Poll of the Day > Recommend me some good authors to look into

(+) Yeah! (+)

Either more obscure Fantasy, Horror or Sci-Fi or just some great authors from other genres since I want to branch out

Chuck Tingle

Brian Jaques
Terry Pratchett

Larry Flynt

Isaac Asimov has some good ass science fiction, specifically the Foundation series, that gets overlooked because it's pretty old

Fonda Lee - Green Bone Saga
Ryan Cahill
John Gwynn
Tad Williams - Memory Sorrow Thorn

Liu Cixin writes some really interesting scifi, I have been loving his work.

David Brin, specifically the Uplift Trilogy.

Most people have never read Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (it's VERY different from the movie), and while some people have at least heard of 2010: Odyssey Two because it was also a movie, very few people have ever heard of 2061: Odyssey Three and even fewer of 3001: The Final Odyssey.

Some other lesser known science fiction authors include Clifford D. Simak, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John W. Campbell, Lester Del Rey, E.E. Smith, and Philip K. Dick. Several of these authors' works are free from Standard Ebooks.

H. Beam Piper was a master of the space opera. The great part about his Federation series is that each book is completely self-contained, and although they all occur in the same universe, they can be read in any order. Four-Day Planet, Space Viking, and The Cosmic Computer are available free from Standard Ebooks.

David Freer & Eric Flints Rats, Bats, and Vats series was really good.

John Scalzi's Redshirts was fantastic.

Phil Geusz did a bunch of great novels involving "genegineering". His short story Lagrange was hilarious.

For fantasy, the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster was really great. And his novel Quozl was excellent sci-fi.

Charlie N. Holmberg's Paper Magician series was quite good. T. Kingfisher has also written some great stuff; I really liked A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking.

S. Andrew Swann's Moreau Trilogy was great. Forests of the Night, Emperors of the Twilight, and Specters of the Dawn. The fourth book in the series, Fearful Symmetries was really not that good.

C.S. Lewis is most famous for his Chronicles of Narnia, but he also did a trilogy of science fiction novels, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength

It's funny that you bring up the Odyssey series, I've read 2001 and 2010, I also own 2061 but haven't gotten around to it yet

While I love the movie and it's in my top 10 all time the book is much better, I can also say that for LotR and Jurassic Park which are some of my favorite movies of all time too, it's crazy how much better books are than movie adaptions even if the movie adoptions are among the greatest movies of all time

I don't read a lot of horror, but you can't go wrong with The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. Four of the short stories in the book revolve around a play called The King in Yellow; Act I of the play is completely innocent, but anyone who reads the second act of the play goes insane.

It was an inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft in some of his Cthulhu Mythos stories.

agesboy posted...

Isaac Asimov has some good ass science fiction, specifically the Foundation series, that gets overlooked because it's pretty old

On the other hand, the fact that there's literally a Foundation TV show on Apple TV+ right now means that a lot of people are potentially aware of it now and considering reading the source material.

A shame that Apple TV+ has metaphorically murdered the source material with a chainsaw, set the body on fire, and then fucked the charred corpse.

Aside from that, I'd recommend anyone thinking about Asimov consider reading the Robot novels first instead, if only because the Robot, Empire, and Foundation novels are all interconnected.

But I'd also say that I don't necessarily think people SHOULD read those books fully in chronological order. For example, I don't think anyone should read Prelude to Foundation or Forward the Foundation before the other books. I think Asimov's stories/universe benefit immensely from reading them in publishing order rather than in-universe order.



Muscles posted...

Either more obscure Fantasy, Horror or Sci-Fi or just some great authors from other genres since I want to branch out

It's worth asking if you're interested in more soft sci-fi or harder sci-fi, but since Asimov's really the only one I was going to suggest it won't help me to recommend things all that much.

For obscure fantasy... again, it kind of depends on what sort of flavor of fantasy you're into. But I will always recommend David Eddings as a writer for anyone who is new to fantasy or who just hasn't read his books. Then I'd usually encourage them to segue out into the Fred Saberhagen "Book of Swords" series (and possibly the Empire of the East novels if they can). And Saberhagen also has a lot of books straddling other genres (like his sci-fi Berserker novels) if you're interested in that.

Roger Zelazny is fantastic, though his Amber novels might feel a bit too "modern" or "metaphysical" for some people if they just want pure medieval fantasy. His Dilvish novels are more traditional, but a lot harder to find.

