Thread: Franchise thrillers - what do you think?

I have a pet hate, no a deep sadness when I see my favourite authors going down this line. the worst offenders are Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler. Cussler has so many spin-offs supposedly written by him and a friend and now even his son.

Am I alone in feeling frustrated by this lazy cynical way of writing?

Hey maybe it just me, these books sell like hot cakes do they not?

If I was getting the money Tom Clancy is, I probably wouldn't care. He's already written something like twenty-odd novels of his own. I suppose there are that many people writing spin-offs that he just decided to cash-in on it.

I guess so. I would love to know what if anything the headline writer contributes to these novels.

Probably just their name.

So it's really just like legitimate, published fan fictions?

I dunno, I guess it depends on if the writing is good. If they're closely connected to the original author then he or she wouldn't want their good name dragged down, so they must approve on some level. Then it's just sorting out who's so flattered they've gone blind, and who's got real talent, maybe even better than the original author for some aspects. I've seen a couple where there was better character development than in the originals, presumably because the other author was going to such pains to capture the characters properly - and also seen somewhere they focus on side characters and develop them instead. If the clues for what they expanded are in the original texts it can enhance the reading of the originals as well.

Cussler spin offs are readable beach fodder but once you read a few in each series the formulaic production line writing style becomes tiresome. It is just dissapointing when a writer who had showed such imagination in his early work would put his name to these but hey business is business

I'm with you here, sport, if I see Tom Clancy on the cover I want to read Tom Clancy's writing in the pages. I don't like the idea of this at all (even if it works) the principle of the thing bothers me. I've been fooled by it before, I read the Ambler Warning which is purported on the cover to be a Robert Ludlem book. Honestly, it was an excellent read and it could have been written by him. I found out later that it is one of these franchised novels, though and I still felt kind of ripped off. After all, you're paying for the name on the cover (that's what makes it a lucrative franchise) and the mind behind it, that talent, that style.

It just bugs me that it is, in essence, a lie. And I paid for it! (Well, not much...I found the book at the thrift shop for fifty cents...I'm one of the last big spenders!) However, I stopped reading Tom Clancy when his books started to be written by other people.

Eric van Lustbader writes most of "Ludlum's" stuff these days, Foxee. He's a solid writer himself, but in my opinion he doesn't have that panache and ability that Ludlum had in his prime. Still, a worthwhile read if you're a fan of Ludlum's work, but I can understand the frustration at buying a novel you think is written by Clancy or Ludlum and then realising it isn't. Although, where Clancy is concerned, it was no real harm that he stopped writing. His last novel was among the worst thrillers I've ever read.

As a writer struggling to get published I find this cynical use of famous writers names rather irritating

I suppose you could just find a famous name and be like, "Hey there... You like?" and offer them a draft.

What? I'm sure it's a way to get started off, if nothing else... Maybe I don't have much brand loyalty, but I find that as long as the writing is enjoyable, I can't really make myself care who wrote it... It's just another name.

Thats true but these franchise books are never as good as certainly the early works of these writers.