Please give a writer harder to put down than Dan Brown

[frui]

I know, I know, he is crap, everybody with a taste says.
His characters are flat. His language is bland. His world view is shallow. His plot is absurd. He is greatly flawed.

But he has an absolute power to absorb you from the very beginning to the very end, even in his weakest opus like "Deception Point".

I read all genres of thrillers, from Tom Clancy, through Kathy Reichs, to John Grisham. Every one of them has some shining points, but you will feel bored most of the time. No one has the talent of Dan Brown to catch you tight in every page.

So I believe there are two factions of writers. One faction includes Dan Brown alone. The other faction has all the other writers.

I am not paranoid. I am not a die hard fan of Dan Brown. I just want some books I cannot put down. I just find this humble request harder and harder to fulfil.

Now, my learned fellow readers, educate me, correct me, please! Add someone I don't know to the Dan Brown faction I mentioned above. I'd be overjoyed if I knew he was not alone.

Thank you.

[Sparrow]

I'd suggest Thomas Harris of 'Silence of the Lambs' fame.

[HarryT]

To paraphrase someone I forget: Dan Brown is not an author whose books should be casually laid aside; they should be thrown with great force.

[frui]

Thank you, Sparrow! That's a quick and close hit, but I don't think it's deadly enough.

I like 'Silence of the Lambs' very much, of course.

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I'd suggest Thomas Harris of 'Silence of the Lambs' fame.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by frui

I know, I know, he is crap, everybody with a taste says.
His characters are flat. His language is bland. His world view is shallow. His plot is absurd. He is greatly flawed.

But he has an absolute power to absorb you from the very beginning to the very end, even in his weakest opus like "Deception Point".

I read all genres of thrillers, from Tom Clancy, through Kathy Reichs, to John Grisham. Every one of them has some shining points, but you will feel bored most of the time. No one has the talent of Dan Brown to catch you tight in every page.

So I believe there are two factions of writers. One faction includes Dan Brown alone. The other faction has all the other writers.

I am not paranoid. I am not a die hard fan of Dan Brown. I just want some books I cannot put down. I just find this humble request harder and harder to fulfil.

Now, my learned fellow readers, educate me, correct me, please! Add someone I don't know to the Dan Brown faction I mentioned above. I'd be overjoyed if I knew he was not alone.

Thanks you.

There are plenty of good writers out there who can write the pants off Dan Brown. Even mentioning his name makes me nauseous. He's the H1N1 of literature. He's the English Language equivalent of the colour beige. He writes with the comprehension of a twelve year old, and a not a particularly bright twelve year old at that. He's a McDonald's Happy Meal (and you're just as ironically unhappy after you've consumed his plastic-tasting McLiterature). He's the Alpha and Omega of crap. He's the pinnacle of a reading culture that treasures the mundane, the stupid and the downright inane. He's the failure of the modern publishing industry personified. He has become the destroyer of worlds.

This is a sentence written by Dan Brown:

The famous man looked at the red cup.

The next time someone says to me "But we need the publishing industry to filter out the crap, to make sure we have quality. Books aren't just released without editing and proofreading, don't you know?"

Well, the next time I hear someone say that, all I'm going to say is:

DAN BROWN.

And that will be answer enough.

[frui]

Hi, Moejoe!

Curiously, what's wrong with the sentence "The famous man looked at the red cup."

I have very little sense of the English language, since I am Chinese.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

There are plenty of good writers out there who can write the pants off Dan Brown. Even mentioning his name makes me nauseous. He's the H1N1 of literature. He's the English Language equivalent of the colour beige. He writes with the comprehension of a twelve year old, and a not a particularly bright twelve year old at that. He's a McDonald's Happy Meal (and you're just as ironically unhappy after you've consumed his plastic-tasting McLiterature). He's the Alpha and Omega of crap. He's the pinnacle of a reading culture that treasures the mundane, the stupid and the downright inane. He's the failure of the modern publishing industry personified. He has become the destroyer of worlds.

This is a sentence written by Dan Brown:

The famous man looked at the red cup.

The next time someone says to me "But we need the publishing industry to filter out the crap, to make sure we have quality. Books aren't just released without editing and proofreading, don't you know?"

Well, the next time I hear someone say that, all I'm going to say is:

DAN BROWN.

And that will be answer enough.

[Sparrow]

As someone who is half way through 'The Turn of the Screw'; I would just like to say that Dan Brown is a better writer than Henry James (imho).

This is HJ in full flow:
"It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two
distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first
and that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of
the mistake of my first: the man who met my eyes was not the person
I had precipitately supposed."

[frui]

And I agree with you that he is no literary giant. He is nothing compared with James Joyce and Steinbeck. But he can give us fun, simple and straigh. Don't you think that's also a manifestation of talent?

[ahi]

Originally Posted by frui

I am not paranoid. I am not a die hard fan of Dan Brown. I just want some books I cannot put down. I just find this humble request harder and harder to fulfil.

The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom

On the first page, in the first paragraph, the main character has a chance encounter with the man that murdered his father back when he was a child... and the story just gets more and more exciting from there!

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

The next time someone says to me "But we need the publishing industry to filter out the crap, to make sure we have quality. Books aren't just released without editing and proofreading, don't you know?"

Well, the next time I hear someone say that, all I'm going to say is:

DAN BROWN.

And that will be answer enough.

And I'm called an elitist?

Originally Posted by frui

And I agree with you that he is no literary giant. He is nothing compared with James Joyce and Steinbeck. But he can give us fun, simple and straigh. Don't you think that's also a manifestation of talent?

I think people's problem with Brown (me among them) is that he is lacking in the aesthetic/intellectual aspects of writing.

A good book should be 1) interesting enough to compel the reader to continue reading, 2) plainly enough written that the reader understands, and ideally 3) elegantly/cleverly enough phrased so as to provide what I would describe as "a literary experience"... a sort of "delight at clever words and lovely and pleasantly varied expressions".

It seems to me Dan Brown delivers well enough in 1) and 2), and is widely despised for neither being good nor giving a damn about 3).

I'm sometimes told "EVERYBODY HAS THEIR OWN PREFERENCES". Maybe there's something to it, even when it's not about disliking PDF.

- Ahi

[JSWolf]

W. E. B. Griffin is an author who's books are hard to put down. And they are good too.

[frui]

Thank you ahi, I will give it a try.

Originally Posted by ahi

The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom

On the first page, in the first paragraph, the main character has a chance encounter with the man that murdered his father back when he was a child... and the story just gets more and more exciting from there!

- Ahi

[lihaoren]

Stephen King？ lol.....水区群众前来围观

[ahi]

Originally Posted by lihaoren

Stephen King？ lol.....水区群众前来围观

是否有本书的英文或中文翻译水区群众前来围观

... sorry. I mean English or Hungarian.

[frui]

I like page turners, but I hate James Patterson.
I am not seeking class and taste in thrillers, but I hate all-round rip off.
I think it's not without a reason Mr Dan Brown took 6 years to write "The Lost Symbol".
He is a serious guy in that. He is a professional. He has respect for fine craftmanship.