Stephen R. Donaldson is quite possibly my favorite fantasy fantasy writer ever (though quite possibly tied with Zelazny), but his works can be really dark, and a lot of people have a hard time reading his stuff because his Thomas Covenant books have a really unlikable protagonist. His Mordant's Need books are much better in that respect, but some people may still be kind of turned off by one of the two main characters.

Piers Anthony is another possible recommendation - most people who know/like him like him for the Xanth novels (which he churns out like crazy), but those are mostly kind of beginner-level fantasy and revolve around puns a lot (which is why kinds tend to like them), but he has a lot of other books that are a bit more complex. His Apprentice Adept series is kind of a neat fusion of fantasy and sci-fi, and his Incarnations of Immortality series is kind of cool if you're into more metaphysical fiction.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld is pretty much the classic fantasy series that gets recommended a lot, though especially in the earlier books it's more like a parody of fantasy, and it helps to be really well read in the genre already to get what he's making fun of (stuff like Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books, and even the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard - all of which are nice fantasy recommendations in and of themselves for this list). But later Discworld books sort of take on their own identity and flavor and are just a really fantastic fantasy series in general.

Looking over my bookshelves... I could also throw in stuff like the Death Gate novels by by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - those are pretty good (and if you like their writing style and are willing to get into RPG tie-in novels, there's always their Dragonlance books). Or even the Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko, if you're willing to read a series that is always a slight bit awkward in writing style because it's being translated from Russian (though if you don't mind that, there's also all the original Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski that have been translated from Polish).

If you're willing to dip into "genre-trash" game tie-in novels, a lot of R. A. Salvatore's earlier D&D novels (aka the ones Drizzt comes from) are pretty good. As are some of the earlier Halo novels back from before 343 took a steaming shit on the entire franchise's narrative. I could also recommend Jack Yeovil (aka Kim Newman)'s Warhammer novels, mainly about Genevieve the vampire. Or sticking with Kim Newman, his Anno Dracula series starts out pretty good as well.

If you're willing to get into a long-running super-hero series with a bit more of a sci-fi bent, the Wild Cards novels are a pretty good read. They're generally edited by George RR Martin (aka the Game of Thrones guy), and are mostly a collection of interconnected short stories or mosaic novels written by multiple authors (and if you wind up liking one author's contributions a lot, it might even give you more recommendations for the future).

Apart from that... hmm. I've read way too much fantasy (both good and bad) over the last 40 years to remember it all. Riverworld by Philip Jos Farmer is kind of interesting. The Chung Kuo novels by David Wingrove were pretty good. I liked Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories. Larry Niven's Ringworld books are generally a pretty popular suggestion.

There's writer Iain M. Banks' Culture novels - I never really liked them myself (other than The Player of Games), but a lot of people like them (and apparently they were a huge inspiration to the Bungie guys when they made Halo, along with Ringworld).

A lot of people like Michael Moorcock's work, though I think he's extremely hit-or-miss. Though I did like his Eternal Champion novels, his Von Bek stories, and his Elric stuff (somewhat).

I feel like I could probably remember more if I really concentrated on it, but that's probably way more of a list than you really need for starters.

I'd suggest both Harper Lee novels "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Go Set a Watchman" (which is the newer book), even though she isn't a more modern author. Also if you're really into SF you can't go wrong with the classics like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury and others such as Thomas Pynchon (known for the series "V" with the alien lizards), Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and Ursula Le Guin (Dragonriders of Pern).

The Zoey Ashe series by Jason Pargin (went by David Wong of cracked fame) is absolutely amazing and one of my favorite scifi series right now. The third book is coming out next month and I'm going to snap it up.
The first book is Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits and the second book is Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick.

Archgoat posted...

Tad Williams - Memory Sorrow Thorn

I've always heard about this series from other people, but I never really got around to reading it myself. Even though it seems like something I might like.

Which reminds me of a few more recommendations. L. E. Modesitt Jr. is a writer a friend of mine used to be really into (mainly the Recluce series and the Spellsong books), though I've never read them myself. But there's a LOT of them, so it might be worth a look just to see if they look interesting (and it's worth noting at this point that most of these writers have bibliographies on Wikipedia if you want to look up a specific series, what books are in it, and what order to read them in).

On the subject of recommendations from people I've never read, I know an ex-girlfriend of mine used to be really into C. J. Cherryh, but I never really looked into her because sci-fi has never really appealed to me that much (and eventually because the recommendations of ex-girlfriends don't really feel all that compelling once they're an ex).

