Elliot Kessler

Before I get started, I think I already made a blog post on James Patterson, but it’s been a while since then, and I haven’t written a blog post in a long time, and this was the only topic I could think of. I picked up another book of his recently (for free), so maybe that’s why I keep thinking of this.

Anyway, Patterson.

His books are… okay.

In all fairness, I’ve only read two. I’ve read The Shadow and Private Gold. The Shadow is a science fiction/fantasy thriller based on the old comic book character from about a hundred years ago, and Private Gold is a novella (sorry, BookShot), about some conspiracy in Johannesburg.

I don’t remember the plot of Private Gold very well. The only thing I remember from that book is learning about Patterson’s BookShot series, which is described as books that are up to 150 pages, cut all the fat out of their plots, and are only five dollars.

Congratulations, James Patterson. You invented the novella.

Some of you guys might not know who James Patterson is. He’s a thriller author, and he’s one of if not the bestselling author of all time. He’s sold a lot of books. You’ve likely seen his novels in airports and stuff. He seems to be very popular.

I don’t get the hype. Again, I’ve barely read any of his work. But the little bit I read was less than satisfying. His characters are bland, his plots are basic, and he ruined the Shadow.

The original character of Lamont Cranston (A.K.A. the Shadow) is a masked vigilante armed with two pistols and supernatural abilities who strikes fear into low-level criminals to fulfill his vow and rid the world of evil.

Remove the pistols and the powers, and you have a very familiar description…

That’s right! The Shadow was the inspiration for Batman. Millionaire with a secret, crime-fighting identity and a posh butler. Bruce Wayne who? Lamont did it first!

The Shadow has had several reboot comics. I haven’t read any of the originals, but I have read some of the newer ones. I like them. They’re fun, action-packed, and exciting. They aren’t exactly beautiful, thought-provoking, tear-jerking works of art, but they’re not trying to be. They know the readers are only there for the action, and they go all in. I appreciate that.

But then there’s James Patterson’s book, where he got everything, and I mean everything, wrong. But that’s not even the worst part! The worst part is that he knows he got everything wrong, and he acknowledges that in the book. It’s part of the story!

The book is about a man named Lamont Cranston who gets poisoned by his arch-enemy, Kahn (not the cool one from Star Trek 2), while on a date with his girlfriend, Margo Lane, who also gets poisoned. Lamont quickly drives Margo to some warehouse where he has a secret life-preserving thing. He tells his butler to put himself and Margo in the machine.

Decades later, Lamont is awoken by a young girl in a dystopian future, where Kahn is in power and rules everyone. The young girl who wakes him up is a huge fan of this character called the Shadow, and she has all the comics and all the movies in her room. When she finds out Lamont is the Shadow, she takes him back to her house and shows off her collection of memorabilia.

This is the worst part of the book. Are you ready?

When Lamont looks at all the comics and stuff, he says something like, “Yeah, they always got me all wrong in those depictions. I wasn’t anything like that. I never used two pistols. It’s ridiculous!”

So, the Shadow in this book isn’t the Shadow? Great. Wonderful. Way to please your audience, James! I was looking forward to the Shadow going to the bad guy base and hiding in the dark while all the goons tremble, pointing their machine guns at all the corners where Lamont could be hiding. They’d hear a cackle echo throughout the room, sounding like it was coming from everywhere at once. Then a deep voice like a demon would growl, “Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”

Then the Shadow would drop from the ceiling with his two pistols and take out all the goons single-handed.

That’s what I wanted! That’s what I was looking forward to!

Is that what we got? Nope! We got some dude who could turn invisible on command occasionally and never once held two pistols. He wasn’t scary. He wasn’t cool. He wasn’t interesting. Just a dude that was like, “Oh, yeah. That guy is bad. Let’s go stop him.”

The final fight of the book ends with some kind of magic battle or something that should have been in Harry Potter, not The Shadow. Stories with the Shadow are supposed to be about a man fighting crime, not shooting fireballs at Big Brother from 1984. What was this book trying to be?

Also, spoiler alert for this last section, but it turns out that the girl who found Lamont was also his daughter, which I figured out before I reached halfway through the book. She could turn invisible, she had a strange connection with Margo, and I easily put two and two together.

It wasn’t a twist, Patterson. If you’re going to put clues in a book, make it less obvious. I would think you would know that because you write detective novels!

There’s also a scene right before the final fight where the main characters are on their way to find Kahn, but they find this lady giving birth in an abandoned building, and some other people are there to help her. The characters stop and help the lady give birth, then they leave and keep running down the street to fight Kahn.

What was this scene? It didn’t add anything to the plot or the characters! I think it was supposed to foreshadow that the girl was Lamont and Margo’s kid, but I already knew that because I’m not dumb. I used a little bit of thinking power to reach that conclusion. Who do you think I am, James?

Basically, I didn’t like this book. It was dumb, and it assumed the audience was dumb, too.

“Maybe this is a fluke,” I thought. “Surely someone as famous and bestselling as James Patterson is a good author. Maybe I only read one of his bad works. Not every story can be a winner.”

So, with this in mind, I picked up a novella from the library called Private Gold. It still stunk.

But it wasn’t bad the same way The Shadow was bad. There was no previously established character to ruin. There was no legacy to tarnish. It was just a boring, basic, stereotypical thriller story. No interesting characters, no new angles, and no fresh ideas. It was the same tired tropes of detective thrillers that I’ve seen millions of timesacross the board.

You know those movies that characters watch within other shows that are the most generic things ever? Like in a sitcom when a family gets together to watch a movie and the movie is hilariously bad. You know what I’m talking about?

That’s what Private Gold felt like. There was no attempt to try anything new. It was like Patterson had a checklist and ticked off all the marks as he was writing instead of trying to create a fresh and interesting story. It was dumb, and I hated it.

Now, with all that out of the way, there is something to be said about James Patterson’s writing style. His stories and characters might be bland, lifeless, and unoriginal. But the prose he uses sets the reader’s imagination on fire.

When I read a Patterson story, I can see what he sees. The scenes play out in my head like a movie. I became immersed in the world of the story. I slip into the pages of the book and I stand right alongside rip-off Lamont Cranston and his idiot daughter.

I might hate Patterson’s stories. I might think his books are dumb. But there’s something to be said about that feeling you get when you read his books. I love that feeling, but that creates a bit of a dilemma for me. Do I buy Patterson’s books and contribute toward supporting the types of stories I despise? Or do I stop buying Patterson’s books and not experience the magic that his prose presents?

I think the answer is simple.

Pirate his works from the internet!

I’m just kidding. Don’t do that.

I’ll probably pick up his books from the library from time to time study the prose he uses and try to incorporate the same magic he creates into my writing, but I don’t think I’ll be collecting his books. I don’t want them, anyway.

I’ll be honest, I don’t enjoy most modern thriller authors. The only thriller authors I read are people like Raymond Chandler. I love their old-school, no-nonsense stories that get straight to the point and don’t have the characters going off on random side quests to help ladies give birth in abandoned buildings. That’s what thrillers should be. Fast, fun, and to the point.

Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic day.