Good and Bad Authors?

[BrightStar]

Authors you like and dislike. Not them personally, but their stories that they have published thus far.**

[Tequila Zaire]

F. Scott Fitzgerald...try as I might to give his work a chance...I simply find him a mind numbing bore of a writer. I love the time period he lived in and writes about but his work has always seemed highly overrated to me.

Harlan Ellison...talented? Oh yeah. Would I want to read his work on a regular basis? Not even with a gun to my head or a nude Blueblood gal holding the book up to me with a seductive grin. Every Sci-Fi and Lit geek I run into sings his praises but like the fella above...he bores me. Maybe as I get older I'll tune into him better like I did with Isaac Asimov as a whole.

Poppy Z. Brite Fans...a small minority of her fans are good people. Interesting even...but like Tool and NIN fans...the majority are annoying fucks who need to be set fire too. I've gotten to see Poppy (I love saying and typing that name) at a few signings over the years and the fans always ruin it for me. They either ask "Why don't you write more books like Lost Souls?" or some variation on that which dismiss her current non horror writings. If you read her journal you can kind of get the sense it's hassled her a bit to some end that her own fans have tried to pigeon hole her so much. This is onne of the few cases were fans have turned me off form a writers work at times cause they're just so....unavoidable. May sound a bit sillly but that's how it feels. I dunno how they do it but her more fanatical fans can sorta sense if your reading one of her books and figure out how to ruin it in some way...this could just be my isolated bad luck but god damn it's annoying.

[BrightStar]

R.A. Salvatore- He has such an amazing way with words, that with his descriptions, you can imagine places and objects as if you were there, or they were around or right in front of you. When he describes characters, and the stuff that happen to them, you genuinely come to care about those characters as if they were real!

Terry Pratchett- He has some incredibly hilarious stuff in his work.

Tolkien is also an amazing author, for Obvious Reasons.**

[Tequila Zaire]

Pratchett is great...one of the few to make me laugh regularly out loud. His team up with Neil Gaiman produced a classic in Good Omens.

[hewhoisagod]

Good Omens was great.

Frank Herbert - I need to get back into the Dune series

P.K. Dick - Dude, he wrote what would become Blade Runner, how could I not like him?

Neil Gaiman - Why not?

[Kidthorazine]

Steven King is awesome i even liked his book about the red sox and i hate baseball but i love his writing style

Herman Melville is the worst author ever and Moby Dick is the worst book ever period if youve read it you probably know why

[BrightStar]

Never read his books, but I have been told lots of bad stuff about Dean Coontz ?**

[Tequila Zaire]

Herman Melville is the worst author ever and Moby Dick is the worst book ever period if youve read it you probably know why

I've yet to meet anyone who honestly admits to reading the WHOLE book...my friend only got through a few chapters...he did try to read it again but he just couldn't do it. Nothing of Melville ever attracted my attention to be honest...I figure I SHOULD read the book once...but none seem to be happy they ever read it.

[Kidthorazine]

I've yet to meet anyone who honestly admits to reading the WHOLE book...my friend only got through a few chapters...he did try to read it again but he just couldn't do it. Nothing of Melville ever attracted my attention to be honest...I figure I SHOULD read the book once...but none seem to be happy they ever read it.

I read the whole book for a class i was taking in highschool it doesnt even get exiting towards the end the whole book is just dry and drug out

[Ichigo]

Poppy Z. Brite is my favoirte author. Yes, I am one of her fans that hates her new work. It's just that her old stuff was so good, and it was exactly the type of things that I wanted to read about, and then she goes in the opposite direction. There isn't even any erotica in it anymore. I can't find any other authors who write stories like she did.

[Tequila Zaire]

Poppy Z. Brite is my favoirte author. Yes, I am one of her fans that hates her new work. It's just that her old stuff was so good, and it was exactly the type of things that I wanted to read about, and then she goes in the opposite direction. There isn't even any erotica in it anymore. I can't find any other authors who write stories like she did.

She really can't do those kind of books anymore...not cause she doesn't have the ideas or the talent...it's just the place in her life now is much diffrent than when she did those old books. Staying in one place breeds stagnation...so while the future may bring an old style book I doubt it'll ever have the feel of her earlier work.

Plus it'd be boardering on self parody and cliche now...like Manson and his pathetic attempts to recapture the shocking image and lyrics that made him famous oh so long ago....