Back onto books I've actually read - there's Terry Brooks. The Shannara series is pretty well known (and has gotten adapted into TV shows before), but it's worth mentioning (because you never know what authors newer/younger readers have actually heard of). The first few books feel like fairly derivative Tolkien-clone stuff, and the later books feel like the series has spiraled out of control from the desire to keep publishing popular books until he can retire a multi-millionaire, but there's definitely a sweet spot in the series where it's very good. So it might be worth a look (and then just drop out if the books start feeling dull later - I think I dropped out somewhere around book 8).

Speaking of series that sort of spiraled out of control - Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. It kind of feels almost pointless to recommend because most people probably already know about it, and because it's uneven as hell (the first few books are kind of weak, the second half of the series is padded all to hell and gets boring, the ending is pretty good but can feel really rushed in some ways and anticlimactic in others). But it might be worth a look to someone who's never really read it.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is another popular one, though some people might want to pass on it because they don't like his personal politics (the same reason why people might be hesitant to get into Orson Scott Card's work).

The Susan Cooper Dark is Rising books are pretty good, though might feel unsatisfying to some adult readers because they were originally aimed more at a young adult audience (though I don't think they feel "childish", except maybe the first one, a bit). This probably would have been one of my stronger recommendations because I loved it as a kid, but the movie they made was so utterly terrible I think it has retroactively caused me to block the entire series out of my mind so I didn't think of it before now. Seriously, that movie was quite possibly the worst atrocity ever committed by Hollywood.

I suppose I could recommend the TimeWars books by Simon Hawke (if you're into time travel fiction partially based around the idea that famous novels like Ivanhoe were based on actual history), but those would probably be an absolute bitch to find these days (I had trouble finding used copies on Amazon years ago).

I feel like Gregory Keyes was a writer worth reading, but it might also be telling that I can't remember a single thing about his Age of Unreason series in spite of reading it back when it came out (and I seem to remember liking it).

That's probably all I'm going to come up with. I can't justify spending the next day or so just obsessively trying to remember every book I've ever read. Because I've read way, way too many.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's worth asking if you're interested in more soft sci-fi or harder sci-fi, but since Asimov's really the only one I was going to suggest it won't help me to recommend things all that much.

For obscure fantasy... again, it kind of depends on what sort of flavor of fantasy you're into.

I'm not sure where the line is for hard sci-fi vs soft sci-fi but my favorites that I read were Clarke and Crichton

As far as Fantasy goes I'm down for pretty much anything, so I'll look into those authors got mentioned, Pratchett is one I've been thinking about trying out for a while

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Back onto books I've actually read - there's Terry Brooks. The Shannara series is pretty well known (and has gotten adapted into TV shows before), but it's worth mentioning (because you never know what authors newer/younger readers have actually heard of). The first few books feel like fairly derivative Tolkien-clone stuff, and the later books feel like the series has spiraled out of control from the desire to keep publishing popular books until he can retire a multi-millionaire, but there's definitely a sweet spot in the series where it's very good. So it might be worth a look (and then just drop out if the books start feeling dull later - I think I dropped out somewhere around book 8).

I just finished the Talismans of Shannara yesterday, I love the world he's built so far. My only problem with him is that he calls back to previous books way too much, but I love his characters and stories so I push through it, definitely worth it. I know a lot of people say Sword of Shannara is a Tolkien clone but honestly it loses that vibe for me like half way through. My favorite from the first 7 books has probably been Wishsong of Shannara.

Muscles posted...

I'm not sure where the line is for hard sci-fi vs soft sci-fi but my favorites that I read were Clarke and Crichton

The usual sort of delineation is that hard sci-fi tends to focus on the science first and characters/story are sort of a bit of an afterthought, while soft sci-fi is more using less defined science as a backdrop to tell a more personal story.

This is a pretty good summary:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness

I mostly only bring it up because I know there are some people who say "sci-fi" when what they really mean is just "action/adventure in space". But full-on hard sci-fi would bore the absolute shit out of them.



Muscles posted...

I just finished the Talismans of Shannara yesterday, I love the world he's built so far. My only problem with him is that he calls back to previous books way too much, but I love his characters and stories so I push through it, definitely worth it. I know a lot of people say Sword of Shannara is a Tolkien clone but honestly it loses that vibe for me like half way through. My favorite from the first 7 books has probably been Wishsong of Shannara.

I kind of preferred the overarching story of books 4-7. But if you have a problem with references to past stuff and callbacks, you might start to tap out around the same point I did.

