howdunit Writing | Publication Date: August 1990

Never before has such specialized information been so thoroughly compiled and easily accessible to writers! Each book is written by a professional in their respective field, providing the inside details that writers need to weave a credible -- and salable -- story.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"... you will simply have to make your peace with guns. Case closed." No, these are not the words of an NRA apologist attacking some common-sense legislation, rather they're found in the introduction of Michael Newton's authoritative guidebook on guns, bombs, and all manner of things that go "boom"--and alter events in stories. If you're one of those scribes who believes that killing machines are better left on the printed page, this entry in Writer's Digest's Howdunit series will prove invaluable in giving your Glocks, dum-dum rounds, and spookily-named Hotchkiss guns the unmistakable ring of authority. Bang bang.

From School Library Journal

YA-- For budding writers, particularly those who have ambitions in the mys- tery genre, these two books will be useful starting points. Armed and Dangerous aids in avoiding those embarassing historical and descriptive gaffes regarding firearms and explosives. It will be a frustration, however, for writers who need information on a specific gun and its associated effects, although the appendixes on ballistics information and rifle trajectories are some help. Deadly Doses , on the other hand, is a paradise for domestic, impulsive criminals and manipulative writers. The index leads quickly to a specific poison and the entry gives all its names, toxicity, the forms in which it is found, information on how to administer it, the effects and symptoms, reaction time, and some notes. Two quibbles are the lack of a distinctive typeset to indicate the beginnings of entries (they all tend to run together) and a lack of cross-references in the index. Using the wonderful appendixes will allow writers to match plot restrictions in "Methods of Administration," "Form," "Symptoms," "Time in Which They React," or "Toxicity." It's enough to give anyone that Agatha Christie urge. --Cathy Chauvette, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 186 pages
• Publisher: Writer's Digest Books; 1st edition (August 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089879370X
• ISBN-13: 978-0898793703
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A California native, Michael Newton has published 215 books under his own name and various pseudonyms since 1977. He began writing professionally as a "ghost" for author Don Pendleton on the best-selling Executioner series and continues his work on that series today. With 104 episodes published to date, Newton has nearly tripled the number of Mack Bolan novels completed by creator Pendleton himself.

Newton's first book under his own name was Monsters, Mysteries and Man (1979), a survey of unexplained phenomena for younger readers. While 156 of Newton's published books have been novels--including westerns, political thrillers and psychological suspense--he is best known for nonfiction, primarily true crime and reference books.

His firearms manual for writers, Armed and Dangerous (1990), remains a best-seller for Writer's Digest Books in its 8th printing. Newton's Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (Facts on File, 2000) is currently in its second edition. His history of the Florida Ku Klux Klan, The Invisible Empire (2001), won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. His Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology was just named as one of twelve books on the American Library Association's 2006 List of Outstanding Reference Sources. Newton's shorter work includes horror fiction, true crime articles and case histories for Court TV's Crime Library online.

He is a member of several organizations, including the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club and Feral Cat Friends Inc.

His 24 upcoming books, scheduled for release through 2011, include 8 novels and 16 nonfiction works. He lives in Nashville, Indiana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horribly Inept, October 4, 2004

By 

Duane Thomas (Tacoma, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Armed and Dangerous: A Writer's Guide to Weapons (Howdunit Writing) (Paperback)

I've made my living writing articles for gun magazines since 1992, so obviously I was intrigued by the idea of a writer's manual for gun facts. I knew I was in trouble when I found two out-and-out errors and one seriously debatable before I was even through the Introduction.

STATEMENT: "In fact, the .44 - and every other large revolver - holds a maximum of six rounds; only .22 and automatics offer the increased capacity."

FACT: Okay, I note the book's 1990 publication date, and at that time this was true. However this "fact" is very out of date. Today we have 7 and 8-shot large-frame .357 Magnum revolvers, available from the factory, from companies like Taurus and Smith & Wesson.

STATEMENT: "Stephen King, in Cycle of the Werewolf, drops his furry fiend with silver bullets from a nonexistent ".45 Magnum," proving once and for all that he knows more about werewolves than firearms."

FACT: The .45 Winchester Magnum auto pistol cartridge was introduced in 1979. Ammunition, and guns to fire it, have been in continuous production ever since.

STATEMENT: "King also plays fast and loose with his hardware in The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three. In the space of five pages, he...introduces a nonexistent "Llama .38 automatic," and discourses at length on the uncontrollable recoil of the M-16 rifle - a weapon specifically designed for minimal kick."

FACT: Llama has been producing auto pistols chambered for the .38 Super cartridge since the 1930s. As for the M16, while it's true it was designed for minimal recoil, this assumes (1) it's being fired on semi-, not full-auto, and (b) a decent amount of skill on the firer's part. If I remember the scene in The Dark Tower II correctly, the M16 in question was being fired (a) on full-auto and (b) by someone with only the most casual familiarity with firearms. In such a situation it's not at all unbelievable the shooter might find the gun getting away from him.

Don't get me wrong, Stephen King doesn't know jack about firearms, and rather than do his research he just fakes it, but the author of Armed & Dangerous has chosen to criticize King primarily in areas where, through sheer luck I'm sure, he got it right.

And this was only in the Introduction. Out of curiosity, I flipped to the back cover to see what credentials this guy has to put himself forward as a firearms expert. Uh-oh, he's written books in The Executioner series - which have a very bad reputation among gun people for their lack of technical accuracy, vis-a-vis guns.

