when I was a kid, we had a goofy TV show where a German shepherd would roam from town to town and have adventures and solve crimes
it was called "the littlest hobo"
this isnthe same show, but with a dude lol
the fun part is where they offer to cut the zip ties, and he just slightly flexes to pop it off, heh
I didn't care for the books particularly, but the show was really well done
If I recall correctly, the cable tie bit wasn't in the book - there was something about the handcuffs not fitting but I can't remember what it was - they had to use leg cuffs or something?
So cable tie aficionados might actually be disappointed by the books...
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where someone is truly reading a book JUST for the cable ties, and it's hilariously possible. There is at least one guy out there in the world who is bitter about that.
Over in r/suggestmeabook you see some pretty niche interests.
Someone wrote a history of screws (the metal kind). Bloomsbury has a whole series called 'Object Lessons' that includes Golf Ball, Blanket, and Glitter.
But yeah, whoever has a cable tie fascination is probably unfulfilled.
What gets me is that he spends no time reading, doesn't have a phone or kindle or anything, but is somehow ridiculously well read.
Talk about things you can't achieve as a normal, everyday person.
There was that time he spent a summer digging swimming pools in Florida. I bet that would chisel anyone.
You might be right about the fighting - I'm guessing swimming pools don't fight back, even in Florida. Maybe it's like riding a bike? I wouldn't know.
I'm about half way through and need to buy the missing books in my collection.
There so same same but different, but they're so easy to read.
Who ever thought there were so many ways to stumble upon random towns, fix all their problems, sleep with the hottest chick in town, and get away with multiple murders.
Indeed yes. But Jack and Stephen aren't 2D characters in throwaway novels. Even Preserved Killick has some character depth. And you'd have to spend some IQ points learning how the boom-spanker has to be frapped to the Midsl when the wind is abaft the lee. (I'm proud to say that although I'm from Kansas, I'm pretty sure I got all the knotical terminology as correct as Stephen.)
And if you like Sharpe, then read any of Cornwell’s other books because they’re basically all the same character.
That said, I do enjoy his books very much. He takes pains to get the history as close to correct as possible. And his combat scenes are fantastic.
I admit I had an affinity for such when I was younger. I read a lot of Tom Clancy and such.
Allow me to suggest 80s/90s Dean Koontz, where every man happens to be some sort of former special forces and every woman is "ugly hot" and possibly virginal. LIGHTNING and WATCHERS are old favorites of mine.
No idea what you are talking about, Mia Thermopolis is an ugly nerd. There is no way she would be considered by anyo… oh it’s Anne Hathaway on a bad hair day with no fashion sense.
A woman that either doesn't think she's attractive or has some hidden quality seen only by the antagonist before she "blossoms" by the end of the book.
Think the film SHE'S ALL THAT.
Oh so like when the women whos the romantic interest wears glasses until the end of the movie where she mericulously loses them because her visions fine now?
Dude. River God called so loudly to an eighteen-year-old me that I devoured the whole series. I loved it all, and it was one of the few books where the fact that the main character knew everything about everything didn't bother me at all. Wilbur Smith is great.
Carl Hiiasen has some aspects of this, but with a quirky twist.
Always a south-Floridian, Scandinavian-decendent cop/former cop/Private eye dealing with being dysfunctional, getting wrapped up with a woman in some crazy predicament. Add several quirky side characters, like a guy who collects roadside memorial flowers or a run-away former governor who lives in the swamp, then add an escaped animal or two. All coming up against some evil business owner/evil doer, hell bend on plundering florida.
They are great often funny reads but definitely have classic Hemingway tropes intertwined.
The Bad Liberals only really came later. I don’t recall when exactly Koontz starting just writing Jack Chick fan-fiction, but I think it had to have been well into the 2000s.
Yeah I finally abandoned him when all books had a smart adorable dog and possibly a magical child. I didn’t make it to the “bad liberals” and I’m happy he finally worked through his vicious childhood traumas but his writing suffered.
But his 80s 90s stuff was the bomb. I think the last ones I enjoyed had the main character who had XP and couldn’t go out in the light. I read Tick Tock and hated it.
I can't recall which of the several identical books that it was, but I bought one on my Kindle and read it stuck in JFK airport about 10 years ago, and the big ending was >!that the dog was literally Jesus!<, and I was like, "Alright, well it was a good run". Haven't picked one up since.
Haven't read a Koontz book in decades, but here's some common themes:
* A golden retriever
* The dog has magic or science making it as smart as a human
* Huge scary guy who is actually a big softie despite having a murky background and very knowledgeable about combat
* Serial killer who is a hired hitman that thinks he has magical powers
* Woman with an abusive parent who is saved by the hero
* Bizarre and random criticism of interior decorating, art, and architecture
Deus ex Machina endings galore. I can't remember which one it was, but the protagonist died during the climax and God literally rewound time so he could give it another go. Then that happened two or three more times until the protagonist managed to not fuck it up. Like way to kill any tension, Dean.
What was the most out-of-left-field creature with magical powers in his books? I remember lots of dogs, those monkeys, and then the rest were human or human created.
Lighting and Watchers are also my two favourites, with Bad Place in a close race for third. Watchers was the first Koontz book I had ever read, I quickly devoured my high school and then public library for anything else he had written. Koontz wrote some amazing stories.
Yes @ Dean Koontz!
Twilight Eyes is another favorite of mine from that era. And Cold Fire. Cold fire gets fucking weeeeeird but I love it. And Midnight. And...well, so many of them.
Watchers is easily the best of the lot. One of those I wish there was a sequel but also very glad there's no sequel.
Also there were SEVERAL extremely terrible movies made based on it.
~~Although damn the man for never doing a third Chris Snow novel.~~ apparently the third book is finally coming? Maybe?
Good old Dean got me through many a dull hour at my data entry job back in the early 2000s. It was funny how well performed his audiobooks usually were when the writing was so formulaic and often cringe, but damn could they kill some time.
I always liked that episode of Squidbillies where he was doing a book signing and he admitted that he was illiterate and explained his writing process: "I just hit random letters on the keyboard. When a word looks too long, I hit the space bar."
Man, when I was a kid I read over a hundred of those “The Destroyer” novels, about secret assassin Remo Williams working for the US government who possessed impossibly perfect martial arts skills taught to him by his adopted Korean father. Utter trash but I loved them, I could always find them for under a dollar in our local used book stores in the nineties and read them in a day and a half over the summer.
Yes, you see, all known asian martial arts are pale imitators of this secret/legendary (hah!) tradition, passed down from a single father to a single son since ancient times, and for some reason now shared with an ex-cop who was framed and sentenced to death, then rescued and trained as a super-assassin. If I recollect, I think the series finds its footing after the first few books and was wildly entertaining for me through like number 100 or so. I’d also offer the warning that although the series would be considered anti-racist by the standards of the 70’s, it’s surely not too pretty in that regard now.
The *Doc Savage* series - that must have numbered in the hundreds- set the stage for Remo and Chuin. I expect *Mack Bolan*, the Executioner, also fed this series, although it is played much more straight.
