i really love thomas pynchon for his balls to the wall approach to writing books :)

what do you guys reckon?

J.R.R. Tolkien for me...just the incredible scale and scope of the entire Middle-Earth books is just phenomenal; thousands of years of history, a whole load of languages, stories, poems, references throughout to other historical events.

All these things, along with the depth of detail and the way he described this world made you want to believe that it was real once.

Oh yeah, and a British poet called Benjamin Zephaniah is a pretty awesome dude...check out 'Talking Turkeys'...it's great!

John Agard or A. J. Quinnell.

Jeffery Deaver

I have many favorite writers, most for different reasons.

My ABSOLUTE favorite author is Barry Hughart, the under appreciated genius behind "The Bridge of Birds", "The Story of the Stone" and "Eight Skilled Gentlemen" a strange set of novels that fuse Chinese Fantasy, Chinese History, Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Indiana Jones style adventure. They are great reads and the fact that he isn't writing any more is very sad. But I like other writers as well.

I love David Eddings for his nice, clean prose and his witty character dialogue.

I love Phillip Pullman for his ideas and his gorgeous prose work.

I like Stephen King for various reasons, mostly because The Dark Tower rocks and he is quite a good writer if you read the right books, and ignore the endings.

I love China Meiville for his complex ideas and bravery.

I like KJ Bishop because she's a very cool lady and excellent writer with interesting ideas.

I like Guy Gavriel Kay for his historical mindset.

I've only really ever been a fan of Pullman. I don't read much nowadays, mainly because the last book I did read was God damn awful; The Larion Senators, by Robert Scott and Jay Gordon. Honestly, I read it because I had followed the trilogy through the last two books, but that 'finale' really highlights everything wrong with American literature - it has put me off fiction (and portal fantasy especially) for a good few years, me thinks.

Big fan of David Wong, mind - of John Dies At The End fame: Even so, that's a traditional portal fantasy/horror, but its done in an original and enticing way.

Other than that, I like Llearn Hearn's work - the Tales of the Otori series especially. I don't usually associate with literature orientated around fuedal Japan, because I generally think everyone else who is into that genre happen to be Anime fanboys - which they are 90% of the time. Again, her writing fell down after she chose to drag out the story past three books.

Alan Moore.

World's greatest storyteller, in any medium.

Crap_haT:
John Agard or A. J. Quinnell.

John Agard!!! i saw him do a poetry reading for my gcse english course, he was hilarious, great personality and performer :)

Yay! Not the only Stephen King fan! Also, if you're into supernatural books, his son wrote a book called Heart-Shaped Box under the name of Joe Hill. Best debut novel I've ever read.

As far as fantasy goes, I don't read fantasy, as Robert Jordan turned me off to that. I heard Goodkind is really good though. So was J.K. Rowling, until her books turned into "Shit happens to Harry Potter. The End."

Also, Stuart Woods is a damn good suspense-action-romance...thing...author. Especially his Stone Barrington novels. First Will Lee book is pretty good, too.

Grant Morrison,
Neil Gaimen
Terry Pratchett
Douglas Adams
Alan Moore, but that's already been said.

thebobmaster:
Yay! Not the only Stephen King fan! Also, if you're into supernatural books, his son wrote a book called Heart-Shaped Box under the name of Joe Hill. Best debut novel I've ever read.

Funny Fact, Joe Hill is, in fact, Stephen King's son, he writes under a pen name so he can achieve success on his own merits.

Also, I can't believe I left out Moore, Gaiman and Pratchett, so to add comic writers to the list.

Kurt Busiek, he's an amazing writer and a really cool guy.

Warren Ellis, especially Transmetropolitan and Planetary

Bill Willingham, very funny and writes excellent comics (Fables and Shadowpact).

Brian K. Vaughn, writes Y The Last Man, one of the best comics ever.

Chuck Palahniuk is a bit of genius

I mentioned that Joe Hill is Stephen King's son. And apparently learned quite a bit from his old man.

Chuck Palahniuk & Robert Rankin are probably my favourite though relative new comer Simon Spurrier also shows a lot of promise.

Other contemporary authors a really like include Terry Pratchett, Harry Turtledove, Ben Elton, William Gibson (particually his earlier stuff) David Mitchell.

That's just off the top of my head and I've also read alot of the classics, I read a lot and I love my books, can't stand it when people bend the spines back and stuff like that, really gets me riled (and I normally exist in a Buddha like calm)

Phillip K. Dick, George Orwell and H.G. Wells is no particular order.

Terry Pratchett for a good time.
Alan Moore as my favourite comic book writer.
George Orwell for the man behind the words; a man who advocated simple words for even complex ideas, because complex words too easily hide stupid ideas.
And China Mieville for saying "screw that, I'm going to use every big word I can think of and you'll LIKE it". Oh, and for the hugely interesting fantasy he writes.

#1 favorite...
Robert Heinlein and Ed Greenwood (tie). I just LOVE Ed's Elminster novels, and he is responsible for the creation of the entire Forgotten Realms. Heinlein... Well he IS the father of Science Fiction and one of the most unique minds ever seen on earth.

Other highly-loved authors;
S.D. Perry
Richard Knaak
Naomi Novik
EE Knight
Jo Walton
HP Lovecraft
Eric Garcia
Elaine Cunningham
Neil Gaiman
Terry Goodkind
Douglas Niles
and Andrew Harman

Clive Barker. Ignore Jericho, the man has written some stonkingly good books. My favourite by him is either 'The Thief Of Always' or 'Weaveworld'.

