Favourite authors

[Mr Pointy Ears]

With the what book u reading topics etc, I thought I ask who is your favourite authors,i like james Patterson and Stuart Woods

 

[Timewalker]

I have too many favorites to name only one. I've been indulging in Philippa Gregory Tudor-era historicals this summer, and have just switched over to catching up on my Ben Bova novels.

Also on the "to read this summer" list are the latest Darkover novel and anthology, and a couple of C.J. Cherryh books.

 

[Australis]

Always at the top, in no special order.

Terry Pratchett
George MacDonald Fraser
Clive James
William Gibson

Below that a few others
Robert E Howard
Clive Cussler (early stuff)
Larry Gonick
Michael Chabon

 

[OtherGene]

In no order...

Terry Pratchett
Robert Rankin
Douglas Adams
Neil Gaiman

My list is so predictable..

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Dan Simmons
Raymond Chandler
Ursula K. LeGuin
Robert E. Howard
Ian Fleming
Marc-Uwe Kling

 

[JeffinOakland]

Right now, I'm on a personal project: every day this month, I'm reading something by Haruki Murakami. I read other stuff, too. Yesterday, I started Pyramids by Terry Pratchett. September, I'll read something everyday by Octavia Butler.

 

[auntiehill]

Neil Gaiman is my current favorite author. I've liked--no, LOVED-- every novel he's ever written to date.

I also recently discovered Susanna Clarke. She hasn't written much--only three things (including the massive fantasy/alt. history novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) but I've loved them all.

 

[lurok]

Favourite genre writers (read all or nearly all works)
H.P. Lovecraft (bonkers and racist, but adore)
Frank Herbert
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke
Ed McBain

Favourite authors:
D.H. Lawrence
Umberto Eco
Clarice Lispector
Yoko Ogawa
Anthony Burgess
Andre Gide
Albert Camus
Jean Genet

(My list of favourite playwrights would be just as long )

 

[Owain Taggart]

Depends on the genre, and like Timewalker, I have too many favourites, so I'll limit my list to those who are still actively writing and who I'm currently trending on:

Daniel Silva | Spy fiction ( Gabriel Allon series: The Heist, The English Spy, etc)
Scott Lynch | Fantasy (Gentlemen Bastard series: The Lies of Locke Lamora.
Daniel Abraham | Fantasy (Dagger & Coin series)
Ken Follett | Historical Fiction (Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, The Century Trilogy)
Neal Stephenson | Historical Fiction/Sci-fi (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle, Anathem)
Robert Galbraith (Rowling) |Mystery/Crime
Martin Walker | Mystery/Crime (Bruno, Chief of Police)

And yes, I'm sure there's more, but that's at the top of my head.

 

[HaventGotALife]

Frans De Waal
Kathryn Craft
Albert Camus
Jon Krakauer
W. Somerset Maugham
Barbara Ehrenreich
David Sedaris
John Feinstein
Bill Simmons
Ray Bradbury
Chris Ballard
Edgar Allan Poe
John Steinbeck

 

[Miss Chicken]

My favourite authors are (not in any order)

Douglas Preston
LIncoln Child
Arnaldur Indridason (Icelandic mystery writer)
VIktor Arnar Ingolfsson (Icelandic mystery writer)
Karin Fossum (Norweigan mystery writer)
Neil Gaiman
Iain Banks
Jorn Lier Horst (Norweigan mystery writer)
Ann Cleeves
Jorgen Brekke (Norweigan mystery writer)
Douglas Adams
Arthur Conan Doyle
Flann O'Brien
Zoran Zivkovic (magic realism)
Halldor Laxness (Icelandic writer)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Dave Barry

 

[Velocity]

Jim Butcher
Kim Harrison
Faith Hunter
Benedict Jacka
Annie Bellett
Patricia Briggs
Janet Evanovitch
Charlaine Harris
Gigi Pandian
Jodi Taylor
Rob Thurman
Kat Richardson

 

[Random_Spock]

Stephen King
Jim Butcher
Edgar Allan Poe
George Orwell
Kurt Vonnegut
Mark Twain
Agatha Christie
Michael Crichton
Shel Silverstein
Louis Sachar
Sara Paretsky
Gary Larson (the Far Side)
Scott Hilborn (the Argyle Sweater)
Jim Davis (Garfield)

 

[Tora Ziyal]

JK Rowling
Laura Lippman
Margaret Coel

 

[John Clark]

I guess my must buy authors usually include anything by Jeffrey Deaver, Terry Pratchett, David Weber and Eric Flint.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Well, let's go down the list of authors I have a lot of books by. That seems like a good starting point.

Isaac Asimov
Robert Heinlein
Neil Gaiman
James Morrow
Larry Niven
Harry Turtledove
Eric Flint
Robert Conroy
Peter David

And a couple I don't have many books by, but I really like the ones I do:
Wayne Douglas Barlowe
Steven Brust

If I count cartoons and online comics:
Gene Ambaum & Bill Barnes
Rich Burlew
Allie Brosh (okay she only has one book out, but I keep hoping for more).

