Favourite fiction author

[Quirinus]

Wow. Wasn't expecting so many replies in a day.

Oh, there are far better comedy authors than Pratchett - his talent is in using decent plots as a means of presenting his interesting variety of characters. Humor is secondary, which he pretty much proved by his excellent Night Watch book.

Haven't read that one, looks like I'll have to. My personal favourite is Mort, it had an interesting premise, decent pacing, and lots of sly little observations like the rest of his books. Oh, and also a Death that SPEAKS LIKE THIS. A close second would probably be Monstrous Regiment

Curiously, the problem I have with Pratchett (actually, with pretty much every fantasy-comedy book and author) is that as the story moves along, they tends to lose focus. The plot picks up, yes, but it doesn't really get funnier-- as if plot developement somehow jostles out the humour.

With Adams.... well, Douglas Adams is funny, but I like my books to have at least a semblance of a coherent plot, and the Hitchhiker's 'trilogy in four parts' doesn't really provide that.

Tolkien I don't particularly like: the stories are amazing, yes, but they plod. He doesn't have any sense of pacing whatsoever. They just go on and on and on. The Hobbit, for example, took me no less than four times (over a period of about that many years) to actually finish it.

I like Edgar Allan Poe too. My personal favourite is The Cask of Admontillado, The Tell-tale Heart, and the one where he describes how the 'real' Arabian Nights ended.

Harry Turtledove is definitely one of my favourite authors. I read Guns of the South a couple of years back, and I was eating through the Timeline-191 series up till the thirties in January. His style of writing isn't spectacular-- in fact, it's workmanlike, but it's effective in conveying snapshots of an entire world that never was through his characters, but at the same time, he never loses sight that his characters are people, so they never seem like archetypes or two-dimensional.

I've read all the Clone Wars novels except the Medstar Duology (I was a big-time SW fan), some pre-Ep-I ones, the Thrawn Trilogy, and the Legacy of the Force series up till Sacrifice (whereupon I gave up on the series). My favourite of all the SW authors would be James Luceno. I enjoyed all three of his books: Cloak of Deception, Labyrinth of Evil, and Rise of Darth Vader. My favourite SW novel, though, is probably the Revenge of the Sith novelisation.

The Harry Potter series, IMO, was good till about the fourth book. The fifth book lacked pacing, and was far too long, as well as being overly angsty. The sixth book wasn't too bad, but the seventh book I place at about the same level as the fifth. Pointless treasure hunt? Check. Angst and hormones? Check. Contrived 'death' sequence? Check. Lame climax? Check. (I mean, c'mon. Expeliarmus? Expeliarmus???) Saccharine epilogue? Double check. IMO the third book was the zenith of the series. Strong story, good character interaction, excellent pacing.

Colleen McCollugh is an incredible author, the deep development of Characters just seems to throw you back into that time period

I agree. I find it slightly annoying, though, how she makes Caesar out to be a god amongst men-- very intelligent, very handsome, very noble, very everything.

Now rereading First Man in Rome.


If I had to choose my favourite book, it would be The Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Samosa. Has anyone else read this book? The sheer amount of layers to the book is amazing, and the intriguing idea is brilliantly executed.

[CountArach]

Robert Jordan - May he rest in peace.

[edyzmedieval]

Clive Cussler.

Right now reading Conn Iggulden, pretty good so far.

[Justiciar]

Cornwell's.. iffy. He isn't everyone's cup of tea. Personally I can't stand his books, and yet seem to find myself constantly buying them.

His characters are two dimensional, his plots highly unoriginal, the course of his stories predictable, his style of writing workmanlike, mistakes are constant, and the general butchery of historical events and trivia standard. Not to mention that he seems to recycle character from series-to-series, just giving them different names and faces, and putting them in different settings. Ooh. And he seems to be physically unable to go a single book without mentioning London as some glorious and eternal, thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis. I think the only exception is Stonehenge, for obvious reasons.

That said, he does indeed write excellent descriptions of combat, and despite the flaws he doesn't half tell a good story.

[pevergreen]

Raymond E. Feist.

So many books, but still enough time to read them.

[KukriKhan]

Tony Hillerman
James Clavell

3 or 4 dozen others, but those are my top 2 for fiction.

[Tribesman]

Robert Rankin
http://www.sproutlore.com/books/rankinbooks.php

[Banquo's Ghost]

If I had to choose my favourite book, it would be The Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Samosa. Has anyone else read this book? The sheer amount of layers to the book is amazing, and the intriguing idea is brilliantly executed.

Yes, I enjoyed it immensely, though it doesn't stand up to much re-reading because its cleverness is, of course, familiar.

Favourite author? Like Lemur, I'm somewhat of a voracious magpie, and like SC, depends a lot on mood. A present, and holding the title for some years, it can only be Arturo Perez Reverte. Just finished his latest, "The Painter of Battles" and I am still shuddering in awe.

Coming up hard on the rails, mind, are Andrei Makine, whose "The Woman Who Waited" is sublime and lyrical; and Irene Nemirovsky (lately finished "Chaleur du Sang") both of which have me running through their backlists with impatient joy.