My other problem with the later books in the series is that he starts integrating one of his other series into its universe, where it kind of stops being pure fantasy and starts shading into weird post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy crossover, and that's not really to my taste (though oddly, I loved when Fred Saberhagen did it even more blatantly in Empire of the East).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I kind of preferred the overarching story of books 4-7. But if you have a problem with references to past stuff and callbacks, you might start to tap out around the same point I did.

I did love 4-7 as well, but I don't need like 100 callbacks to the 1st trilogy, he probably could have cut out a whole book from it. I do love the world though, there's so many unique creatures and locations. What point did you tap out?

Muscles posted...

What point did you tap out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Jerle_Shannara#The_Voyage_of_the_Jerle_Shannara

Michael Crichton

If you like reading short stories I always recommend JG Ballard. He did a lot of weird sci-fi and dystopian stories.

Somebody mentioned Roger Zelazny already. The Chronicles of Amber (Corwin Cycle) is my favorite.

kind9 posted...

Somebody mentioned Roger Zelazny already. The Chronicles of Amber (Corwin Cycle) is my favorite.

It's great.

A Night in the Lonesome October is also a great novel by him. And it's a fun read if you read it in October, and read one chapter per day.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's great.

A Night in the Lonesome October is also a great novel by him. And it's a fun read if you read it in October, and read one chapter per day.

I often wish there was a Nov 1 entry, however short, because that non-ending the book stops with...

Entity13 posted...

I often wish there was a Nov 1 entry, however short, because that non-ending the book stops with...

Non-ending? It's about as decisive an ending as it could possibly have.

Sure, it doesn't have a "and then they all lived happily ever after forever" stuck on at the end, or a "and then here's what happened to everyone over the next 20 years or so" style epilogue, but the story as a whole is pretty neatly tied up at the end.

If anything, I can only think of a single thing in it that could be considered an unresolved plot thread, and even that isn't that much of an issue really (and is pretty appropriate for the style of Halloween-influenced Lovecraft-flavored horror the story is trying for).

R.L. Stine

While not exactly what you're looking for, I recommend Umberto Eco. If you want something full-length, The Name of The Rose is a great book to start with, but he's also written multiple collections of shorter essays, How To Travel With A Salmon is a great one.

synth_real posted...

While not exactly what you're looking for, I recommend Umberto Eco. If you want something full-length, The Name of The Rose is a great book to start with, but he's also written multiple collections of shorter essays, How To Travel With A Salmon is a great one.

What genre does he write in? I'm looking to branch out into other genres

Muscles posted...

What genre does he write in? I'm looking to branch out into other genres

Many of his full-length novels could be considered historical fiction, but he's a multidisciplinary professor who has injected diverse studies, notably semiotics, into his work.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Stephen R. Donaldson is quite possibly my favorite fantasy fantasy writer ever (though quite possibly tied with Zelazny)

While I haven't read the Thomas Covenant books, I absolutely love Donaldson's sci-fi, The Gap Series. I'm currently rereading it. And I've read Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, also very good.
ParanoidObsessive posted...

A Night in the Lonesome October is also a great novel by him. And it's a fun read if you read it in October, and read one chapter per day.

I think I read this last October. Lovely read.

synth_real posted...

While not exactly what you're looking for, I recommend Umberto Eco. If you want something full-length, The Name of The Rose is a great book to start with, but he's also written multiple collections of shorter essays, How To Travel With A Salmon is a great one.

I was fighting the urge to recommend Foucault's Pendulum. I think it's fantastic, but I'm also aware a lot of people have trouble reading Umberto Eco.



speedpunk posted...

While I haven't read the Thomas Covenant books, I absolutely love Donaldson's sci-fi, The Gap Series. I'm currently rereading it.

I could never get into the Gap series, mainly because I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi. Even though I like the conceit that they're supposedly secretly based on the Ring Cycle by Wagner (which I also love).

I do love the Thomas Covenant novels though. And Mordant's Need. I've been meaning to read The Great God's War books because those are fantasy as well, but I haven't gotten around to it yet (mainly because I've kind of drifted away from fiction entirely lately to read more historical non-fiction instead).

Though that kind of reminds me - if Muscles is interested in alternate history sci-fi, he could also check out Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series. Which can basically be summed up as "What if lizard aliens invaded Earth in the middle of WWII and humans had to put aside their differences to fight back against them?"

George Bernard Shaw

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Non-ending? It's about as decisive an ending as it could possibly have.