Continuing on, we find:

STATEMENT: "In spite of countless problems, Civil War rifles were more lethal than ever before, thanks to the introduction of the Minie ball...designed to expand in the grooves of a barrel on firing, the Minie ball increased effective range from 100 to 500 yards..."

FACT: Actually, the Minie ball was considerably LESS accurate than the round ball that preceded it. The Minie ball was a conical projectile, solid at front, with a hollow "skirt" at the rear. When the rifle was fired, gas pressure, flowing up into the Minie ball's hollow base, pressed the thin skirt out into the rifling. Since the Minie ball lacked the structural consistency of a round ball, it wasn't as accurate. However, surprisingly, it was accurate ENOUGH. What really made the Minie ball work was that it was UNDERSIZED for the rifle's bore, so instead of having to execute the time consuming process of shoving an OVERSIZED ball down the rifle's bore with a rod after dropping the powder charge, with the same gun you could simply drop a Minie ball down the barrel on top of the powder, a far faster process. A well-trained shooter with a muzzleloader firing conventional round balls could only fire one shot per minute - the same soldier firing Minie balls could fire 12 shots per minute, a quantum leap in performance. The Minie ball didn't increase the lethality of rifles in the Civil War by increasing their range, it did it by increasing their firepower.

STATEMENT: "His [Sam Colt's] Colt Model 1860, a .44 caliber cap-fired percussion piece, became the principal side arm during the [Civil] war..."

FACT: No. The 1860 was the principal issue sidearm of the UNION forces, however, the number of Starrs, Remingtons, and other types of Colts easily bury the 1860 for total numbers used in the war. In fact the most popular Colt percussion revolver was the .36 caliber Model 1851. This gun was so popular among Confederate troops that after the outbreak of the war its production was continued in numerous Confederate arms factories (all in Georgia, BTW, one reason Sherman had such a hard-on for the state - that's where the Confederacy's arms production capability came from).

STATEMENT: Referring on about percussion Colts, Newton says, "Regardless of their innovations, early Colts - and most other revolvers - were still muzzleloaders..."

FACT: Jesus wept. Colt's Models 1851, 1860, 1861, etc. are NOT muzzleloaders. They load through the front of the cylinder. This is a basic fact about one of the most famous marque/classes of weapons in history.

And that only took me up to page 12. I can only weep with pity for the writer using this book as reference material for gun facts.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "Armed and Dangerous" is dangerous to the reader, April 26, 2005

By 

Charles G. Worman (Kettering Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Armed and Dangerous: A Writer's Guide to Weapons (Howdunit Writing) (Paperback)

My area of interest lies in pre-1900 firearms so I won't make any effort to comment on the author's coverage of 20th century arms. I find no fault with his writing style since that's his own, but those several initial chapters on pre-1900 weaponry contain enough errors as to make them dangerous to an author relying on the material presented. To select just a few of the most obvious, the Kentucky rifle (often called the Pennsylvania rifle) was not a key weapon in the hands of the Continental Army during our Revolutionary War (page 12). Although much more accurate than the smoothbore musket, it was slower to load and could not be fitted with a bayonet and played a lesser role than did the musket. On page 13, the author incorrectly writes that large numbers of Kentucky flintlock rifles were converted into pill locks. Presumably he meant converted to percussion since pill locks were not common. He wrote of plains rifles ranging in caliber from .26 to .40 (page 14). A bison or grizzley bear struck by a .26 caliber ball would probably take little more notice of it than a bite from a fly. Most such rifles were about .50 caliber or larger On the same page, he incorrectly states that the U.S. Model 1842 pistol used the Maynard tape primer. It didn't, although the rather uncommon Model 1855 pistol with a detachable wooden shoulder stock did. Moving to page 26 he states the term "sharpshooter" was a tribute to the famed Sharps rifle yet the term was in use decades before Christian Sharps designed his breechloader. Just one more example of the author's numerous errors is on page 30. He describes Colt Peacemaker revolver serial number 139345 as being originally owned by Wild Bill Hickok and which was allegedly used by him to kill 14 men in 1875 and 1876. This is a difficult feat since that Colt by serial number wasn't manufactured until 1891! Hopefully the author did better in his chapters on more modern guns.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A misfire, in a big way, November 8, 2005

By 

Sarah Stegall "Munchkyn" (California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Armed and Dangerous: A Writer's Guide to Weapons (Howdunit Writing) (Paperback)

Duane Thomas and Charles Worman have pretty much summed up everything that is wrong with this book, but I'll add one more: Mr. Newton says that Jesse James and Cole Younger preferred the Schofield .45-caliber when they rode the outlaw trail. In fact, Cole Younger's weapon in the Northfield raid was a Colt .45 SAA Peacemaker, serial number 19242, now residing in the Saunders Memorial Museum. That museum also has Jesse's .44 caliber double action percussion revolver. The Public Museum of Oshkosh has a Colt Navy Model 1851 in .36 caliber presented to Younger by Quantrill himself. In short, the James/Younger gang had a variety of weapons among them, so any such categorical statement as Mr. Newton proffers requires *some* substantiation. Yet he blithely makes an assertion that, if echoed by a naive writer, would land the writer in hot water with a lot of readers. With so many errors of historical fact on display, I have to say that one cannot rely on Mr. Newton's assertions on technical matters either. Give this book a pass.