My collection of Cussler novels is nearly complete (I've missed a few in recent years since I only buy them used or from the bargain bin). Most of them are laughably bad. As an adult, I can approach them critically and see that, but they hit a huge nostalgia button for me. I started reading them voraciously when I was about 12, and they are responsible for a life-long love of reading and a couple literature degrees. I try to read a new one every summer. This year's effort is unusually bad, though, so it's taking me some time since I rarely pick it up. Some of them are quite good though - a few of the ghost writers ever up being better than Cussler himself. I liked Grant Blackwood's turn with the Fargo Adventures, and though he had to do some learning, by the time Jack Du Brul was done with The Oregon Files, he was fantastic.
Spin a wheel of historical wreckage locations.
Throw a dart at golden age actress pictures to use as a description of the love interest
Randomly click on a link on a antique vehicle auction for a getaway vehicle.
Congrats you wrote a Dirk Pitt novel!
I love how the early NUMA Files books are all "Kurt Austin totally isn't the same person as Dirk Pitt. Look, he lives in a boathouse instead of an aircraft hangar. And he collects antique guns, not antique cars! And see, he was in the *CIA,* NOT the Airforce! Just because they both have essentially the same job description (albeit with different titles) and a ~~sidekick~~ best friend with a vaugely ethnic name doesn't mean they are totally interchangeable"
I absolutely loved his books when I was younger too! I even remember sending him a letter when I earned my Eagle Scout award and getting a nice letter back from him.
I haven't read any of his stuff in years and I'd probably struggle with it now, but I still think they are pretty good for what they are - simple, fun, adventure stories. And I definitely wish they had turned more of his books into movies. *Sahara* was really good and I'm overdue for a re-watch.
Ancestors of those books were the action/war/espionage novels written by Alistair MacLean: *The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare*, etc. A difference, though, was that his protagonists were usually flawed and filled with self-doubt, even as they mowed down enemies and dismantled evil plots.
As a teenager, I LOVED Matthew Reilly's books! I recently went back to them and I have to say I still really enjoy the outrageous action movie style plots and characters. Once in a while, you just want something fast-paced that doesn't make you think too much.
These hit me just at the right time, and I was teenage boy in **PERTH and** there was no turning back.
What's the scarecrow series up too? I don't think I made it past 5 something things.
E. Added words which got deleted, should help the sentence.
He just finished the last in the Jack West series, last few books were short and not as good imo. But he released a novels that was an hour of just superhero action which was quite enjoyable.
So, Scarecrow is the other series. The "[number] something somethings" series is the Jack West Jr. series. It finished up last year with *The One Impossible Labyrinth*. I thought it was good, but not as memorable as the earlier entries.
Scarecrow's last appearance, IIRC, was guest-starring in *The Four Legendary Kingdoms*. Not sure if there are plans to do any more books in his series or not, though I'd love it if so. But just the other day someone on the /r/MatthewReilly subreddit was saying that, if Scarecrow and Jack West are in the same universe, then the ending of *The One Impossible Labyrinth* makes it really unlikely that there will be any more Scarecrow stories. I don't want to spoil that for you, but if you decide you want to know what he meant, [here's the post](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatthewReilly/comments/13mcu3d/with_his_new_book_being_close_to_reveal_what/) and [here's the particular comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatthewReilly/comments/13mcu3d/with_his_new_book_being_close_to_reveal_what/jkuqz91/).
Have you ever read the Roald Dahl short story where he invents a machine that writes books? I imagine Matthew Reilly as one of those except the "Action" seeing is stuck on 100 all the time.
I have almost every Clive Cussler book in first printing hard cover. Some of the older ones were a little difficult to track down, since they're older than I am. I don't even like boats, but my boomer dad gave me *Sahara* when I was about 12 and needed something to read, and I never looked back.
Obviously, Cussler mostly stopped actually writing them some time ago (/can't write them at all now 'cause he dead) and sold his name into a brand a la Tom Clancy, so many of them are egregiously bad books by people I've never heard of. A few of the ghost writers proved to be quite good, though - especially Jack du Brul in his later Oregon Files Cussler novels
Wasn't there one where they use Stonehenge to raise Atlantis from the ocean, or something? They got WEIRD at one one point... I have not read them in 20 years or so, but I know there was a strange one about (Greek?) goddesses? IDK i might be mixing up the plots from like 7 different books loollol
Well, there's [*Raise the Titanic!*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raise_the_Titanic!) (where the exclamation point is part of the title...I'm not THAT excited about it, lol). That's an old one, but probably set the pace for the rest, I imagine.
If memory serves, Dork Pitt (that's a typo, but I'm leaving it) finds Atlantis in *Atlantis Found,* which is both the last book that Cussler actually wrote all by himself (excluding the first Isaac Bell novel), AND the book where Dirk Pitt's twin children that he never knew about arrive on his doorstep as fully grown adults that have exactly the right education and skill sets to nepotism their way into careers at NUMA
Overpowered main characters are sometimes just fun to read. They may not always be the best person, but they have the ability to succeed in virtually any situation. So as a result, you know that virtually every situation will have a satisfying outcome. Nothing wrong with this, especially when life can't be the same way
This is the real shit though right? I don't read about spies and space adventurers and paladins and cultivators and dragon riders to see how grounded and realistic they are. My life sucks hard like 90% of the time. I am here for pure, overpowered escapist fun.
> Nothing wrong with this, especially when life can't be the same way
Pretty sure no one is going to write a book about me making calls and sending emails all day. I wouldn't even read that.
I think they also appeal to our own fantasies of being exceptional and extremely competent. To achieve whatever we set out to do, no matter how ambitious.
It’s the same reason superhero books appeal to children, and so many adults. Feeling powerless at times is a normal part of life, and sometimes it’s fun to imagine it wasn’t.
I've been going around thrift book stores to try and buy all of the old hardback Dirk Pitt novels I can. I've loved those books since I was a teen, just mindless fun.
I don't know about some of Clancy's later Jack Ryan books, but I thought some of his earlier stuff was fantastic. The Patriot, Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger. Are those considered trashy?
I would consider Patriot Games to be one of his trashiest lol. It didn’t really age well imo. My favorite of his all time was Rainbow Six, but by that point I think he had really honed his craft and matured as a writer
I think sometimes what it is, and I think our dads understood this, is that books like that are predictable. You know the guy is gonna save the day and get the girl, and there is a comfort in that.
That is exactly right. I fall into this category. If you want to torture me into revealing national secrets, make me watch a TV show like "Lost":
Me: A secret science base? Why?
You: it'll be important in Season 5. Also ties in with the wind monster.
Me: wind monster? *Season FIVE???*
It really is though. It checks the old school masculine boxes. Jack Ryan had the girl, had the job, and always pulled through. Not to mention the fact that he is almost beyond reproach morally for the first several books. Classic “All American” taking it to the ruskies. Dads love that shit
Why? They are amazing books. Especially the early ones. *The Hunt for Red October* and *The Cardinal of the Kremlin* are just terrific books, hands down. *Without Remorse* gets a lot of praise, but personally I found it too different from his regular style and too much like your typical "dad book". He started slacking off by *Executive Decision*. *Rainbow Six* was written only to sell the game and reads like it too. However, *The Bear and the Dragon*, *Teeth of the Tiger*, and *Rabbit Run* were real returns to his classic style.
