Do you have a favorite fiction author and if so, who?
Asked by
plethora (
10009)
January 23rd, 2010
Is your favorite author so good that you read (or used to read) everything he or she writes without even reading a bit of the first few pages? Have you found that the author is consistently good or did the quality begin to drop at some point?
Is there a particular theme that your author writes about that you like?
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27 Answers
Chuck Palahniuk He wrote Fight Club, Choke and a bounch of other funny books. He a badass writer.. read Choke, hallarious
Sarah Palin is pretty good.
@kevbo I was looking for the sarcasm until I realized this is favorite fiction writer… I got a few drinks in therefore my thinking is a few seconds behind but GA :)
I like Carolyn Keene (whoever she was) and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Carolyn Keene wrote 2 series that are pretty much the exact same – Nancy Drew and the Dana Girls. Same writing techniques, same format of the books, same everything except that the Dana Girls have 2 main characters, and they are more amateurs than Nancy Drew. It gets kind of old with the Dana Girls, but I like the old-fashioned Nancy Drew. The newer ones where she has a cellphone are really stupid. I mean, it’s like giving Charlie Brown and iPod. It’s almost sacrilege.
Margaret Weis, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Tracy Hickman,
I say Chuck Palahniuk as well. Remarkable writer.
Stephen King is very popular, and often doesn’t deliver well, but when you get a series like the Green Mile, or a book like the Stand, all is forgiven.
Walter Moers man. I love ALL of his books. They are all extremely creative and inventive, and the plots can leave you guessing. I read one of his books 4 times in a row, I thought it was that good =).
I’m a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut. He’d tell a story, but then it wandered over here and over there and he’d get existentialist and kind of darkly funny and then it was back to the story and then the end.
I also like Douglas Adams a lot. He also mixed in a lot of existentialism with his humourous sci-fi.
I have read every published word written by these fellows. The thing with both of them was that their output slowed as the years passed.
In Adams’ case, he made light of “the sound of deadlines whizzing by,” and towards the end of his life, he was becoming quite the layman environmentalist.
Vonnegut was, to the end, a gentle liberal curmudgeon. Not mean, exactly, but quite willing to call BS when he saw it.
I’m sad that there is no more extant works of theirs to read.
My most favorite authors are dead:
Robert A. Heinlein
Douglas Adams
But it’s not all bleak:
I like Augusten Burroughs
Wally Lamb
Jhumpa Lahiri
Winston Groom
Jeff Shaara (fictional accounts of actual military campaigns)
Wally Lamb
Augusten Burroughs
John Grisham
David Foster Wallace right now.
Isac Dinesen
John Irving
Chuck Palahniuk
Robert Heinlein
Ken Follett
Nelson Demille
Kurt Vonnegut
Neil Gaiman
Stephen King
Philip K. Dick
Edward Abbey (both fiction and nonfiction)
J. California Cooper!! African-American folk lore; on the same pattern as Zora Neal Hurston-“Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Michael Crichton. I seriously cried when I found out he had passed away, and I never react that way when someone I don’t even know dies. His books were consistently amazing.
Patrick Redmond is very good, and I admire Le Carré. I think he is very good at character description. I read Lee Childs books as well. They are not very high literature I admit, but they are easy and distracting read. I actually like that they are banal.
Daniel Handler is great, both as himself and as Lemony Snicket. Adverbs is my absolute favorite book.
Douglas Coupland
Steve Erickson
Another vote for Stephen King. I like that his stories mostly seem plausible, even though he writes about the implausible. I really enjoy horror and good writing, and I think he’s pretty much the best at combining the two. I’ve read everything, except the Dark Tower series (I tried, just couldn’t get into them) and his newest, The Dome. His quality can be hit or miss, but I feel like I have to read it all, lest I miss something brilliant.
Another favorite is David Sedaris. He mostly writes first person essays, but there is definitely some fiction mixed in. He writes like I think, and he’s freaking hilarious. Most of the time.
Paulo Coelho who sprinkles his stories with tinges of mysticism and spirituality, a combination with continuous revelations that teach but do not preach.
Terry Pratchett, James P. Blaylock and Michael Moorcock. Just have anything sent to my door. Especially Blaylock, because I find his books hard to find.
+1 for Pahlaniuk
+1 for Cormac McCarthy
Lessee…
Robert Heinlein (select works), Jules Verne, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Robert Schroeck, Jack London (though less of late), H.G. Wells, Orson Scott Card, Timothy Zahn. Poul Anderson is good, but I can’t ever seem to finish his books.
I guess you could say that I kinda like science fiction.
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