Please give a writer harder to put down than Dan Brown

[frui]

Hi, Moejoe. Your recommendation sounds like literature.
Yeh I know that classic by James M Cain. And the movie. But that's dangerously close to real literature. No, that's not the direction I am heading. For literariness I'd prefer a bowl of other fish. Say Kafka?
I want something lighter. Much lighter. Ah the unbearable lightness of life...........
Thanks anyway.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

If you want a truly great author who knows how to make you turn a page, then may I recommend the greatest crime writer of all time; James M Cain. I'd start with The Postman Always Rings Twice, then follow it up with a dose of Double Indemnity and then get yourself a little Mildred Pierce.

Here's the opening to Double Indemnity:

[奔跑的香肠]

I know some people always trash popular non-literary authors ridiculously. Sure, he may not be a good literary writer (seems he doesn't claim to be one). However, most of his stories have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, all well crafted to a point where it's freakin believable without sounding preachy.


So plz don't talking about his credibility as an author or his ridiculous rising to fame and fortune. It does not make sense. let's just say, dan writes enjoyable stories and he entertains.

[frui]

Yes completely.
Yet it does not matter that much for foreigners, as anything significant will be lost in translation sooner or later.
You see, with language and facts receding, plot goes to the foreground, and Dan Brown certainly excels in that.

Originally Posted by ahi

Unfortunate about the poor quality translations. I suspect though what you see as a benefit (the language being easy or simple) anglophone readers would see as a failing.

I would guess it would be kind of like if a Chinese author seemed to go out of his way to avoid using any characters above and beyond the most common 2000 or so, even when there might have been better way to put things using characters that people with even a moderate education would have had no problem understanding.

Does that make sense?



You're bored, I take it?

- Ahi

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by 奔跑的香肠

I know some people always trash popular non-literary authors ridiculously. Sure, he may not be a good literary writer (seems he doesn't claim to be one). However, most of his stories have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, all well crafted to a point where it's freakin believable without sounding preachy.


So plz don't talking about his credibility as an author or his ridiculous rising to fame and fortune. let's just say, dan writes enjoyable stories and he entertains.

Dan Brown is an affront to all literature, whether that be the lowliest of pulp or the highest heights and Pulitzer-prize winning material. He is a symptom of culture rot, where our pop culture (that which was once vibrant and full of life) is now mush. Pale, tasteless, mush made popular by fake controversy and even faker outrage in reaction. He is to literature what autotune is to the music industry. Soulless, lifeless, devoid of life, this creature must be stopped before he infects others....*cue spooky horror music*

[ahi]

Originally Posted by frui

Yes completely.
Yet it does not matter that much for foreigners, as anything significant will be lost in translation sooner or later.
You see, with language and facts receding, plot goes to the foreground, and Dan Brown certainly excels in that.

Makes perfect sense.

I also suspect some of the rest of his international success is based on translators that are more literary than him producing books that do not rouse quite the same sort of backlash in their own countries as is still evident in the anglosphere.

Maybe I should give one of his books' Hungarian translation a try...

- Ahi

[rlparker]

Hi 奔跑的香肠! Welcome to MR!

[frui]

Yes I've read some novels by H. Rider Haggard. He is very famous in my country in the early 20th centry.
I used to like vintage writers, but now I am seeking a new pace. Fast and furious, like roll coaster.

For aesthetism I'd turn to greater classics or poetries.

Originally Posted by ahi

Are you interested in older western adventure books too, Frui?

I suspect Allan Folsom is more like (in the good ways) Dan Brown than the below suggestions, but you might enjoy these all the same.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars Series

H. Rider Haggard's African Stories



- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by frui

Yes I've read some novels by H. Rider Haggard. He is very famous in my country in the early 20th centry.
I used to like vintage writers, but now I am seeking a new pace. Fast and furious, like roll coaster.

For aesthetism I'd turn to greater classics or poetries.

Interesting!

Do you think you might like Iain Banks' The Business or Whit?

I found them both very interesting... the second one, Whit, nothing short of enthralling in fact. It is the story of the imminent-heir-to-the-throne of a small and very strange religious cult/sect... an 18 year old girl... going out into the world "among The Unsaved" to try to bring back her apostate cousin back into the fold. The story is remarkable, and not at all what you would expect in most ways.

