Reading recommendations?

[stillsostrange]

Can anyone recommend any good thrillers? Ones that thrill, preferably? Pacing is my big thing to kick right now, and I'd like to see how other people produce page-turniness.

They don't have to be "thrillers", I suppose, as long as they do in fact thrill.

Any suggestions?

Comments

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

"Declare" by Tim Powers?

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I almost hate to suggest these, but you may want to try Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code. Whatever you think of the subject matter, they are runaway bestsellers with reputations as "page-turners". And their pacing is pretty quick throughout.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Did you find the subject matter to be the awful part? Because for me it was the prose, to the point where I could not read past the prolog of The DaVinci Code. Even that made me shriek an average of five times a page, I think.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Reply to you and Sosostris both: Actually the subject matter of the books didn't bother me at all. But there was so much talk about it, and I wasn't hearing anything about the prose (obviously I wasn't listening enough), that I thought there must've been something good about the text that I was simply missing. I need to trust my instincts more. :)

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Not so much shrieking for me as winces and giggling. That was some bad prose. You didn't even make it to the manly dimple.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I picked up Angels and Demons, but the prose mostly made me cough up hairballs. Pacing is moot if I can't stand the sentences.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What I have been reading to learn pacing is Anthony Price (The Labyrinth Makers is the first one) and Peter O'Donnell (Modesty Blaise is the first one). Actually I've been reading them because dd_b spoils me with books, but the pacing thing is a nice side effect.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Daniel Silva, and John D. Macdonald's Travis Mcgee books. Can't go wrong with those.

[kendwoods.livejournal.com]

I can email you Jubilee if you like. Chris bitched cause he couldn't put it down, and stayed up late into the night. Melissa took it with her when her husband drove her to Target and walked around the house reading it with a baby on her shoulder.

As for likeing the prose, that's a crap shoot I guess, lol.

Not fishing for a crit, because it's at the publisher and a little late for that, lol, just thought you might be interested in taking a gander.

:-)

Let me know.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Sure. I liked the chapters I read on the workshop.

exoblivione at gmail

Thanks. :)

[bloodwedding.livejournal.com]

I was looking through my collection and I'm not sure I read much in the "Thriller" genre, although I have a few books that were definitely well-paced. One out and out thriller I can heartily recommend (if you haven't already read it) is "the Hot Zone" by Richard Preston. Lots of tension, lots of gore (fair warning to anyone else about to take this recommendation), and based on a true story. Gotta love uncurable virulent airborne diseases that kill within hours of infection. Mmmm. Mmmm. Good!