And since no one said you couldn't include non-fiction, Carl Sagan.

And of course, too many Star Trek authors to list here.

 

[Timewalker]

And since no one said you couldn't include non-fiction, Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan wrote a fiction book called Contact. It was made into a movie, starring Jodie Foster.

 

[Mallam]

I love sci-fi author Ted Chiang. He writes thoughtful essay-like short stories and has won multiple Hugos. I like sci-fi a lot, obvioisly, Culture series ny Iain Banks and so on. Sometimes I like to read fantasy, like China Mieville. Or just general lit fiction like Haruki Murakami. There's four, which is weird number so I guess.. Neal Stephenson would complete my top5.

 

[Australis]

I forgot three, can't recommend them highly enough.

Iain M Banks and his Culture books. Just great.

CJ Sansom and his Shardlake series - a hunchback lawyer at the fringes of the court of Henry VIII, interesting and risky times. Great writing.

Howard Waldrop. Brilliant short stories that aren't really quantifiable, though there is a lot of alt.history. If you know Greek mythology well, especially the 12 Labours of Hercules, then a cannot recommend high enough his novella, set in the Deep South of the 1820s, called 'A Dozen Tough Jobs'. There are 2nd hand copies on eBay.

To give you s flsvour, here's a section that's a favourite of mine from one of his short stories, 'Winter Quarters'.

For what do we remember Arnaud?

It was in November, his first semester, and he was out on the east mall passing out flyers, in full regalia: a polka-dot clown suit, clownwhite, bald headpiece, a hat the size of a fifty-cent flowerpot. He had a Harpo bulbhorn he honked as people came by.

The flyer said:
HITLER THE MAGNIFICENT!
An Evening of Transformational Sorcery
JONES HALL 112
7 P.M. NOVEMBER 8th

Well, uh-oh.
· · · · ·
It wasn't an evening, it was more like fourteen or fifteen minutes.

It wasn't sorcery, but it was transformative: it transformed him right out of college. To say that it wasn't well received is bending the language.

Jones 112 was the big lecture hall with multimedia capabilities, and when we got there, props and stuff littered the raised lecture platform. Some pipes, a fire extinguisher, a low platform raised about a meter off the ground on two-by-four legs; some big pieces of window glass. In true Brechtian fashion prop men sat on the stage playing cards.

By seven the place was packed, SRO.

The lights went down; there were three thumps on the floor, and lights came back up.

Out came a Chaplin-mustached Arnaud in a modified SA uniform. He wore a silk top-hat with a big silver swastika on the front. He wore a cloak fashioned after on of the ones the Nazis were going to make all truck drivers wear, back when they were designing uniforms for each profession.

His assistants were a padded-up fat guy with medals all over his chest, and a little thin guy with a rat-nose mask.

First, Hitler hypnotized twenty-two million Germans: he gestured magically at a découpage of a large crowd held up by the two guys.

Then they painted Stars of David on the plate glass, and Hitler threw a brick through it.

His assistants came back with a big map of Poland, and he sawed it in half with a ripsaw.

After each trick, he said,: "Abracadabra, please and gesundheit!"

Then they brought out three chairs, and three people came out on stage and sat down in them.

In the first, a young woman in her twenties. In the second sat a man in his forties, playing on a violin. At the end chair, an old man in his eighties.

Hitler the Magnificent took off his cloak and covered the young woman. "Abracadabra, please and gesundheit!" he said, and pulled away the cloak. The chair was empty except for a wisp of smoke drifting toward the ceiling. He put the cape over the violinist, repeated the incantation, and snapped it away. In the chair was the violin and a lampshade with a number on it. He covered the old man, spoke, and raised the cloth. In the chair seat there was now a bar of soap. The thin assistant picked it up and threw it into a nearby goldfish bowl of water. "So light it floats!" he said.

Prop men lit fires along the pipes and pushed them toward Hitler the Magnificent and the two assistants. Surrounded by the closing ring of fire, with a mannequin wearing a brown-blond wig and a wedding dress in his arms, he climbed onto the two-by-four platform, miming great heights, and jumped down next to a wet Luger water pistol, while the fat and thin assistants drank green Kool-Aid from a washtub and fell to the floor.

The stagelights lowered, and the only sound was the whoosh of the fire extinguisher putting out the flames on the pipes.

Then the lights came back up.

You could have heard a pin drop. Then—

It wasn't quite the Paris premiere of Le Sacre du printemps in 1913, but it might as well have been.

You'd think with the whole twentieth century behind us, and a few years of this one, and Mel Brooks' The Producers, most of the oomph would have gone out of things like this. But you'd be wrong.

I got out the fire exit about the time the firemen and the riot squad came in through it.
· · · · ·

He was thrown out, of course, for violations of the University fire codes and firearms policy, for causing a riot, and for unauthorized use of Jones Hall. Plus he spent a couple of days in the city jug before he was expelled.

Well, uh-oh.