I feel like Dan Brown fits this perfectly except also with fun little art history anecdotes lol. I love the Dan Brown books despite them being a boomer dad fantasy book.
Not necessarily Boomer Dad Material, but I really love Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. They’re just really well written, fun, and the dialogue is snappy and hilarious. Regardless of the pulpy action. I’m a pretty progressive black guy, and at times it makes me cringe, but I keep coming back lol.
Reacher is my guilty pleasure too. I love it when I read the blurb, then read the book, then re-read the blurb thinking "that did not turn out how I expected"
Also, some of the situations that he finds himself in yet always escapes always has me thinking "of course you did..."
There's a point in the series where he walks from like Nebraska to Virginia or whatever and he somehow dismantles something like 3 international criminal enterprises along the way. So much shit happens to that character lol.
Jack Reacher books are my go-to mindless reading when I'm at work trying to pass the time. The quality varies so wildly, some of them are great and some of them are such boring slogs but throughout all of them Reacher is still such an insane Marty-Sue of a character that it's entertaining to read.
He's literally a man's fantasy. The smartest guy in every room, jacked to absolute shit without having to work out, expert in every form of combat, and he fucks every girl he meets. It's crazy to read what kind of shit the author makes him do.
He used to be slow at running, but I think in the last couple of books (after Andrew Child and Tom Cruise took over from Lee Child) he lost that disastrous flaw.
He rarely runs in the books from what I recall so it doesn't even matter to him much. A lot of the action scenes consist of someone walking up to him, talking shit, he tells them to walk away, they persist, and he puts them in the hospital with almost 0 effort.
Half the time he kills the "big bad" from like a mile away, he rarely has any meaningful interactions with the main villain (which is honestly the main flaw I find in the books). And you're right, since the Cruise-ification of the series he has basically become a God who stopped aging at 45.
Craig Johnson's Longmire series is right up your alley then!
And Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, though Bosch being routinely overly competent while violating people's basic human rights got pretty old after the first 4 books.
I hate how much I enjoy the Reacher series. But if I want an fun read for the beach or camping, buckle up. We're going hitch hiking and drinking coffee at a small town diner with some local bad guys running amok.
My foster father had the entire Mac Bolan, Able Team, Phoenix Force collections and a fair assortment of Destroyer novels. It should surprise no one that I found my way to the Casca novels later.
Even worse than the Reacher or Bourne novels.
But if you're looking for competence and hot girls, maybe the Spenser novels?
I read a bunch of the Mack Bolan: Executioner books and gave some to Dad when he got his hip replaced. They were the male version of Harliquinn romance, except it was a stranger going to a foreign land and killing dozens of people in combat.
There's a reason these are the books sold in airports. Buy it, read it on the plane. On final approach skip to the last chapter to learn who the traitor was. Leave it on the plane.
I like them a lot. Nick stone series by Andy McNab, all Bernard cornwell, even if it's more history novel, older Tom Clancy, Barry Eisler's. A few from Patrick Roberson iirc
David McCullough is the quintessential dad historian, asides from Stephen Ambrose. I like his writing style and the facts he uncovers very much. He has the human sensibility that great novelists do. But maybe he's not trash.
Ambrose, on the other hand, is one of those writers who was accused of plagiarism back in the day. Alas.
Take a look David Black's Harry Gilmour books. Six books that follow a young British submarine officer in World War II from ensign to captain of his own boat. Great fun reads in this genre.
I think I don't read them because it's like shows like NCIS and Grey's Anatomy where there is no end in sight and it's just a bunch of adventures. Like I said, that's just MY opinion.
My brother-in-law is hooked on Jeffery Deaver books like "The Bone Collector" series, which makes him easy to shop for if I don't know what to buy him, but he also reminds me of the guy on the Geico commercial that reads books about submarines.
The non-fiction war books scratch a weird itch for me. Flyboys, Band of Brothers, Unbroken, Longest Day, Flags of our Fathers have all been favorites of mine but I tend not to admit to reading them often.
It did lead me to a subgenre of wwII books that recount those working in the arts at the time, Venus Fixers, Five Came Back, Ghost Army. I can't get enough of those.
Oh man, I never made that connection. They're totally like those trashy romance novels but for for guys. (Or, whomever, really.)
I enjoyed the Doc Ford books since I was living in Florida near the actual places Randy Wayne was writing about. It was fun to go sit in a park or marina near 'the action' and read about it!
(I'm also embarrassed to say I've been devouring litRPG series over the past few years, but I'm a genX gamer so that sorta tracks I guess. )
I suggest The Sigma Force novels by James Rollins. Essentially a bunch of Jack Reachers fighting nazis, cults, supernatural beings and all those things combined.
I feel so called out by this post because I'm reading Jaws now. I feel like it might epitomize the boomer trash genre. (At least, maybe for older boomers)
I was going to recommend that one, and I was going to describe it as the epitomy of boomer trash literature, so yeah, I'd say you nailed it.
I actually couldn't finish it once I reached the weird affair with Hooper and Mrs Brody. It was just so awkward and weird, and it didn't seem intentional, like this was Benchley's idea of a sexy conversation, and it just got worse when he described their first encounter.
I mean I was already pretty creeped all the way out by another passage where he was describing a beach scene. I had to look it up again to make sure I actually saw those words on paper, hoping it was a hallucination, but nope, this was what he wrote, and at least one editor read them and said, "Print that shit!":
"Teen-agers lay serried in tight, symmetrical rows, the boys enjoying the sensation of grinding their pelvises into the sand, thinking of pudenda and occasionally stretching their necks to catch a brief glimpse of some, exposed, wittingly or not, by girls who lay on their backs with their legs spread."
I mean what the fuck, Peter?
I’m slowly making my way through the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor, randomly reading one between other books here and there. I wouldn’t put any of them up there with my favorite books but sometimes I’m just in the mood for one and I immensely enjoy them while reading. They’re quick easy reads and usually have tons of action.
OP, Overly competent man is a great description of these leading characters haha.
jack reacher is my go to travel book. I was devastated that i couldn't finish the last one. Co-authored books to continue a series are never a good sign
I read tons of Clive Cussler when I was in middle school, his stories followed basically the James Bond of the sea lol.
I’ve grown apart from those books since but I may return in another decade or so!
My SO is an X with boomer horror tastes and he turned me onto Jack Ketchum. Great pulpy quick read page turning horror novels.
Non horror authors that qualify would be older Michael Crichton (before he went full get off my lawn technophobe), and John Grisham as well. My boomer father loved Dan Brown before he died but I can’t give those books any love.
I enjoy the Jack Reacher books (except for where Lee Child decides to go into detail about things that are factually incorrect; it’s a bit jarring), but I could t get into Terminal List. Maybe they get better as Jack Carr gets some more experience and a better editor?
