Totally agree — it's fascinating how the idea of the "author" has evolved into more of a brand in many cases. With names like Tom Clancy or James Patterson, it feels less like you're buying a book by a person and more like you're buying into a particular formula or universe that carries their name. It’s a whole publishing machine.
And you're right — this isn't new. The Dumas/Maquet example is perfect. Even back then, storytelling was often a collaborative (or outsourced) effort, even if only one name went on the cover. Same with Robert Jordan and Sanderson — at least that handoff was transparent and handled with a lot of care and respect.
As for Tolkien, yeah… when new “lost” works keep appearing decades after an author’s death, it does make you wonder how much was truly finished or even written by them in the first place. But ultimately, as long as the stories resonate and there's an audience for them, I doubt this practice will ever go away.
Maturin
Sköldpadda
Read The Tusks of Exctinction (2024) by Ray Nayler.
Science fiction thriller about mammoths brought back from the dead - led by the human consciousness of a 100-year dead elephant expert transferred into a mammoth-brain... Decent read.
Also read The Year of the Locust (2023) by Terry Hayes.
Hayes is primarily a screenwriter whose credits include Mad Max 2. This is his second novel after the acclaimed I Am Pilgrim (2013), which I have not yet read. And knowing nothing about it, I went in blind. Turns out it is a tight Tom Clancy-esque spy thriller - really good, for about 250 of the almost 700 pages. Then it turns into weirder territory before it goes bonkers - off the rails completely.
It is a truly fascinating work of fiction. Initially announced in 2014, sampled with chapters and blurbs which have since been rewritten completely and countless delays. What happened? I would really want to know. Blake Crouch is a very suitable comparison for the latter half of this novel (technothriller/science fiction).
Reception has been very mixed. I have to say I liked it a lot still, despite the jarring genre-shift and less than stellar logic in places. I wasn't bored once, and the action and tension is pretty damn good throughout. A sprawling, fascinating work. Can't stop thinking about how this came to be or the story I just experienced.
Science fiction thriller about mammoths brought back from the dead - led by the human consciousness of a 100-year dead elephant expert transferred into a mammoth-brain... Decent read.
Also read The Year of the Locust (2023) by Terry Hayes.
Hayes is primarily a screenwriter whose credits include Mad Max 2. This is his second novel after the acclaimed I Am Pilgrim (2013), which I have not yet read. And knowing nothing about it, I went in blind. Turns out it is a tight Tom Clancy-esque spy thriller - really good, for about 250 of the almost 700 pages. Then it turns into weirder territory before it goes bonkers - off the rails completely.
It is a truly fascinating work of fiction. Initially announced in 2014, sampled with chapters and blurbs which have since been rewritten completely and countless delays. What happened? I would really want to know. Blake Crouch is a very suitable comparison for the latter half of this novel (technothriller/science fiction).
Reception has been very mixed. I have to say I liked it a lot still, despite the jarring genre-shift and less than stellar logic in places. I wasn't bored once, and the action and tension is pretty damn good throughout. A sprawling, fascinating work. Can't stop thinking about how this came to be or the story I just experienced.
There was a similar book I read last year about a nature reserve where they had prehistoric animals, and then it turned out that in an underground facility they were breeding Neanderthals. It tried a bit too hard to be grounded in reality, with a premise like that it really only becomes fun when it goes over the top.
Magnus
Pica Serdica
I find this idea disturbing to the extreme.
Maturin
Sköldpadda
Read With a Vengeance (2025) by Riley Sager.
Todd Ritter is not a good writer, and with his pseudonym he's riding a wave of popular thriller/mystery novels penned by women. That this sort of guy writes very cynically thought out stories based on tropes, is of no surprise at all. Here he riffs on Agatha Christie, with a very over-the-top whodunit set in the 1950s on a train going across America.
This is a very bad novel, but it is very interesting from a meta perspective. It's so bad it's good. Premise, like always, is great and intriguing - writing and twists are not. I will probably read the next Riley Sager-novel as well... He actually did really well with The Only One Left (2023).
Also read I Am Pilgrim (2013) by Terry Hayes.
Almost 900 pages, this is a great epic spy-thriller combined with crime fiction. I enjoyed this a whole lot, might not be rooted much in a realism but is incredibly entertaining and a well-written story with a, for the genre, excellent narrative voice. Like Homeland, Tom Clancy etc.? This is for you.
Todd Ritter is not a good writer, and with his pseudonym he's riding a wave of popular thriller/mystery novels penned by women. That this sort of guy writes very cynically thought out stories based on tropes, is of no surprise at all. Here he riffs on Agatha Christie, with a very over-the-top whodunit set in the 1950s on a train going across America.
This is a very bad novel, but it is very interesting from a meta perspective. It's so bad it's good. Premise, like always, is great and intriguing - writing and twists are not. I will probably read the next Riley Sager-novel as well... He actually did really well with The Only One Left (2023).
Also read I Am Pilgrim (2013) by Terry Hayes.
Almost 900 pages, this is a great epic spy-thriller combined with crime fiction. I enjoyed this a whole lot, might not be rooted much in a realism but is incredibly entertaining and a well-written story with a, for the genre, excellent narrative voice. Like Homeland, Tom Clancy etc.? This is for you.
Magnus
Pica Serdica
I mean, mammoths brought back is bad enough, but the elephant expert part gave me nightmares last night.
Maturin
Sköldpadda
Read None of This is True (2023).
