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Robert Ludlum had many that were great. The original Bourne Identity got my family hooked. Beware the post death authorized books David Morrel also had some go

Robert Ludlum had many that were great. The original Bourne Identity got my family hooked. Beware the post death authorized books David Morrel also had some good ones. Brotherhood of the Rose was great.

travisgriggs 3y ago
Parsifal Mosaic was one of my favorite Ludlum books outside the obvious Bourne books (which actually got a little tired after the 3rd or 4th when he was “returning” as the mentor)
what-no-tests 3y ago
Robert Ludlum's "The Prometheus Deception" has so many plot twists...my favorite of his. Also Le Carre's "The Russia House" is my favorite, and has such great prose. More of a love story maybe, but the subtexts are really a thing of beauty in that work.
stonogo 3y ago
I was an avid Ludlum reader in my youth and recently revisited them. I was blown away by the cultural shift since then. His protagonists spends half the books arranging to use payphones and rent cars in an anonymous way. I can't tell if the job has got easier or harder since those largely stopped being possible.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Or the dozen hand signatures required at the Swiss banks to unlock vast resources…
wkat4242 3y ago
Same with Tom Clancy's. He wrote some pretty genius books with original stories and then it turned into a bunch of series that were nothing than drivel by other authors, like "op center". Even now they stamp his name on games and series he had nothing to do with. I wish that would be illegal, writing a book under the name of someone who had nothing to do with it. Ps the second Bourne book was soooo much better than the movie and so completely different. From the major events with characters (not wanting to spoil) to the setting in Hong Kong.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  Tom Clancy was my favorite author, I think authors sign contracts that let some entity use their name and it turns into a brand. The Jack Ryan books after he passed or had other writers weren’t that good. How far can you go after the main character becomes President? I did stumble onto one of those authors, Mark Greaney, who wrote The Gray Man series of novels (the netflix movie is not a good representation at all). Spy/action thrillers, main character is CIA “ground branch” type, not a chess match kind of spy.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yeah they should stop that "branding" rights thing IMO. The books after he died were pure drivel. Like they were secreted by the authors from some kind of gooey gland in their brain. All kinda the same, like that op center and rainbow six stuff. The reason I read a few of them was that I didn't realise they were not written by him at the time and I thought they'd get better. But they didn't of course, they only got worse.
    - nocoiner 3y ago
      I thought and continue to think early Clancy is excellent — basically everything that became a movie with Harrison Ford or Alec Baldwin, plus “Red Storm Rising” — but even before he brought in the ghost authors, his reactionary politics started to get in the way of the stories. Yeah yeah, I can stand a feckless Democratic pol who just cares about getting elected as a dramatic fool/foil, but as I recall his last solo works went way beyond that and just got kind of tediously offensive for anyone who didn’t share his particular politics (even accounting for the typical politics of the average writer of military fiction). It was actually kind of a surprising turn, because Tom Clancy on TV on the day of 9/11 was one of the most level-headed commentators about the vast majority of Muslims (i.e., not terrorists). And there’s a video of him presenting at the NSA in the mid ‘80s that shows him to be a very bright, very funny, very personable guy. Got the sense that in his later years, American politics just started to make him angry, and in my view it adversely affected his work. But at his peak, he was damn fine at his craft.

travisgriggs 3y ago

Parsifal Mosaic was one of my favorite Ludlum books outside the obvious Bourne books (which actually got a little tired after the 3rd or 4th when he was “returning” as the mentor)

what-no-tests 3y ago

Robert Ludlum's "The Prometheus Deception" has so many plot twists...my favorite of his. Also Le Carre's "The Russia House" is my favorite, and has such great prose. More of a love story maybe, but the subtexts are really a thing of beauty in that work.

stonogo 3y ago

I was an avid Ludlum reader in my youth and recently revisited them. I was blown away by the cultural shift since then. His protagonists spends half the books arranging to use payphones and rent cars in an anonymous way. I can't tell if the job has got easier or harder since those largely stopped being possible.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
Or the dozen hand signatures required at the Swiss banks to unlock vast resources…

wkat4242 3y ago

Same with Tom Clancy's. He wrote some pretty genius books with original stories and then it turned into a bunch of series that were nothing than drivel by other authors, like "op center". Even now they stamp his name on games and series he had nothing to do with. I wish that would be illegal, writing a book under the name of someone who had nothing to do with it. Ps the second Bourne book was soooo much better than the movie and so completely different. From the major events with characters (not wanting to spoil) to the setting in Hong Kong.

mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
Tom Clancy was my favorite author, I think authors sign contracts that let some entity use their name and it turns into a brand. The Jack Ryan books after he passed or had other writers weren’t that good. How far can you go after the main character becomes President? I did stumble onto one of those authors, Mark Greaney, who wrote The Gray Man series of novels (the netflix movie is not a good representation at all). Spy/action thrillers, main character is CIA “ground branch” type, not a chess match kind of spy.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yeah they should stop that "branding" rights thing IMO. The books after he died were pure drivel. Like they were secreted by the authors from some kind of gooey gland in their brain. All kinda the same, like that op center and rainbow six stuff. The reason I read a few of them was that I didn't realise they were not written by him at the time and I thought they'd get better. But they didn't of course, they only got worse.
  - nocoiner 3y ago
    I thought and continue to think early Clancy is excellent — basically everything that became a movie with Harrison Ford or Alec Baldwin, plus “Red Storm Rising” — but even before he brought in the ghost authors, his reactionary politics started to get in the way of the stories. Yeah yeah, I can stand a feckless Democratic pol who just cares about getting elected as a dramatic fool/foil, but as I recall his last solo works went way beyond that and just got kind of tediously offensive for anyone who didn’t share his particular politics (even accounting for the typical politics of the average writer of military fiction). It was actually kind of a surprising turn, because Tom Clancy on TV on the day of 9/11 was one of the most level-headed commentators about the vast majority of Muslims (i.e., not terrorists). And there’s a video of him presenting at the NSA in the mid ‘80s that shows him to be a very bright, very funny, very personable guy. Got the sense that in his later years, American politics just started to make him angry, and in my view it adversely affected his work. But at his peak, he was damn fine at his craft.