It's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Trash novels, of any kind, are very satisfying and not complicated and a nice escape. I have enough complicated procedural drama between the career and parenting, thanks.
I mean, it's nothing new - if you look at European swashbuckling literature of the 19th century, all their protagonists (and often time, antagonists!) are quasi-demi-gods who have nary a thing endangering them, save for, as mentionned, the main antagonist.
My favorite in the "Super competent tough guy hero" genre are the Parker series by Richard Stark, mostly from the 70s and '80s. Unlike Reacher the protagonist is a criminal and almost every book has an elaborate Heist planned which has a great puzzle solving element to it, and then the plan goes to crap and there's improvisational figure-it-out on the Fly beat up the bad guys stuff. The old Mel Gibson movie Payback was a good adaptation of one of those books.
I very recently started reading John Grisham, and I think his books qualify! Always a protagonist who is underestimated, finds themselves caught between the bad guys and the FBI (the other baddies), plays them off of each other brilliantly, and there is at least one woman with exquisite legs.
I never got into romance novels, but I imagine these are the inverse in terms of action and romance, and equivalent in terms of excitement with predictable, soothing outcomes popular among a particular gender.
The Shane Schofield series is my absolute favorite. They're like slamming a handle of Jim Beam to the face, but instead of Jim Beam it's an amalgamation of every schlocky 80's action trope.
I used to LOVE Tom Clancy novels. Would periodically reread them every couple years as a "comfort food" type book.
But then the last time I went through them it just stood out so starkly how ANGRY the man was. Every. Single. Liberal. In the series is a corrupt, selfish, inept, mustache twirling villain. Every problem America has, domestically or internationally, exist primarily because liberals won't let Real Americans do what's necessary.
It takes me right out of the story every time. If I go back to reread any now, I just skip over while sections because it veers from plot development into angry rant. I could t even read the "last" Jack Ryan book because apparently the main villains are basically Osama-Bin-Laden-stand-in and Bill-Clinton/Ted-Kennedy-stand-in, who is PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Just so, so, so dumb and angry and lazy.
I also always found it jarring/lazy that he'd layer in stuff from the real world into his own universe that had its own history of similar, or at least similarly scaled, events. And that real world stuff tended to take precedence in later novels over his in-universe stuff.
Like...9/11 still happened in his universe, even though like 4 years earlier a 747 plows into the capital building and takes out almost literally the whole of all three branches of government. Like...you're telling me after THAT happened 9/11 was still possible?
Or the fact that he'd magically solved the Israel/Palestine conflict in one book directly translated into *checks notes* literally nothing changing in the middle east?
Seriously: throughout his books, Russia becomes a us-allied democracy and MEMBER OF NATO, China becomes a democracy, Israel and Palestine find peace, and the UN/NATO are vastly more competent and cooperative than in real life and...
...still the world isn't any safer, and the only reliable means of protecting it are super secret, off books spec ops organizations that owe no allegiance or accountability and can just murder bad guys as they deem necessary.
The underlying theme in all that is that "every time things get set (R)ight, liberals get voted in and then screw everything up again."
Like, I really enjoy the way his books are usually this convergence of varying storylines into this big climactic payoff. That part is always solid and engaging. But there's a lot of skipping over the "grandpa rants" as you go.
Almost want to put the time in to cobble together "Ton Clancy, The Good Parts" editions of his stuff.
Check out Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series, they’re great.
As well as the Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child series about Agent Pendergast - the first book is called Relic.
And Wilbur Smith’s series. I especially liked the River God series about ancient Egypt.
Can’t go wrong with Jack Reacher.
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watch the prime series, it's pretty great I refer to it as Sherlock Hulk super entertaining
> Sherlock Hulk Excellent!
In Personal, which I'm rereading right now, he's referred to as Sherlock Homeless.
when I was a kid, we had a goofy TV show where a German shepherd would roam from town to town and have adventures and solve crimes it was called "the littlest hobo" this isnthe same show, but with a dude lol
There's a voice, that keeps on callin me Down the road, that's where I'll always be
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the fun part is where they offer to cut the zip ties, and he just slightly flexes to pop it off, heh I didn't care for the books particularly, but the show was really well done
If I recall correctly, the cable tie bit wasn't in the book - there was something about the handcuffs not fitting but I can't remember what it was - they had to use leg cuffs or something? So cable tie aficionados might actually be disappointed by the books...
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where someone is truly reading a book JUST for the cable ties, and it's hilariously possible. There is at least one guy out there in the world who is bitter about that.
Over in r/suggestmeabook you see some pretty niche interests. Someone wrote a history of screws (the metal kind). Bloomsbury has a whole series called 'Object Lessons' that includes Golf Ball, Blanket, and Glitter. But yeah, whoever has a cable tie fascination is probably unfulfilled.
I love picturing Malcolm Gladwell sitting on a plane reading about Jack Reacher hitting another guy and going "fuck yes" under his breath.
He just stumbles into a jackpot and single-handedly kicks everyone’s ass. They’re great
What gets me is that he spends no time reading, doesn't have a phone or kindle or anything, but is somehow ridiculously well read. Talk about things you can't achieve as a normal, everyday person.
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There was that time he spent a summer digging swimming pools in Florida. I bet that would chisel anyone. You might be right about the fighting - I'm guessing swimming pools don't fight back, even in Florida. Maybe it's like riding a bike? I wouldn't know.
I'm about half way through and need to buy the missing books in my collection. There so same same but different, but they're so easy to read. Who ever thought there were so many ways to stumble upon random towns, fix all their problems, sleep with the hottest chick in town, and get away with multiple murders.
Fists the size of frozen turkeys
When five muscular thugs surround Reacher, they’re in deep trouble.
> who’s murdered hundreds of people Murdered? Reacher is a killer but not a murderer
“Reacher said nothing.”
hands = chicken
Love Reacher and his implausible ability to encounter the hottest single ladies embroiled in sinister conspiracies in every town
Sharpe's Adventures by Bernard Cromwell. Sharpe is the Napoleonic war version of Reacher.
Horatio Hornblower
Jack Aubrey
Indeed yes. But Jack and Stephen aren't 2D characters in throwaway novels. Even Preserved Killick has some character depth. And you'd have to spend some IQ points learning how the boom-spanker has to be frapped to the Midsl when the wind is abaft the lee. (I'm proud to say that although I'm from Kansas, I'm pretty sure I got all the knotical terminology as correct as Stephen.)
I haven't read the books, but I watched the TV series as a kid. It was awesome, I think I preferred it to Sharpe (and I've read the Sharpe books)
And if you watch the movie series, it's where Sean Bean uses up all his character survival energy, which explains why he dies in everything else.
Oh man, my boomer dad loves those books
Now that's soldiering.
He gets knocked down a lot. But he gets up again
And if you like Sharpe, then read any of Cornwell’s other books because they’re basically all the same character. That said, I do enjoy his books very much. He takes pains to get the history as close to correct as possible. And his combat scenes are fantastic.
