Favourite Authors

[Dr. Insomniac]

Hey, if we have Favourite Artists...

Neil Gaiman - What can I say? He manages to craft Lovecraftian nightmares and Ellisoneqsue horrors into works of art, while having a bit of a laugh with it too.

Terry Pratchett - Why I can never take Tolkien seriously anymore.

Jim Butcher - He's like the Joss Whedon of prose.

Douglas Adams - Oh, my only issue is that he didn't write enough books.

Neal Stephenson - While his books are more history lessons than narratives, they still entertain me.

[Pharass]

If I had to pick one favorite, right now it would be Jorge Luis Borges. I recently bought a small book containing some of his short-stories and was awestruck by the sheer force of imagination evident in every single one of them, not to mention the peculiar atmosphere that called to mind both the short-stories of Victorian authors like Stephenson as well as 1001 Nights.

Another favorite is Dumas. I re-visit The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo on a regular basis.

[Angus]

Douglas Adams - Oh, my only issue is that he didn't write enough books.

Yeah, it's sad he passed away. Although his writing tendencies might be like those British TV series that only have a handful of episodes. I need to find that Don't Panic book by Neil Gaiman.

[Avaitor]

Here are some fun rejection letters I found:

• Rudyard Kipling: I'm sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language.
• Dr. Seuss: Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.
• The Diary of Anne Frank: The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the "curiosity" level.
• Joseph Heller (on Catch-22): I haven't really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say? Apparently the author intends it to be funny - possibly even satire - but it is really not funny on any intellectual level ... From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.
• Oscar Wilde (on Lady Windermere?s Fan): My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.
• Vladimir Nabokov (on Lolita): ... overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian ... the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream ... I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.
• H.G. Wells (on The Time Machine): It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader.

[Lord Dalek]

Well the thing about Adams was he was all about almost Wodehouse-ian dialogue. Its stuff you want to hear instead of read and that's how the first two Hitchhikers came into being, as radio show scripts (with Life, The Universe, and Everything originating as a rejected Doctor Who serial).

[Angus]

So instead of an actual Hitchhiker's guide, we get Wikipedia? 

[ElricJC]

Hey, if we have Favourite Artists...

Neil Gaiman - What can I say? He manages to craft Lovecraftian nightmares and Ellisoneqsue horrors into works of art, while having a bit of a laugh with it too.

Terry Pratchett - Why I can never take Tolkien seriously anymore.

Jim Butcher - He's like the Joss Whedon of prose.

Douglas Adams - Oh, my only issue is that he didn't write enough books.

Neal Stephenson - While his books are more history lessons than narratives, they still entertain me.

Well you already hit almost all the ones I was going to mention. Fine taste, lad. I would also like to add George R. R. Martin. He may be long-winded, but the depth of "Game of Thrones" is truly breathtaking, and I fully believe he is the literary successor to J.R.R. Tolkien. Right down to the long-winded part

Also, as a Thompson scholar I fully endorse reading at least the earliest works of Hunter S. Thompson, namely "Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs," "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72", "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved," and of course "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." The film does not do it justice. The biggest thing to remember about Thompson is that his sense of exaggeration serves to outline the ridiculous situation he (or his persona) end up in. Hell's Angels is straight-up journalism (well, as straight up as Thompson gets), while his persona is developed in the latter three works, and on through his career until he returned to sports journalism in his twilight years. Bit of a deeper read than the aforementioned authors, but worthy of reading.

Heh, and if you REALLY want to torment yourselves, you can always look up my thesis "Fear and Loathing in American Literature: Freedom, the American Dream, and Hunter S. Thompson." It'actually sold on many different sites, but the cost is idiotic - I wouldn't pay $60+ for it, and I bloody well wrote it!

[Spark Of Spirit]

I never wrote here? Hmm.

Okay, I guess I don't have many favorites. I'll read anything as long as the story is good enough, but my all-time favorite is pretty easy to pick. That would be G.K. Chesterton. The man wrote so much that I'll never read it all, but it's all so interesting and full of ideas. He's probably always going to be my favorite.

Second would probably go to Walker Percy. I'm currently reading Lost in the Cosmos and it is such a strange idea for a book.

[Avaitor]

Lovecraft, Howard, Leiber, McCaffrey, Farmer...

That's pretty much where my tastes lead to nowadays. Otherwise, probably Tolstoy.