Sure, it doesn't have a "and then they all lived happily ever after forever" stuck on at the end, or a "and then here's what happened to everyone over the next 20 years or so" style epilogue, but the story as a whole is pretty neatly tied up at the end.

Not the impression I got when I read it. It's more that things build up with a rule set in place that the failing side would perish. The hill becomes dangerous, and the characters of one side flee, one unconscious, alongside a member of the other side who may or may not have betrayed her side(?), and it just stops there. Thus I am left with a couple questions that make it feel, to me, like a non-ending.

Entity13 posted...

Not the impression I got when I read it. It's more that things build up with a rule set in place that the failing side would perish. The hill becomes dangerous, and the characters of one side flee, one unconscious, alongside a member of the other side who may or may not have betrayed her side(?), and it just stops there. Thus I am left with a couple questions that make it feel, to me, like a non-ending.

They say that the losing side usually dies because of the backlash of forces. Because of the PLOT TWIST, the good guys actually stop being part of the ritual, so there's no real backlash against them. It's ultimately basically just a simple unopposed closing (as they mention has happened in the past). It stops being two opposite forces pushing against each other until one overpowers the other (the tension between the two being the cause of the backlash), and instead becomes one side smoothly and easily succeeding.

Jill technically "wins", but for the wrong side (because she's using the wrong wand). Jack survives basically by virtue of dropping his wand (though he might have survived regardless, because the story establishes pretty clearly that he breaks a lot of the rules because of what he is - which may actually be Cain himself). The hill remains dangerous, but not necessarily inevitably lethal (as long as you survive the initial backlash, which again, didn't happen in this scenario).

The "unconscious" person is removed before the final conclusion, and it's previously established that the rules of the whole ritual allow for people to leave after it's started (ie, the sacrifice), which implies it doesn't insta-kill someone the moment they try to leave. Which is probably the same reason why The Great Detective is able to intervene and leave with Lynette.

The last two leaving together is foreshadowed - it's implied earlier in the story that Jack has been trying to convince Jill into changing sides, and though she ultimately refuses (just as Rostov and Owen apparently tried to convert each other but neither ever switched), she does like Jack and feels bad about being on opposite sides. So the ending implies pretty strongly that they're going to become romantically paired off, and their familiars will continue to be odd couple friends (in spite of being a cat and a dog).

Plus, the whole thing winds up being a pun about Jack and Jill going down the hill, which is absolutely the sort of thing Zelazny loves to do.

If you need "closure" (no pun intended), you can probably assume Jack and Jill date for a while. Maybe it works out. Maybe it doesn't. And then about 20 years later, a number of the proper people will be attracted to the proper place in the proper year on a night in the lonesome October when the moon shines full and the way may be opened. And some of those people will assist in the opening of the way while others will strive to keep the way closed. And Jack will be there, because Jack is always there. Maybe Jill will stand with him to close them out. Or maybe they will sadly find themselves on opposite sides again. Or maybe Jill won't be there at all.

But someone will be. Because the story never ends, and the cycle continues forever (or at least until the Openers win and break the cycle forever). You got to see how one cycle went, but now it's over, and the story ends.

And just like how we never got to find out what actually happened in Dijon, or that time when everybody gave up and just had dinner together, or the time when everyone chickened out and the Closers won by default, we won't get to know what happens the next time. Or the time after that. Or the one after that.

Because The Game only ends when the world does.







And fuck it. Now I want to dig out my old notes I made years ago and write that Lonesome October fanfic I've thought about writing on and off for about 20 years now. I always start to feel that urge around this time of year.

One year I was actually considering writing it up as in-character blogposts and posting one per day all month. And I've got the whole story mapped out in my head in outline (and with the characters I was planning to use). Though I've always successfully fought off the urge to actually do it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's great.

A Night in the Lonesome October is also a great novel by him. And it's a fun read if you read it in October, and read one chapter per day.

Agreed. Ive read the Corwin ones multiple times. I could never get into the Merlin ones for some reason.

And Damnation Alley, is a good quick read. I read that one when I went on a post-apocalyptic kick.

jim butcher

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Cacciato posted...

Agreed. Ive read the Corwin ones multiple times. I could never get into the Merlin ones for some reason.

It's probably because Merlin is a doofus.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I was fighting the urge to recommend Foucault's Pendulum. I think it's fantastic, but I'm also aware a lot of people have trouble reading Umberto Eco.

That's a great book, but it might be a little bewildering at times for someone without at least a passing knowledge of the occult. It's really an intellectual exercise that was given a plot to move it along and make it more interesting to read.