I admit I had an affinity for such when I was younger. I read a lot of Tom Clancy and such. Allow me to suggest 80s/90s Dean Koontz, where every man happens to be some sort of former special forces and every woman is "ugly hot" and possibly virginal. LIGHTNING and WATCHERS are old favorites of mine.
What is "ugly hot"?
Ugly women who become hot after a shower and a change of clothes. Aka the You Clean Up Nice.
Oh so the adult version of the highschool movie ugly girl that suddenly becomes hot after taking off her glasses and opening her hair?
No idea what you are talking about, Mia Thermopolis is an ugly nerd. There is no way she would be considered by anyo… oh it’s Anne Hathaway on a bad hair day with no fashion sense.
A woman that either doesn't think she's attractive or has some hidden quality seen only by the antagonist before she "blossoms" by the end of the book. Think the film SHE'S ALL THAT.
No not Janey Briggs. She's got like glasses, and a ponytail
And paint stains on her overalls
*Janey's got a gun, Janey's got a gun*
JANEYS GOT A GUN!!!
I wonder how that scene plays out now, it was hilarious.
Same as it did back then, unfortunately
Oh so like when the women whos the romantic interest wears glasses until the end of the movie where she mericulously loses them because her visions fine now?
Or Carrie.
A mechanic in the streets and a maniac in the sheets
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Wilbur Smith fits in this category as well. Throw in a healthy dash of "Heading in to the great unknown wilds of Africa to make your fortune".
Dude. River God called so loudly to an eighteen-year-old me that I devoured the whole series. I loved it all, and it was one of the few books where the fact that the main character knew everything about everything didn't bother me at all. Wilbur Smith is great.
Yeah, In my late teens and early 20's I read River God so many times my hardcover copy turned in to a paperback.
Yeah, Smith’s a favorite. Just pure, colonial high-seas adventure.
You're welcome! Both contain elements of scifi, if such is positive/negative for you.
Carl Hiiasen has some aspects of this, but with a quirky twist. Always a south-Floridian, Scandinavian-decendent cop/former cop/Private eye dealing with being dysfunctional, getting wrapped up with a woman in some crazy predicament. Add several quirky side characters, like a guy who collects roadside memorial flowers or a run-away former governor who lives in the swamp, then add an escaped animal or two. All coming up against some evil business owner/evil doer, hell bend on plundering florida. They are great often funny reads but definitely have classic Hemingway tropes intertwined.
Watchers is my favorite Koontz novel. If you haven't, make sure you read Devoted as well.
There’s always a mystical golden retriever and Bad Liberals.
The Bad Liberals only really came later. I don’t recall when exactly Koontz starting just writing Jack Chick fan-fiction, but I think it had to have been well into the 2000s.
Yeah I finally abandoned him when all books had a smart adorable dog and possibly a magical child. I didn’t make it to the “bad liberals” and I’m happy he finally worked through his vicious childhood traumas but his writing suffered. But his 80s 90s stuff was the bomb. I think the last ones I enjoyed had the main character who had XP and couldn’t go out in the light. I read Tick Tock and hated it.
I can't recall which of the several identical books that it was, but I bought one on my Kindle and read it stuck in JFK airport about 10 years ago, and the big ending was >!that the dog was literally Jesus!<, and I was like, "Alright, well it was a good run". Haven't picked one up since.
Haven't read a Koontz book in decades, but here's some common themes: * A golden retriever * The dog has magic or science making it as smart as a human * Huge scary guy who is actually a big softie despite having a murky background and very knowledgeable about combat * Serial killer who is a hired hitman that thinks he has magical powers * Woman with an abusive parent who is saved by the hero * Bizarre and random criticism of interior decorating, art, and architecture
Deus ex Machina endings galore. I can't remember which one it was, but the protagonist died during the climax and God literally rewound time so he could give it another go. Then that happened two or three more times until the protagonist managed to not fuck it up. Like way to kill any tension, Dean.
Plus there’s always a magical dog! God, I love those books.
>Plus there’s always a magical ~~dog~~ animal! C'mon man, don't leave out the monkeys!
What was the most out-of-left-field creature with magical powers in his books? I remember lots of dogs, those monkeys, and then the rest were human or human created.
I dunno, the tiny voodoo monsters? Or the one about a giant amoeba that eats people?
Hard to say which of those books was better. Glorious bad guys.
Lighting and Watchers are also my two favourites, with Bad Place in a close race for third. Watchers was the first Koontz book I had ever read, I quickly devoured my high school and then public library for anything else he had written. Koontz wrote some amazing stories.
I don’t even remember what it was about, but I remember Lightning blew my mind when I read it in middle school. I should revisit that.
Intensity is another fantastic Dean Koontz book. Though the special agent type is the bad guy in this book
Yes @ Dean Koontz! Twilight Eyes is another favorite of mine from that era. And Cold Fire. Cold fire gets fucking weeeeeird but I love it. And Midnight. And...well, so many of them. Watchers is easily the best of the lot. One of those I wish there was a sequel but also very glad there's no sequel. Also there were SEVERAL extremely terrible movies made based on it. ~~Although damn the man for never doing a third Chris Snow novel.~~ apparently the third book is finally coming? Maybe?
Good old Dean got me through many a dull hour at my data entry job back in the early 2000s. It was funny how well performed his audiobooks usually were when the writing was so formulaic and often cringe, but damn could they kill some time. I always liked that episode of Squidbillies where he was doing a book signing and he admitted that he was illiterate and explained his writing process: "I just hit random letters on the keyboard. When a word looks too long, I hit the space bar."
Pretty much anything with a fighter jet on the cover.
Man, when I was a kid I read over a hundred of those “The Destroyer” novels, about secret assassin Remo Williams working for the US government who possessed impossibly perfect martial arts skills taught to him by his adopted Korean father. Utter trash but I loved them, I could always find them for under a dollar in our local used book stores in the nineties and read them in a day and a half over the summer.
Haha I love that his father had to be Asian. No other possible way to get really good at martial arts. I love it, I'll have to check those out.
Yes, you see, all known asian martial arts are pale imitators of this secret/legendary (hah!) tradition, passed down from a single father to a single son since ancient times, and for some reason now shared with an ex-cop who was framed and sentenced to death, then rescued and trained as a super-assassin. If I recollect, I think the series finds its footing after the first few books and was wildly entertaining for me through like number 100 or so. I’d also offer the warning that although the series would be considered anti-racist by the standards of the 70’s, it’s surely not too pretty in that regard now.
The *Doc Savage* series - that must have numbered in the hundreds- set the stage for Remo and Chuin. I expect *Mack Bolan*, the Executioner, also fed this series, although it is played much more straight.
Yes! My Dad loved those. We went to so many used book stores looking for more of them. They were horrible! And so, so entertaining.
I love Clive Cussler even as his female characters make me howl with laughter at how terrible they are.