[franziska]

Neil Gaiman is a writing genius. I love Good Omens, but I loved Neverwhere and American Gods even more.

Guy Gavriel Kay is really cool. I like his books in The Fionavar Tapestry, written while studying under Tolkien. The influences are obvious in some things, but he really makes it his own.

[Nightingale]

Don't get me started! I used to review books for British Mensa and a few other publications, and got to read so much crap it was unbelieveable. One woman published her own book on Richelieu (I can well believe that no respectable publisher would take it) and demanded a review which she got. One thousand five hundred words tearing it to pieces: 'I don't think the reviewer quite understood what I was writing' she complained. Two other reviewers - to be fair to the woman - also promptly tore it to pieces. Not heard of / from her since.

[Tequila Zaire]

I was never able to really take reviews for books all that seriously...mainly cause I like a lot of old pulp novels that where never seen in all that good of a light. Lit critique though is far higher on my respect list than movie reviews...I will say that many writers never like to admit they wrote a bad book...or six.

[morbid_lady]

i havent found any authors that i really dont like.
the ones i do really like are..

melanie rawn
anne mccaffery
david eddings
garth nix
david patternson

when i was younger i really liked R.L. Stine's fear street saga, i read all the books from it i could find, never read any of the goose bumps though, just the fear street novels.

[VampBoi]

I can't believe nobody listed Anne Rice or Clive Barker. I love both of their work.

[Tequila Zaire]

I can't believe nobody listed Anne Rice or Clive Barker. I love both of their work.

Who?

[Nightingale]

I was never able to really take reviews for books all that seriously...mainly cause I like a lot of old pulp novels that where never seen in all that good of a light. Lit critique though is far higher on my respect list than movie reviews...I will say that many writers never like to admit they wrote a bad book...or six.

Personally I tend not to read other people's reviews at all. Many years ago, as a bookseller, I did and was often lead completely up the garden path by what was written. In my own reviewing days I concentrated on my main areas of interest - history and philosophy - and never ventured outside.

Sometimes you can tell, though, when the reviewer has actually read a book, and when they're bluffing.

[Tequila Zaire]

Sometimes you can tell, though, when the reviewer has actually read a book, and when they're bluffing.

Now that is true. Happens with film all the time...mainly cause some enjoy the industry more than the product. I pay no mind to it but with films that don't seem easily classifiable or NEED critical priase to get people in the seats it becomes a much needed evil. It's all in how you use it I guess.

[J Jack Slash]

Authors you like and dislike. Not them personally, but their stories that they have published thus far.**

Dude, hard to say. Mary Shelley did some decent shit with Frankenstein, but I doubt I'd get into any of her feminist writings (strangely enough). Ayn Rand has totally pissed me off over the years with everything she wrote about capitalism, and just myopic philosophies of everything being as it seems.

I think most of what I'd get into is poetry. I'm a big fan of Rimbaud. Perhaps one or two others.. but I'm generally pretty exclusive in my likes -- and less in my dislikes. Perhaps you should tell us something of what you like.

Love, JJ Slash

[Nightingale]

I read the whole book for a class i was taking in highschool it doesnt even get exiting towards the end the whole book is just dry and drug out

No book which is read for school is interesting; many of them tend to put students off reading for years and years afterwards.

Having said that, we had Evelyn Waugh to study - alongside Shakespeare, Frost and a few others. A Handful of Dust was rather good, just picking it to pieces was crappie.

[aXa]

my fav author is currently Caitlin Kiernan. i just devour anything i can find by her. her writing has this surreal poetic quality to it that i just love. she has done a few pieces w poppy z. btw.

[sheramil]

i've picked up about four different books by Orson Scott Card and read the first dozen or so pages... and there it is, regular as clockwork: the young protagonist being beaten up by his older brother. jesus h tapdancing christ, get over it, man!

[acelightning]

there are quite a few authors i like. two names that come to mind right at the moment are Pat Cadigan and Emma Bull. if you've never heard of either of them, they both write rather cyberpunk-ish fantasy, but other than that (and both being women) they've got nothing at all in common.

p.s. - bet you thought i was going to say "Robert A. Heinlein", didn't you? ;-)

[episode allah]

Robert Anton Wilson.

He undermines everything, including himself and still remains the world's greatest optimist. If you've read him then you'll understand.