I like Dick Francis books for the same thing; occupy a couple hours with an infallible "hero" who always makes great choices and usually gets the girl. Not much on the explosion front though.
Down side is all the charachters are the same, but what do you expect from a book that doesn't ask you to think.
slefain wrote:Duke wrote: I always found the *Destroyer* series to be a hoot and about as consumable as a bag of potato chips. Remo and Chiun are just awesome. The best ones are the first dozen or so that were co-written by Warren Murphy and Richard Saphir, but even the ones after Saphir's untimely death are good.I never knew it was a book, I just thought it was an awesome movie.Remo Williams: You know, Chiun, there are times when I really like you. Chiun: Of course. I am Chiun. Remo Williams: And there are times when I could really kill you. Chiun: Good. We will practice that after dinner. And my favorite scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1rfCS7kwK8 "Lesson 22....blessed silence..."
If you think the movie was awesome, read the books - they are an order of magnitude awesomer.
Anyone here read the WEB Griffin novels? Any series better than others?
What about crime novels like whatsername Cornwall?
This is making me realize the lightest thing I have read in the past 15 years has been The Hitchhiker's Guide and Harry Potter. Otherwise I have gone through Clancy, Heinlein, Tolkien, among others. Currently on Game of Thrones and if I recharge my nook, the full 4K page version of Les Mis. Not exactly light reading.
Hal wrote: My authors of choice: Clive Cussler Tom Clancy Dick Francis (English Horse Racing whodunits) W.E.B. Griffin (Badge of Honor Series) Tony Hillerman (Southwestern Native American Cops) and lately I have picked up some James Patterson and Vince Flynn novels.
not just the Badge of Honor series … W.E.B. Griffin has 2 other series that were top notch …. The Corps, and The Brotherhood of War, and 2 other series that are good entertaining reads
stroker wrote: Anyone here read the WEB Griffin novels? Any series better than others? What about crime novels like whatsername Cornwall?
I've read them all … my choices, in order: 1) The Corps, 2) The Brotherhood of War, 3) Badge of Honor, after that to me the other 3 series are about equal … good reads, but none stand about the others
used book stores usually have these in bunches
If you are ok with some gore and language Scott Sigler has a few good reads, or better yet the author-read podcast audio book. Earthcore was good enough that I can't help checking status on the sequel every few weeks, and as a group Ancestor and the Infected series are a hard to put down way to waste away a weekend.
"Considering nature snubbed him cruelly by denying him a Korean birth, I am not entirely dissatisfied"
trucke wrote:Duke wrote: I always found the *Destroyer* series to be a hoot and about as consumable as a bag of potato chips. Remo and Chiun are just awesome. The best ones are the first dozen or so that were co-written by Warren Murphy and Richard Saphir, but even the ones after Saphir's untimely death are good.I have not heard the Destroyer series mentioned in years. In high school one of my best friends was a neighbor to Richard Saphir in Sandown, NH. We drooled every time he drove by in his 911. That is an awesome series.
Wow. The Destroyer series plus the The Executioner (Mack Bolan) were staples of my early Eighties reading. Throw in anything Shannara and you've got years of popcorn reading.
I read a few of the Executioners, but I found they didn't quite have the sense of humor that the Destroyer books did. For instance, chapter 2 in a Destroyer novel always starts out with "His name was Remo, and he was..." and also has nothing to do with the rest of the book.
One of my other staples was a series I was lucky enough to find at a local used book store - basically, each one was a novelization of a Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode, plus there were a bunch of others that never were scripts, just books. I must have had 40 or 50 of those, bought for a quarter each.
Tom Clancy novels are fantastic, if you "pretend" that he didn't write anything after The Bear and the Dragon, which is easy to do, because he really didn't.
Sky_Render wrote: Tom Clancy novels are fantastic, if you "pretend" that he didn't write anything after *The Bear and the Dragon*, which is easy to do, because he really didn't.
I'm not sure he wrote any after Red Storm Rising. They certainly went downhill after that...
stuart in mn said:John Sandford's Prey series of novels (Rules of Prey, Naked Prey, Silent Prey, etc.) are in a similar vein to Vince Flynn's books although his protagonist is a Minneapolis detective. As it happens both authors are from the Twin Cities area.
Funny this thread popped up after all these years. I've probably read over a dozen of Sandford's "Prey" novels, and am nearing the end of yet another. I've gotten to be something of a fan of Lucas Davenport and that berkeleying Flowers.
I started reading Elmore Leonard after my wife and started watching Justified. I have listened to a bunch of his Crime fiction stuff on Hoopla and really enjoyed them.
Louis L'amour. Wrote nearly 100 novels, several short story compilations, and a few non-fiction books.
Aaron_King said:I started reading Elmore Leonard after my wife and started watching Justified. I have listened to a bunch of his Crime fiction stuff on Hoopla and really enjoyed them.
I did that, too, but I found it strangely disappointing. My impression is EL uses pretty much the same six personality types under different character names in all the books I read...
In reply to stroker :
To a certain extent I agree with you, but I did enjoy the story telling enough to over look the rest. It is really interesting to see how many of his books/short stories have been made into movies.
In reply to Aaron_King :
I've only read a couple Elmore Leonard books and I enjoyed them. I've never liked it when a protagonist is too good, too perfect of a person, its annoying. In the EL Brooks I read the main character starts that way, and becomes a tool as the book goes on. Not a full on "bad guy" just kind of turns into a bit of a d-bag. It's weird when I say it like that, but it's fun to read.
Orphan X novels by Gregg Horwitz
May I offer some terrific old-school spy/thriller authors?
Alistair MacLean - author of Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, and a host of others that were movies when (or before) we were kids. Some good stuff, though formulaic and definitely has the invincible hero. Athabasca, The Golden Gate, all great airplane trip fodder.
Adam Hall - a pseudonym, but he's the author of the wonderful Quiller spy series. Sort of non-gun-carrying James Bond, though still brilliant and (more quietly) successful with women. One great feature is most of them are written in first-person, so you get to hear the spy's thoughts. Lots of hilarious asides. Also from the 1960s and 1970s, so dated by today's standards, but still great reading.
More serious novels come from Philip Caputo, who wrote some excellent war-related novels often focused around the Vietnam war and that 1960-1970s era.
And more votes for Tony Hillerman, Elmore Leanord, and Carl Hiassen (he and Leonard are thematically similar).
Should this thread tie in with the one about "Becoming a Famous Best-Selling Author" ??
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