Espionage Aficionados discussion

Uh huh? He can't still be penning these romps himself, right?
Some stable of dog-and-pony underlings similar to what publishers use to keep the Stephen King and Clive Cussler franchises going?

Are you saying King doesn't write all of his published works? (from a long-term fan??)

Where is the best place to start when he was the sole author for someone who has nenver read him?

For Stephen King, his best works came from the early days when he was a heavy drug user. They're all fairly decent, and several are stellar. There's a mixture of thin/light prose (such as "Salem's Lot") and then there's some which are rich, velvety, and textured ("The Shining"). Start with his first, 'Carrie'.

Ken Follett is another mass-market powerhouse with bonafide writing chops. His thriller formula is smooth, poised, and consistent; benefiting from his years as a Fleet Street journalist. You can pick up any title from him and find solid satisfaction; similar to Jeffrey Archer. "The Eye of the Needle" put Follett on the map --it was a whopping success --but it wasn't too long afterwards that he shocked everyone with medieval historical sagas like "Pillars of the Earth"..

Ghostwriters: no, I haven't seen any actual proof one way or the other. But even at a distance, my opinion is that there's no way these two guys are still personally cranking out this endless string of continuing titles. Totally implausible. Ridiculous.

I picked up once such title of King's recently. "Susanna's Song of Susanna", or some such nonsense. Utter codswallop. Could not possibly have come from his pen. I don't care who believes he wrote it, they're mistaken. It's embarrassingly poor claptrap he would never lend his name to (except for $$$, and except in these dark times).

But also just consider the number of these books published, and consider the age of both men. It's preposterous that they would still be churning out works at such a rapid pace.