bibliobethreads's review
Good collection of short stories, some are better than others but have definitely found me some new authors that I am excited about reading!
kirstyreadsandcreates's review against another edition
5.0
I love thrillers and knew that when James Patterson had put his name on something that it must be worth reading. I was right. This book was a great mix of thrillers from all sub-genres and it opened my eyes to some great authors. Most of the stories were great, there were a couple that didn't really interest me, but thats to be expected in an anthology. I found it was best to read the stories one at a time though, as reading them one after the other made them a little confusing because they were all from different perspectives etc.
magis1105's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
robinhigdon's review against another edition
3.0
collection of short thriller stories.... some good some just ok. good one to listen to while sewing.
roomoor's review against another edition
5.0
I got this as a birthday present and was creeped out by the cover but it turned out to be one of the best reads I'Ve ever had, unfortunatly I haven't had time to track down books by the authors I particularly liked.
booknerd44's review
3.0
Overall an entertaining gathering of thrillers; some I liked, and some that didn't hold my interest. There were authors in here that I hadn't read before, and I will be looking for their novels in the future.
pandemoniumpizza's review
I find myself enjoying short story anthologies more and more these days so I was looking forward to reading this one.
I actually read this while reading the third anthology in the series and I found the commentary from James Patterson before each story to be so long and tedious. I much preferred Sandra Brown’s in Thriller. I read this book for the short stories and while I find a little bit of commentary interesting, I don’t need another short story telling me about the short story before I start the short story.
I felt after the first few stories the rest of them were really amazing. The first three were the kind of thrillers that I’m not that fond of. The rest however, were full of awesome twists and just kept me interested through them. Of course, I did come upon some that weren’t as good as the rest but that’s to be expected.
While almost all of these stories are related to series or books the authors have previously written about them it was quite easy to follow the stories without getting lost or anything like that. I certainly have not read every book by all of these authors so I don’t see how anyone else could have to be honest.
The collection has a wide range of thriller authors so I feel like there’s something for everyone. Before reading this book I hadn’t really noticed that there could be so many different types of thrillers but there are. I know now that I don’t really like the gritty thrillers that are highly reminiscent of action movies. I know that I’m more of a suspense thriller person.
Overall, Thriller: stories to keep you up all night is a good book if you like short story anthologies. I didn’t like every single story in the book but there were a lot that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I actually read this while reading the third anthology in the series and I found the commentary from James Patterson before each story to be so long and tedious. I much preferred Sandra Brown’s in Thriller. I read this book for the short stories and while I find a little bit of commentary interesting, I don’t need another short story telling me about the short story before I start the short story.
I felt after the first few stories the rest of them were really amazing. The first three were the kind of thrillers that I’m not that fond of. The rest however, were full of awesome twists and just kept me interested through them. Of course, I did come upon some that weren’t as good as the rest but that’s to be expected.
While almost all of these stories are related to series or books the authors have previously written about them it was quite easy to follow the stories without getting lost or anything like that. I certainly have not read every book by all of these authors so I don’t see how anyone else could have to be honest.
The collection has a wide range of thriller authors so I feel like there’s something for everyone. Before reading this book I hadn’t really noticed that there could be so many different types of thrillers but there are. I know now that I don’t really like the gritty thrillers that are highly reminiscent of action movies. I know that I’m more of a suspense thriller person.
Overall, Thriller: stories to keep you up all night is a good book if you like short story anthologies. I didn’t like every single story in the book but there were a lot that I thoroughly enjoyed.
mikekaz's review
2.0
This book was given to me by my mom who tends to read more mystery and suspense than the horror that I read. I have nothing against the thriller genre and in fact after my first love of horror, it battles with science fiction for second place. With all the well-known author names on the cover, I was looking forward to reading the collection. Unfortunately I wasn't too pleased with it.
While I thought the "gimmick" behind the book was simply a bunch of good thriller authors, there turned out to be another one: the stories involved a recurring character from each author. Every author provided a story that involved a character from one of their past books or series. The idea behind the collection was not something that was bad by itself because a good story is still a good story. However, the stories turned out to be more introductions than anything else. To me, that made the book a self-promotion piece rather a good story collection. Each story also ended up being pretty short in length which only reinforced my view of them as promotional pieces instead of stories. There were a few that I found entertaining and I've listed them below but I wouldn't recommend this collection in general. You can easily find better short story collections elsewhere.
* "Interlude at Duane's" by F. Paul Wilson - Repairman Jack goes shopping at a drugstore.
* "Epitaph" by J.A. Konrath - Phineas Troutt takes a vicious revenge job through to the end.
* "Gone Fishing" by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child - The first short story about Vincent D'Agosta and the first time without Pendergast.
While I thought the "gimmick" behind the book was simply a bunch of good thriller authors, there turned out to be another one: the stories involved a recurring character from each author. Every author provided a story that involved a character from one of their past books or series. The idea behind the collection was not something that was bad by itself because a good story is still a good story. However, the stories turned out to be more introductions than anything else. To me, that made the book a self-promotion piece rather a good story collection. Each story also ended up being pretty short in length which only reinforced my view of them as promotional pieces instead of stories. There were a few that I found entertaining and I've listed them below but I wouldn't recommend this collection in general. You can easily find better short story collections elsewhere.
* "Interlude at Duane's" by F. Paul Wilson - Repairman Jack goes shopping at a drugstore.
* "Epitaph" by J.A. Konrath - Phineas Troutt takes a vicious revenge job through to the end.
* "Gone Fishing" by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child - The first short story about Vincent D'Agosta and the first time without Pendergast.
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