Buying books: words or phrases that can turn a 'yes' into a 'no'?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

I have always wondered how the Napoleonic War would have gone if the British Army had adopted the Ferguson Rifle.
Apache

The Ferguson was too difficult and took too long to manufacturer at the time.

If I recall, the 95th used the American method of using a greased patch, something they picked up during the Revolutionary War. It gave them a superior rate of fire over the regular rifled muskets.

[Apache]

Muskets are smooth bore and faster to load. A rifle was slower to load because of the rifling. Rifles could be aimed while muskets tended to be very inaccurate. The French and, except for a few companies, the British preferred the mass firepower of the inaccurate muskets.
Apache

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

Muskets are smooth bore and faster to load. A rifle was slower to load because of the rifling. Rifles could be aimed while muskets tended to be very inaccurate. The French and, except for a few companies, the British preferred the mass firepower of the inaccurate muskets.
Apache

Yep. The Brits had the 95th, which used the Baker rifle. The Germans had some Jager companies (the American Pennsylvanian/Kentucky long rifle was based on the German rifle, though the American innovation was to add the greased patch).

[JSWolf]

Can we please stop talking about guns/rifles and any other weapons?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can we please stop talking about guns/rifles and any other weapons?

Considering what has been used as weapons, that may not leave us with much to talk about. After all, even a book can be a weapon.

My great uncle reminisced about a salesman who came to his door when he was a lot younger selling “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” by Gibbon.
“Here is a book you can’t afford to be without,” he said.
“I never read,” answered my great uncle.
“Well buy it for your children,” urged the salesman.
“I’m single—I have no family. All I have is a dog.”
“Well,” insisted the salesman, “don’t you want a nice heavy book to throw at the dog now and then?”

[gmw]

I don't think I have specific words or phrases that are a definite no (or yes), I've read too many good books with poor tag lines to get too precious about it. But one trend that has me turning away pretty quickly are the blurbs that are a mass of reviews. If I have to struggle to find the book description, then I normally just move on. There are exceptions even here, recently I bought one even though the blurb was hard to find, starting down on the seventh or eighth line after review lines that would hit many of the offences mentioned on this thread.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by gmw

But one trend that has me turning away pretty quickly are the blurbs that are a mass of reviews.

THIS! "Methinks the lackey doth protest too much" , the surfeit of praise can have the opposite effect to the one desired.

[John F]

I haven't seen Blondie in concert (that I recall).

[ps67]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can we please stop talking about guns/rifles and any other weapons?

May be they love "porn gun" . I never heard about it before, it seems the most annoying literary genre ever made

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Considering what has been used as weapons, that may not leave us with much to talk about. After all, even a book can be a weapon.

There is even a video, it may not be on the internet, that shows a man defending himself from a man wielding a katana. His weapon was a deer hide. I used to have this video on VHS and it may still be in my collection.
I am not into gun porn. I am a combination martial artist, history major and bench jeweler.
Apache

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ps67

May be they love "porn gun" . I never heard about it before, it seems the most annoying literary genre ever made

I'm not into "gun porn" either. But I've learned not to pick on other literary genres. I may wind up having to defend weird genres I like.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm not into "gun porn" either. But I've learned not to pick on other literary genres. I may wind up having to defend weird genres I like.

Ditto.

[Apache]

I actually do not like gun porn. I know quite a bit about different weapons, including guns. But I find endless descriptions about all of the details about a specific gun to be mind numbing. If an author has characters using guns I expect him to either no something about said gun or to have researched the subject. There is no excuse for an author to mix up whether a pistol is a revolver or auto. I actually like bladed weapons best.
Apache

[gmw]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can we please stop talking about guns/rifles and any other weapons?

Apparently not.

[Camellia]

I don't like being told that there's a twist, and I won't buy a book if the blurb or cover praise talks about a twist. That's supposed to be a mystery!