Samuel ’s Comments (group member since Aug 25, 2013)

Samuel ’s comments from the Thriller Chat with Chris Allen group.

Finished "Delivering Caliban" by Tim Stevens, fantastic spy novel with a touch of medical techno-thriller in between. Also finished The Widow's Strike by Brad Taylor, highly eye opening on the dangers of virus experimentation with no oversight.
Delivering Caliban

Absolutely Steve. All the great thriller writers who defined the genre for generations, Robert Ludlum (actor), Tom Clancy (insurance salesman) Fredrick Forsyth (Journalist) did not have military experience and yet sold millions of thrillers. Instead, they relied on good research, asking the right people for data to put into their books, Clancy went to his neighbours who were former US Navy and came up with The Hunt For Red October, Forsyth had made friends with Charles De Gaulle's bodyguards and made The Day Of The Jackal while Ludlum had friends in the CIA from his college days and came up with the Jason Bourne trilogy and numerous other works.

So you don't have to have fired a gun or gone to war to make the action in your books realistic, just do the right research (reading war memoirs is a good start by the way :) and/or find people who have had the proper experiences to go over your drafts to tell you if the action is realistic enough.

1) "Osama" by Chris Ryan. Locations are easy to film (mostly takes place in the UK), the action is very realistic and doesn't need too many special effects and the time frame of the novel makes it very suitable for TV instead of film.

2) David Baldacci's "The Innocent". mostly takes place in Washington DC with only two foreign locations (Scotland and Morocco) that can be faked easily enough, the plot has many good twists for episodes and the cast of characters will be excellent if the source material is not neglected.

3) Transfer Of Power by Vince Flynn. the time frame the novel takes is excellent for a stand alone tv series (3 days) and the source material is not too complicated to adapt.

Thrillers I would like to see on the big screen:
1) "Rotten Gods" by Greg Barron
2) "Power Down" by Ben Coes
3)"Ratcatcher" by Tim Stevens
4) "Delivering Caliban" by Tim Stevens
5) "Executive Orders" by Tom Clancy
6) Memorial Day by Vince Flynn
7) "Noble House" by James Clavell
8) "The Chancellor Manuscript" by Robert Ludlum
9) " King Of Swords" by Russell Blake
10) "Without Remorse" by Tom Clancy

The Bourne films also did portray the development of Bourne quite well, but in a different way. Identity had him in a situation he didn't have control of, Supremacy had him in control of the situation and at the peak of his power and Ultimatum had him being outclassed by younger, newer enemies and this is portrayed very well in the films despite the different plots.

The Jason Bourne Series. A brilliant adaptation for the war on terror which honoured Robert Ludlum's favourite themes (government corruption, crooked big businesses, one man vs the rest, conspiracies and paranoia) at the same time.

The Bourne Supremacy for me. Excellent plot, highly thrilling and David Webb is "mostly" in control of the situation. Bob Ludlum captured the essence of what a thriller is supposed to be at the end of the day- thrilling.

UK edition cover art for Matthew Dunn's "SLINGSHOT" also very modern, yet gritty.

Brad Thor's cover art for "Full Black", "Blacklist" and "Hidden Order". Snazzy, modern and extremely distinctive.