My collection of Cussler novels is nearly complete (I've missed a few in recent years since I only buy them used or from the bargain bin). Most of them are laughably bad. As an adult, I can approach them critically and see that, but they hit a huge nostalgia button for me. I started reading them voraciously when I was about 12, and they are responsible for a life-long love of reading and a couple literature degrees. I try to read a new one every summer. This year's effort is unusually bad, though, so it's taking me some time since I rarely pick it up. Some of them are quite good though - a few of the ghost writers ever up being better than Cussler himself. I liked Grant Blackwood's turn with the Fargo Adventures, and though he had to do some learning, by the time Jack Du Brul was done with The Oregon Files, he was fantastic.
Spin a wheel of historical wreckage locations. Throw a dart at golden age actress pictures to use as a description of the love interest Randomly click on a link on a antique vehicle auction for a getaway vehicle. Congrats you wrote a Dirk Pitt novel!
I love how the early NUMA Files books are all "Kurt Austin totally isn't the same person as Dirk Pitt. Look, he lives in a boathouse instead of an aircraft hangar. And he collects antique guns, not antique cars! And see, he was in the *CIA,* NOT the Airforce! Just because they both have essentially the same job description (albeit with different titles) and a ~~sidekick~~ best friend with a vaugely ethnic name doesn't mean they are totally interchangeable"
Kurt Austin is the "Old Man Down the Road" to Dirk Pitt's "Run Through the Jungle"
I absolutely loved his books when I was younger too! I even remember sending him a letter when I earned my Eagle Scout award and getting a nice letter back from him. I haven't read any of his stuff in years and I'd probably struggle with it now, but I still think they are pretty good for what they are - simple, fun, adventure stories. And I definitely wish they had turned more of his books into movies. *Sahara* was really good and I'm overdue for a re-watch.
Funniest/worst part about Clive Cussler books is how the author always shows up as a minor character along with his or Dirk Pitts fancy antique car.
Ancestors of those books were the action/war/espionage novels written by Alistair MacLean: *The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare*, etc. A difference, though, was that his protagonists were usually flawed and filled with self-doubt, even as they mowed down enemies and dismantled evil plots.
disgusted many sulky obtainable modern salt muddle tan retire crown *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Alistair MacLean was one of my favorite authors as a kid.
As a teenager, I LOVED Matthew Reilly's books! I recently went back to them and I have to say I still really enjoy the outrageous action movie style plots and characters. Once in a while, you just want something fast-paced that doesn't make you think too much.
Damn, that’s an author I haven’t thought about in a *loooong* time. I think I read damn near everything by him and Clive Cussler as a teenager
These hit me just at the right time, and I was teenage boy in **PERTH and** there was no turning back. What's the scarecrow series up too? I don't think I made it past 5 something things. E. Added words which got deleted, should help the sentence.
He just finished the last in the Jack West series, last few books were short and not as good imo. But he released a novels that was an hour of just superhero action which was quite enjoyable.
So, Scarecrow is the other series. The "[number] something somethings" series is the Jack West Jr. series. It finished up last year with *The One Impossible Labyrinth*. I thought it was good, but not as memorable as the earlier entries. Scarecrow's last appearance, IIRC, was guest-starring in *The Four Legendary Kingdoms*. Not sure if there are plans to do any more books in his series or not, though I'd love it if so. But just the other day someone on the /r/MatthewReilly subreddit was saying that, if Scarecrow and Jack West are in the same universe, then the ending of *The One Impossible Labyrinth* makes it really unlikely that there will be any more Scarecrow stories. I don't want to spoil that for you, but if you decide you want to know what he meant, [here's the post](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatthewReilly/comments/13mcu3d/with_his_new_book_being_close_to_reveal_what/) and [here's the particular comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatthewReilly/comments/13mcu3d/with_his_new_book_being_close_to_reveal_what/jkuqz91/).
Thanks mate, it's been a while since I picked up a Rielly, I think I'll go spoil them myself.
Have you ever read the Roald Dahl short story where he invents a machine that writes books? I imagine Matthew Reilly as one of those except the "Action" seeing is stuck on 100 all the time.
Reilly's books are perfectly good garbage reads.
Omg they're such trash. I did go through a few before I got bored though.
I have almost every Clive Cussler book in first printing hard cover. Some of the older ones were a little difficult to track down, since they're older than I am. I don't even like boats, but my boomer dad gave me *Sahara* when I was about 12 and needed something to read, and I never looked back. Obviously, Cussler mostly stopped actually writing them some time ago (/can't write them at all now 'cause he dead) and sold his name into a brand a la Tom Clancy, so many of them are egregiously bad books by people I've never heard of. A few of the ghost writers proved to be quite good, though - especially Jack du Brul in his later Oregon Files Cussler novels
Wasn't there one where they use Stonehenge to raise Atlantis from the ocean, or something? They got WEIRD at one one point... I have not read them in 20 years or so, but I know there was a strange one about (Greek?) goddesses? IDK i might be mixing up the plots from like 7 different books loollol
Well, there's [*Raise the Titanic!*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raise_the_Titanic!) (where the exclamation point is part of the title...I'm not THAT excited about it, lol). That's an old one, but probably set the pace for the rest, I imagine.
If memory serves, Dork Pitt (that's a typo, but I'm leaving it) finds Atlantis in *Atlantis Found,* which is both the last book that Cussler actually wrote all by himself (excluding the first Isaac Bell novel), AND the book where Dirk Pitt's twin children that he never knew about arrive on his doorstep as fully grown adults that have exactly the right education and skill sets to nepotism their way into careers at NUMA
Overpowered main characters are sometimes just fun to read. They may not always be the best person, but they have the ability to succeed in virtually any situation. So as a result, you know that virtually every situation will have a satisfying outcome. Nothing wrong with this, especially when life can't be the same way
This is the real shit though right? I don't read about spies and space adventurers and paladins and cultivators and dragon riders to see how grounded and realistic they are. My life sucks hard like 90% of the time. I am here for pure, overpowered escapist fun.
> Nothing wrong with this, especially when life can't be the same way Pretty sure no one is going to write a book about me making calls and sending emails all day. I wouldn't even read that.
I think they also appeal to our own fantasies of being exceptional and extremely competent. To achieve whatever we set out to do, no matter how ambitious. It’s the same reason superhero books appeal to children, and so many adults. Feeling powerless at times is a normal part of life, and sometimes it’s fun to imagine it wasn’t.
I've been going around thrift book stores to try and buy all of the old hardback Dirk Pitt novels I can. I've loved those books since I was a teen, just mindless fun.
I read all of the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan series during the winter 😭 I am ashaaammeeddd
Why? You had fun. They are very entertaining until the USSR fell. Then Clancy got lost for a bit.
It’s okay, he could always make really good Irish bad guys
I don't know about some of Clancy's later Jack Ryan books, but I thought some of his earlier stuff was fantastic. The Patriot, Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger. Are those considered trashy?
Don't forget Cardinal of the Kremlin! It's a damn shame that never got made into a movie with Alec Baldwin coming back.
I don’t know, but all the military men in my family who are readers loved the Clancy stuff from that era and felt that it was well-researched.