- Ahi

[rlparker]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Dan Brown is an affront to all literature, whether that be the lowliest of pulp or the highest heights and Pulitzer-prize winning material. He is a symptom of culture rot, where our pop culture (that which was once vibrant and full of life) is now mush. Pale, tasteless, mush made popular by fake controversy and even faker outrage in reaction. He is to literature what autotune is to the music industry. Soulless, lifeless, devoid of life, this creature must be stopped before he infects others....*cue spooky horror music*

One of the reasons that I keep coming back to MR is the very low occurrence of flame wars, negativism and nastiness.

The OP asked for reading recommendations for "unputdownable" books. I'm interested in that too and I've gotten some good ideas from some of the other posts in the thread.

You've made it clear that you don't like Dan Brown. That's fine--everyone has an opinion. So, feel free to ignore this thread! Why waste the time and energy trying to convince others who have a favorable opinion of him that they are wrong? It's presumptuous and intolerant.

So instead of more Dan-Brown-bashing, positive reading alternatives would be welcome. Thanks.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by rlparker

One of the reasons that I keep coming back to MR is the very low occurrence of flame wars, negativism and nastiness.

The OP asked for reading recommendations for "unputdownable" books. I'm interested in that too and I've gotten some good ideas from some of the other posts in the thread.

You've made it clear that you don't like Dan Brown. That's fine--everyone has an opinion. So, feel free to ignore this thread! Why waste the time and energy trying to convince others who have a favorable opinion of him that they are wrong? It's presumptuous and intolerant.

So instead of more Dan-Brown-bashing, positive reading alternatives would be welcome. Thanks.

And you really are taking what I say with more than the grain of salt in which it was offered Hence my walking dead allusion. But if you can't take a joke, then maybe you should stay out of this thread, huh...mmm..huh..huh... for taking all this a little too seriously for its own good

[奔跑的香肠]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Dan Brown is an affront to all literature, whether that be the lowliest of pulp or the highest heights and Pulitzer-prize winning material. He is a symptom of culture rot, where our pop culture (that which was once vibrant and full of life) is now mush. Pale, tasteless, mush made popular by fake controversy and even faker outrage in reaction. He is to literature what autotune is to the music industry. Soulless, lifeless, devoid of life, this creature must be stopped before he infects others....*cue spooky horror music*

Oh,man...
he is only a poor pop writer, not an indoctrinated Islamic Bomber. why do you hate him so?

[SHOECHICK]

hangs head in shame...plans on buying new Dan Brown when it comes out....

As for can't put down authors, I've always loved Ken Follet even before pillars and love Daniel Silva. Clive Cussler and James Patterson drive me nuts although both can tell a decent tale.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by 奔跑的香肠

Oh,man...
he is only a poor pop writer, not an indoctrinated Islamic Bomber. why do you hate him so?

Do you know what is worse than the awful writing, the cardboard characters, the ridiculous and ill-researched factoids, what's worse than all of that? He's boring. His fiction is dull, it's not thrilling at all. Sure, I'm turning the pages fast enough, but I'd been turning them just as fast if I was reading a Dick and Jane book for pre-schoolers.

Here's some recommendations off the top of my head: Len Deighton, Alistair MacLean, Dean Koontz (pre hair-implants, when he still had a moustache), Jim Butcher, Dan Abnett, Christopher Golden, Robert Ludlum, Robert Harris.

[ahi]

Do you know what is worse than the awful writing, the cardboard characters, the ridiculous and ill-researched factoids, what's worse than all of that?

A not altogether untalented writer that is bitterly jealous of another writer's far great success?

- Ahi

[rlparker]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

And you really are taking what I say with more than the grain of salt in which it was offered Hence my walking dead allusion. But if you can't take a joke, then maybe you should stay out of this thread, huh...mmm..huh..huh... for taking all this a little too seriously for its own good

Wow, your response caught me by surprise. I'm sorry I offended you and that I missed your humor! This is the kind of misunderstanding that I really dislike to be part of and one reason I usually don't participate much in forums like this.

I was just hoping for more positive recommendations for good books.

By the way, the book I can't put down right now is "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stephenson. I guess I was supposed to read it in high school. If I did, I don't remember it. A really good tale!