A beach read, fast simple and not much substance. I like the idea of a thriller framed through a Netflix documentary based on the events... But for this sort of book to be fun it needs some crazy twists, and this book had none that weren't already obvious.
A beach read, fast simple and not much substance. I like the idea of a thriller framed through a Netflix documentary based on the events... But for this sort of book to be fun it needs some crazy twists, and this book had none that weren't already obvious.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
Just re-read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, it’s still fun.
Maturin
Sköldpadda
Read Damascus Station (2021) by David McCloskey, a spy thriller by a former CIA analyst. Does step into melodrama a bit too much to be regarded as realistic, but a very entertaining read nonetheless.
Also read Black Sun (2019) by Owen Matthews, a historical thriller set in the last few days before the Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb test in Soviet Russia in 1961. A heavily fictionalized murder investigation by KGB officer Alexander Vasin (the name of the author's real life uncle, as I understood it) takes us slowly through the power struggles of Cold War Russia and the nuclear weapon's program. Maybe not the best book I ever read, but intriguing concept and I have already ordered the other two books in this trilogy...
Currently reading The Book of Elsewhere (2024) by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville. A stand-alone novelisation of Reeves' BRZRKR comic books, and God did he pick the right author to work with. This is an avantgarde work, experimenting with language and narrative in Miéville's trademark style but also a proper science fiction/super-hero/fantasy story for the masses. Halfway through and I love it so far.
Also read Black Sun (2019) by Owen Matthews, a historical thriller set in the last few days before the Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb test in Soviet Russia in 1961. A heavily fictionalized murder investigation by KGB officer Alexander Vasin (the name of the author's real life uncle, as I understood it) takes us slowly through the power struggles of Cold War Russia and the nuclear weapon's program. Maybe not the best book I ever read, but intriguing concept and I have already ordered the other two books in this trilogy...
Currently reading The Book of Elsewhere (2024) by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville. A stand-alone novelisation of Reeves' BRZRKR comic books, and God did he pick the right author to work with. This is an avantgarde work, experimenting with language and narrative in Miéville's trademark style but also a proper science fiction/super-hero/fantasy story for the masses. Halfway through and I love it so far.
Edington
Last Son of The Miracle
Read a few Stephen King/Richard Bachman's, The Long Walk, Cujo and The Running Man.
The Long Walk I enjoyed. Brisk, got straight to it, didn't waste a moment, it started with the beginning of the Walk and ended when the Walk ended, boom, done, I finished it in a day and a half. I think it could've done with a little bit of fleshing out of the world, there were a few little titbits in there that suggested this world was quite different to our own (obviously, we don't make teenagers walk to their deaths) but they were quick, throwaway lines, and I guess it made sense that teenagers wouldn't be totally clued up on the world around them.
Cujo I also enjoyed, but slightly less so. There were a few moments that distracted from the main plot, once Charity and Brett went off to another state I really didn't care what was going on with them and found it of no consequence to what was going on with Cujo.
Next up, The Running Man.
The Long Walk I enjoyed. Brisk, got straight to it, didn't waste a moment, it started with the beginning of the Walk and ended when the Walk ended, boom, done, I finished it in a day and a half. I think it could've done with a little bit of fleshing out of the world, there were a few little titbits in there that suggested this world was quite different to our own (obviously, we don't make teenagers walk to their deaths) but they were quick, throwaway lines, and I guess it made sense that teenagers wouldn't be totally clued up on the world around them.
Cujo I also enjoyed, but slightly less so. There were a few moments that distracted from the main plot, once Charity and Brett went off to another state I really didn't care what was going on with them and found it of no consequence to what was going on with Cujo.
Next up, The Running Man.
Azas
Stardust
When I was a kid, I stumbled upon J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or There and Back Again in my school library. Reading it was nothing short of a revelation. The story felt so different, so magical—it was pure enjoyment, and I read it at just the right time (around 6–10 years old for the first time). Deep down, I think I actually rate The Hobbit higher than The Lord of the Rings, which I only read in my late twenties. The Lord of the Rings struck me as more "historical", weighty, even somber, whereas The Hobbit was pure fantasy in its essence. Although The Lord of the Rings movies are GREAT, The Hobbit films really aren’t all that great.
I also hold The Silmarillion in very high regard. It’s not entertainment in the usual sense, but the world-building is so rich and fascinating that it reads almost like a Bible.
In my teenage years, I was completely devoured by Stephen King’s books. That was truly something. But now, his newer works feel rather meh to me. I think I’ve outgrown him, while the master has more or less stayed in his lane.
I also hold The Silmarillion in very high regard. It’s not entertainment in the usual sense, but the world-building is so rich and fascinating that it reads almost like a Bible.
In my teenage years, I was completely devoured by Stephen King’s books. That was truly something. But now, his newer works feel rather meh to me. I think I’ve outgrown him, while the master has more or less stayed in his lane.
Edington
Last Son of The Miracle
Not really "new" anymore, but I tried Doctor Sleep a while back and barely made it a quarter of the way through, whereas The Shining and Misery - which I'd read just prior to Doctor Sleep - had me gripped from the start. I'm enjoying this long-overdue little dig into his work, but I think I'll stick with his older material.
I actually really want to read Rage. I've heard that, despite it's unfortunate connections with real tragedies, there is a good message in the story about dealing with anger and negative emotions, and it's generally a good story, but I understand why it's been buried. Maybe I'll find it somewhere.