Tolkien, but strangely enough not for the reasons you may think. While I can appreciate the amount of history that Prof. T came up with for LOTR, the things I always loved about the books were the characters he created, like Treeeard, Sam Gamgee and Gollum, or the lovely way he described life in the Shire at the beginning and end of the story, or Gandalf's insightful little speeches. It's the same reason why I don't like the Silmarillion as much (as a novel). There's not enough of a human element to really stir up my emotions.

Alexandres Dumas- The Count Of Monte Cristo is just an absolutely amazing novel. And The Three Musketeers is a damn good read too.

George Orwell, Hunter S Thompson (For fear and loathing alone) and William S Burroughs

PedroSteckecilo:
I have many favorite writers, most for different reasons.

I love David Eddings for his nice, clean prose and his witty character dialogue.

.

I do enjoy David Eddings as well, and I'm glad to know there are others out there

I think for me, I have to separate down to particular novels because, even though I love certain authors, I don't usually like everything by one person-- also, I'm a 5th grade teacher, so its difficult for me to keep up with all the adult fiction when I read so many kids books to keep up with as well.

I highly recommend from the adult category . . .
Dark Tower-- Stephen King
Pawn of Prophecy and subsequent by David Eddings
Ender's Game by O. S. Card
Brave New World by Albus Huxley

From the kids category . . .
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
The Lightning Thief by . . .I can't remember right now
Harry Potter by everyone knows who

Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian is the best book about violence I've ever read.

Hey-someone else out there who likes Naomi Novik..... grand. Problem with me is, I haven't read past the third book becasue this country gets literature roughly half a milennia behind the rest of the world.... and before youask, we have all read the new testament.... the reviews are still coming out.

But other than that, i read so many books that if I attempted to list the authors, we'd add another four pages.

L.B. Jeffries:
Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian is the best book about violence I've ever read.

OOh, you might be interested to know that his novel "The Road" is being made into a movie.
I wonder it it will still feature baby-eating?

Khell_Sennet:

L.B. Jeffries:
Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian is the best book about violence I've ever read.

OOh, you might be interested to know that his novel "The Road" is being made into a movie.
I wonder it it will still feature baby-eating?

It's being directed by John Hillcoat, best known for the "darker than dark" aussie western, The Proposition, it'll probably at least allude to baby eating and other disturbing acts, if not depict them in some manner or another.

Ack, double post!

Iain M Banks is probably my favorite writer at this moment, but Frank Herbert, William Gibson, Phillip K Dick, and Larry Niven are also amazing imo. I guess for guilty pleasure Stephen King.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. People may have dropped the 'Jr' these days, but I can't get out of the habit. What can I say, it's what's on my books.

Also: Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Oscar Wilde, and for the sake of my childhood, Garth Nix. I think Garth Nix was always below my reading level, but the creativity was brilliant.

Anne McCaffery, Stephen Coonts, Terry Goodkind....to name my top three.

H.P. Lovecraft, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Jorge Luis Borges, Douglas Adams, Albert Camus, and Thomas Ligotti.

If you haven't read Borges or Ligotti... do yourself a favour. Ligotti, in particular, has several short reads which will haunt you for the rest of your life.

The Russian master, the ultimate climax of all human culture and art: Fyodor Dostoevsky

This man writes books that contain 90% dialogue/monolgue and still manages to make them impossible to turn down. Sometimes it can take a day to read two three pages, or to understand them atleast.

PedroSteckecilo:

Khell_Sennet:

L.B. Jeffries:
Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian is the best book about violence I've ever read.

OOh, you might be interested to know that his novel "The Road" is being made into a movie.
I wonder it it will still feature baby-eating?

It's being directed by John Hillcoat, best known for the "darker than dark" aussie western, The Proposition, it'll probably at least allude to baby eating and other disturbing acts, if not depict them in some manner or another.

As long as they keep the back story right, I'm cool with it.

'The Road', like 'Children of Men' had the guts to be realistic about an apocalypse scenario. You don't need a zombie virus, you don't need vampires. If there was a major cataclysm and plants stopped growing, people would not need much to resort to extreme barbarism. Same if people stopped being able to reproduce, I liked that movie because it reminded you how thin a veil civilization really is for people.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
Clive Barker. Ignore Jericho, the man has written some stonkingly good books. My favourite by him is either 'The Thief Of Always' or 'Weaveworld'.
.

As much as I enjoyed the game, the story would have functioned much better as a movie, or in the very least a mini-series. As a game, in the end, mediocre at best, on a good day.

Anyhow, I'm going to echo Clive Barker, and throw in The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carol.
Topping it all off with Hickman and Weiss for The Death Gate Cycle.

*Michael Crighton (Sphere, Jurrasic Park, The Andromeda Strain...)
*Antony Beevor who wrote "Stalingrad" which is the best history book I have ever read.
*Phillip Pullman and Tolkien because they are both brilliant.
*Jeremy Clarkson because he is funny.

TheNecroswanson:

Topping it all off with Hickman and Weiss for The Death Gate Cycle.

Oh Snap! Another thing I totally forgot about, excellent and original series there. Their best work in my opinion.

Stephen King for me any day. His books are just so good at giving me that scary chill down my spine.