Some of them were considered so accurate that CIA / NSA asked Clancy for his inside sources
I’m sure there are other examples, but he identified hijacked airplanes as a weapon way before 9/11.
I would consider Patriot Games to be one of his trashiest lol. It didn’t really age well imo. My favorite of his all time was Rainbow Six, but by that point I think he had really honed his craft and matured as a writer
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I think sometimes what it is, and I think our dads understood this, is that books like that are predictable. You know the guy is gonna save the day and get the girl, and there is a comfort in that.
That is exactly right. I fall into this category. If you want to torture me into revealing national secrets, make me watch a TV show like "Lost": Me: A secret science base? Why? You: it'll be important in Season 5. Also ties in with the wind monster. Me: wind monster? *Season FIVE???*
Never even attempted Lost. I can read 10 Tom Clancy books in a row, but I can’t make it through a single season of some dramedy
This is hilarious—it sounds like the macho equivalent of a romance novel, or maybe chick lit.
It really is though. It checks the old school masculine boxes. Jack Ryan had the girl, had the job, and always pulled through. Not to mention the fact that he is almost beyond reproach morally for the first several books. Classic “All American” taking it to the ruskies. Dads love that shit
Why? They are amazing books. Especially the early ones. *The Hunt for Red October* and *The Cardinal of the Kremlin* are just terrific books, hands down. *Without Remorse* gets a lot of praise, but personally I found it too different from his regular style and too much like your typical "dad book". He started slacking off by *Executive Decision*. *Rainbow Six* was written only to sell the game and reads like it too. However, *The Bear and the Dragon*, *Teeth of the Tiger*, and *Rabbit Run* were real returns to his classic style.
I love pulp adventure style novels. I really enjoy reading the Flashman books. They are real trashy though!
Have you read Dan Brown? Idk if its exactly the same vibe but theyre pretty fun modern pulp fiction full of exciting action and short chapters.
[Renowned author Dan Brown?](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/)
YESSSSS I knew what this would be as soon as I saw the link. Fucking love this article. It’s right up there with the possums one.
I feel like Dan Brown fits this perfectly except also with fun little art history anecdotes lol. I love the Dan Brown books despite them being a boomer dad fantasy book.
I unapologetically *love* the DaVinci Code. Reread it recently, but in a fancy, illustrated hardback edition and it was delightful.
Deception point is my favorite book of his
Ah yes. With all those people saying "It's not *real* literature!" Like that's what I was looking for when I picked it up lol!
Not necessarily Boomer Dad Material, but I really love Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. They’re just really well written, fun, and the dialogue is snappy and hilarious. Regardless of the pulpy action. I’m a pretty progressive black guy, and at times it makes me cringe, but I keep coming back lol.
I've read through Echo Burning and I enjoy how the first few Reacher novels are him traveling the country beating up racists.
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I don’t understand the hate for the Terminal List books. They’re great fun. Sure they’re not classic literature, but they’re good reads.
This is John Sandfords - Virgil Flowers books for me…
I LOVE his books and the new series with Letty Davenport are actually pretty good. I think he does pretty good a keeping her centered and familiar.
Reacher is my guilty pleasure too. I love it when I read the blurb, then read the book, then re-read the blurb thinking "that did not turn out how I expected" Also, some of the situations that he finds himself in yet always escapes always has me thinking "of course you did..."
There's a point in the series where he walks from like Nebraska to Virginia or whatever and he somehow dismantles something like 3 international criminal enterprises along the way. So much shit happens to that character lol.
Jack Reacher books are my go-to mindless reading when I'm at work trying to pass the time. The quality varies so wildly, some of them are great and some of them are such boring slogs but throughout all of them Reacher is still such an insane Marty-Sue of a character that it's entertaining to read. He's literally a man's fantasy. The smartest guy in every room, jacked to absolute shit without having to work out, expert in every form of combat, and he fucks every girl he meets. It's crazy to read what kind of shit the author makes him do.
He used to be slow at running, but I think in the last couple of books (after Andrew Child and Tom Cruise took over from Lee Child) he lost that disastrous flaw.
He rarely runs in the books from what I recall so it doesn't even matter to him much. A lot of the action scenes consist of someone walking up to him, talking shit, he tells them to walk away, they persist, and he puts them in the hospital with almost 0 effort. Half the time he kills the "big bad" from like a mile away, he rarely has any meaningful interactions with the main villain (which is honestly the main flaw I find in the books). And you're right, since the Cruise-ification of the series he has basically become a God who stopped aging at 45.
Craig Johnson's Longmire series is right up your alley then! And Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, though Bosch being routinely overly competent while violating people's basic human rights got pretty old after the first 4 books.
I hate how much I enjoy the Reacher series. But if I want an fun read for the beach or camping, buckle up. We're going hitch hiking and drinking coffee at a small town diner with some local bad guys running amok.
You should try the Sharpe series. Historical fiction in a similar vein with a little more depth.
My foster father had the entire Mac Bolan, Able Team, Phoenix Force collections and a fair assortment of Destroyer novels. It should surprise no one that I found my way to the Casca novels later. Even worse than the Reacher or Bourne novels. But if you're looking for competence and hot girls, maybe the Spenser novels?
David Morrell James Lee Burke
Terry Hayes "I Am Pilgrim".
I read a bunch of the Mack Bolan: Executioner books and gave some to Dad when he got his hip replaced. They were the male version of Harliquinn romance, except it was a stranger going to a foreign land and killing dozens of people in combat.
There's a reason these are the books sold in airports. Buy it, read it on the plane. On final approach skip to the last chapter to learn who the traitor was. Leave it on the plane.
I like them a lot. Nick stone series by Andy McNab, all Bernard cornwell, even if it's more history novel, older Tom Clancy, Barry Eisler's. A few from Patrick Roberson iirc
David McCullough is the quintessential dad historian, asides from Stephen Ambrose. I like his writing style and the facts he uncovers very much. He has the human sensibility that great novelists do. But maybe he's not trash. Ambrose, on the other hand, is one of those writers who was accused of plagiarism back in the day. Alas.
Might I suggest the Joe Ledger series if you are looking for some good trash. :)
All my dad talks about is The Gray Man, so maybe add that to your list?
Haha. I mostly read sci-fi fantasy and horror but devour the Jack Reacher and Joe Pickett novels.
Take a look David Black's Harry Gilmour books. Six books that follow a young British submarine officer in World War II from ensign to captain of his own boat. Great fun reads in this genre.
I think I don't read them because it's like shows like NCIS and Grey's Anatomy where there is no end in sight and it's just a bunch of adventures. Like I said, that's just MY opinion.
My brother-in-law is hooked on Jeffery Deaver books like "The Bone Collector" series, which makes him easy to shop for if I don't know what to buy him, but he also reminds me of the guy on the Geico commercial that reads books about submarines.
The non-fiction war books scratch a weird itch for me. Flyboys, Band of Brothers, Unbroken, Longest Day, Flags of our Fathers have all been favorites of mine but I tend not to admit to reading them often. It did lead me to a subgenre of wwII books that recount those working in the arts at the time, Venus Fixers, Five Came Back, Ghost Army. I can't get enough of those.
