Buck a gallon gas

Posted on December 20, 2007 | Comments Off on Buck a gallon gas

Grocery shopping the other evening at H.E.B. I noticed a new Jack Reacher novel, "Echo Burning," by Lee Child and succumbed. Ex-Army MP Reacher is interesting, the plots too, and this sucker, actually published in 2001, is no exception. The story is set in Texas, which Child, who I have read has abandoned his Brit home for life in New York, imagines in a fairly well-rounded fashion. It starts out, predictably, as homogenized redneckland where the minorities are oppressed, but gets more accurately diverse and complicated, as it moves along. I did stumble over one detail early on. There may be more but I haven’t finished it yet. Reacher stops in an Exxon station in West Texas and fills his 20-gallon tank for twenty bucks. I had to reread it to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong.  Maybe Child thinks we refine our own oil to keep the price down? Uh, no, we’re using Hugo’s Venezualan product like everyone else, and buck a gallon gas disappeared in, oh, about the 1970s.

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0 responses to “Buck a gallon gas”

  1. SnoopyTheGoon's avatar SnoopyTheGoon | December 22, 2007 at 1:12 pm |

    Doesn’t it have an SF mark somewhere unobtrusive? Or, maybe, the action is set somewhere in the eighties?

  2. SnoopyTheGoon's avatar SnoopyTheGoon | December 22, 2007 at 1:12 pm |

    Doesn’t it have an SF mark somewhere unobtrusive? Or, maybe, the action is set somewhere in the eighties?

  3. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | December 22, 2007 at 8:49 pm |

    No SF mark. The decade is unspecified but I know from previous books that Reacher left the Army in the early 90s–he got caught in the RIF (reduction-in-force) at the end of the Cold War. All in all, the book’s a fair reflection of Texas. A few other mistakes, but nothing outrageous. I think I’m tired of Reacher, though. It’s on to Chabon’s “Mysteries of Pittsburgh.”

  4. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | December 22, 2007 at 8:49 pm |

    No SF mark. The decade is unspecified but I know from previous books that Reacher left the Army in the early 90s–he got caught in the RIF (reduction-in-force) at the end of the Cold War. All in all, the book’s a fair reflection of Texas. A few other mistakes, but nothing outrageous. I think I’m tired of Reacher, though. It’s on to Chabon’s “Mysteries of Pittsburgh.”