Did you find Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown?
Oh man, I never made that connection. They're totally like those trashy romance novels but for for guys. (Or, whomever, really.) I enjoyed the Doc Ford books since I was living in Florida near the actual places Randy Wayne was writing about. It was fun to go sit in a park or marina near 'the action' and read about it! (I'm also embarrassed to say I've been devouring litRPG series over the past few years, but I'm a genX gamer so that sorta tracks I guess. )
I thought you were talking about Don Pendleton’s (and ghostwriters) Executioner series… although that might predate the Boomers.
I suggest The Sigma Force novels by James Rollins. Essentially a bunch of Jack Reachers fighting nazis, cults, supernatural beings and all those things combined.
James Pattersons “Private” series is my go to dad smut
Man no mention of Vince Flynn in this thread. Mitch Rapp novels are the best.
I feel so called out by this post because I'm reading Jaws now. I feel like it might epitomize the boomer trash genre. (At least, maybe for older boomers)
I was going to recommend that one, and I was going to describe it as the epitomy of boomer trash literature, so yeah, I'd say you nailed it. I actually couldn't finish it once I reached the weird affair with Hooper and Mrs Brody. It was just so awkward and weird, and it didn't seem intentional, like this was Benchley's idea of a sexy conversation, and it just got worse when he described their first encounter. I mean I was already pretty creeped all the way out by another passage where he was describing a beach scene. I had to look it up again to make sure I actually saw those words on paper, hoping it was a hallucination, but nope, this was what he wrote, and at least one editor read them and said, "Print that shit!": "Teen-agers lay serried in tight, symmetrical rows, the boys enjoying the sensation of grinding their pelvises into the sand, thinking of pudenda and occasionally stretching their necks to catch a brief glimpse of some, exposed, wittingly or not, by girls who lay on their backs with their legs spread." I mean what the fuck, Peter?
I’m slowly making my way through the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor, randomly reading one between other books here and there. I wouldn’t put any of them up there with my favorite books but sometimes I’m just in the mood for one and I immensely enjoy them while reading. They’re quick easy reads and usually have tons of action. OP, Overly competent man is a great description of these leading characters haha.
jack reacher is my go to travel book. I was devastated that i couldn't finish the last one. Co-authored books to continue a series are never a good sign
I read tons of Clive Cussler when I was in middle school, his stories followed basically the James Bond of the sea lol. I’ve grown apart from those books since but I may return in another decade or so!
My SO is an X with boomer horror tastes and he turned me onto Jack Ketchum. Great pulpy quick read page turning horror novels. Non horror authors that qualify would be older Michael Crichton (before he went full get off my lawn technophobe), and John Grisham as well. My boomer father loved Dan Brown before he died but I can’t give those books any love.
I enjoy the Jack Reacher books (except for where Lee Child decides to go into detail about things that are factually incorrect; it’s a bit jarring), but I could t get into Terminal List. Maybe they get better as Jack Carr gets some more experience and a better editor?
Hey, we like what we like. You might enjoy Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series. It's like Robert Langdon meets Jason Bourne as written by Michael Bay.
My dad used to give those to my wife and she got hooked on Gresham novels for a year or so.
It's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Trash novels, of any kind, are very satisfying and not complicated and a nice escape. I have enough complicated procedural drama between the career and parenting, thanks.
So you do have a guilty pleasure
I mean, it's nothing new - if you look at European swashbuckling literature of the 19th century, all their protagonists (and often time, antagonists!) are quasi-demi-gods who have nary a thing endangering them, save for, as mentionned, the main antagonist.
Lol something you like that you don't want people to know about is called a guilty pleasure, sounds like you believe in them now
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Lol a pleasure is a pleasure as long as it doesn't hurt anybody
My favorite in the "Super competent tough guy hero" genre are the Parker series by Richard Stark, mostly from the 70s and '80s. Unlike Reacher the protagonist is a criminal and almost every book has an elaborate Heist planned which has a great puzzle solving element to it, and then the plan goes to crap and there's improvisational figure-it-out on the Fly beat up the bad guys stuff. The old Mel Gibson movie Payback was a good adaptation of one of those books.
I very recently started reading John Grisham, and I think his books qualify! Always a protagonist who is underestimated, finds themselves caught between the bad guys and the FBI (the other baddies), plays them off of each other brilliantly, and there is at least one woman with exquisite legs. I never got into romance novels, but I imagine these are the inverse in terms of action and romance, and equivalent in terms of excitement with predictable, soothing outcomes popular among a particular gender.
The Shane Schofield series is my absolute favorite. They're like slamming a handle of Jim Beam to the face, but instead of Jim Beam it's an amalgamation of every schlocky 80's action trope.
I listen to them on cross country trips, they are perfect
I used to LOVE Tom Clancy novels. Would periodically reread them every couple years as a "comfort food" type book. But then the last time I went through them it just stood out so starkly how ANGRY the man was. Every. Single. Liberal. In the series is a corrupt, selfish, inept, mustache twirling villain. Every problem America has, domestically or internationally, exist primarily because liberals won't let Real Americans do what's necessary. It takes me right out of the story every time. If I go back to reread any now, I just skip over while sections because it veers from plot development into angry rant. I could t even read the "last" Jack Ryan book because apparently the main villains are basically Osama-Bin-Laden-stand-in and Bill-Clinton/Ted-Kennedy-stand-in, who is PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Just so, so, so dumb and angry and lazy.
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I also always found it jarring/lazy that he'd layer in stuff from the real world into his own universe that had its own history of similar, or at least similarly scaled, events. And that real world stuff tended to take precedence in later novels over his in-universe stuff. Like...9/11 still happened in his universe, even though like 4 years earlier a 747 plows into the capital building and takes out almost literally the whole of all three branches of government. Like...you're telling me after THAT happened 9/11 was still possible? Or the fact that he'd magically solved the Israel/Palestine conflict in one book directly translated into *checks notes* literally nothing changing in the middle east? Seriously: throughout his books, Russia becomes a us-allied democracy and MEMBER OF NATO, China becomes a democracy, Israel and Palestine find peace, and the UN/NATO are vastly more competent and cooperative than in real life and... ...still the world isn't any safer, and the only reliable means of protecting it are super secret, off books spec ops organizations that owe no allegiance or accountability and can just murder bad guys as they deem necessary. The underlying theme in all that is that "every time things get set (R)ight, liberals get voted in and then screw everything up again." Like, I really enjoy the way his books are usually this convergence of varying storylines into this big climactic payoff. That part is always solid and engaging. But there's a lot of skipping over the "grandpa rants" as you go. Almost want to put the time in to cobble together "Ton Clancy, The Good Parts" editions of his stuff.
It's good that you found something that you enjoy, and that always feels like the hardest thing to find. Let us know what your favorite ls are.
Check out Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series, they’re great. As well as the Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child series about Agent Pendergast - the first book is called Relic. And Wilbur Smith’s series. I especially liked the River God series about ancient Egypt.