ruoste
Joined: Jun 02, 2004
|
 Posted:
Jan 14, 2006 - 20:34 |
 
|
Robert A. Heinlein
For fantasy writers, Fritz Leiber's Swords against sorcery and Swords against death, and all other Ffahrd & Grey mouser series.
And of course Robert Howard. The creator of Conan and other great Sword & Sorcery heroes. King Kull, Conn etc. |
Last edited by ruoste on %b %14, %2006 - %22:%Jan; edited 1 time in total |
|
Meetgrinder
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
|
| Posted:
Jan 14, 2006 - 21:20 |
|
I'm tearing through "a Storm of swords" one of George RR Martins' epic "a song of fire and ice" 6 parter, currently on volume 3 book 2 and gotta admit, it's a brave author that can write something like "The Red Wedding" incident. You'll have to read the books (I recommend you do) so no spoilers from me, but it's excellent stuff. Shame it would not translate into film very well - too many characters - an audience would be befuddled with all the names that get thrown about.
David Gemmell has long been a favourite, but many of his stories have the same lines, save for a change of character name/setting. Waylander and Legend will always stand out to me as classics, and would be brilliant if realised on the big screen.
Other than those, most of the authors mentioned I've tried at one timeor another, and will try some of those listed I've not touched on yet. Some authors seem to kncok out crap simply for the sake of making cash - if anyone staggered through David Eddings' Belgariad series they might get the same feeling I got - that the 2nd set of five books seemed to mirror the first 5. As a result he's not an author I'll be returning to.
Brian Lumley and his necroscope series had a high place on my "must read" list until things started to go a little downhill with the "Vampire world" series after the excellent first few books. After that first series of books I got an increasing feeling he was knocking out books for the sake of it, and lost interest, but the original book "Necroscope" is well worth looking up.
Other than that always on the lookout for new authors with a decent sci fi/fantasy/horror story to tell. |
|
|
lupus.
Joined: Jan 14, 2006
|
| Posted:
Jan 14, 2006 - 23:53 |
|
Loads...
Dan Abnett (Ghosts Only..)
Terry Pratchett
Frank Herbert
I guess i could keep going mainly Sci-Fi and Fantasy sort of read's... |
|
|
DonTomaso
Joined: Feb 20, 2005
|
| Posted:
Jan 14, 2006 - 23:58 |
|
First I must say that I'm not a vampire-geek, nor do I live vampire games... In fact, I really dislike the vampire-games altogether...
But P N Elrods "The Vampire Chronicles" are an excellent read.
It is Film Noir meets Interview with a vampire... Really cool! An excellent twist! |
_________________
====================================
Be careful, my common sense is tingling! |
|
meat_puppet
Joined: Dec 09, 2005
|
| Posted:
Jan 15, 2006 - 00:25 |
|
David Weber
Richard Morgan
Keith Laumer (the Bolo books anyway...never read any of the Reitif books) |
|
|
RC
Joined: Sep 22, 2005
|
| Posted:
Jan 20, 2006 - 11:53 |
|
I just saw this guys name (Solomon Kane) and checked out his team http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team&op=view&team_id=229594 ,great to see that there is till love for Robert E Howard, (check out Conans bio). Pulp Fiction rocks! |
_________________
"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." |
|
Mr_QB
Joined: Jul 16, 2004
|
| Posted:
Jan 20, 2006 - 12:08 |
|
Dan Abnett for sure his Gaunt's Ghosts novels are the best i have ever read |
_________________
Nuffle should have stayed in his cursed mother's womb, she should have had pity on our lost souls and killed nuffle while she still had the chance. |
|
Ironik
Joined: Jun 28, 2004
|
| Posted:
Jan 20, 2006 - 12:19 |
|
Rule of Iron
have a writer pass the test of time test (i.e. the author in question must be dead)
Exception to the rule
A. Camilleri (Commisario Montalbano) |
|
|
Smess
Joined: Feb 13, 2004
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 11:33 |
|
<b>Just read 'The time of our singing' by Richard Powers, and I can only say it is the best book I have ever read.</b>
Up to page 350 it's mostly introducing and elaborating characters, and then he gradualy starts digging deeper to show what drives these people to do the things they do. The closer to get to the end, the better it becomes, and the grand finale is just ... indiscrabably brilliant. Best plot I have ever witnessed in a book or a film. He manages to say things about racism, family bonds, music, time, life in general, and most of all HOPE in a way that is IMO far superior to anything science could ever say about these subjects. Fookin brilliant how he works all of these things into the story.
By the way, I have to agree that George RR Martin's 'Song of Ice and Fire' is the best fantasy I have ever read. Most other fantasy authors will realy have to get the quality of their work up a few standards, cos else it will look redicoulous next to Martin's work. |
|
|
def909
Joined: Oct 25, 2005
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 11:56 |
|
Pratchett is my favourite, he is abolutely unique
That being said, I also enjoyed reading books by Neil Gaiman, Tom Holt, Matt Ruff (great!) and I just read Michel Houellebecq (no fiction). The latter is an asshole imo (couldn´t help thinking it while reading), but one hell of a writer anyway. Also I can really recommend reading Paolo Coelho, read a couple of books now and they all were fascinating. |
|
|
Mezir
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 12:16 |
|
Strange, looks like I haven't posted in this thread yet... I remember doing so in earlier, probably in a thread dated 2004 now. 
Just discovered a great new author, bright shining gem of modern fantasy - R. Scott Bakker. The series is apparently called "The Prince of Nothing" and the two published works are The Darknes that Comes Before and The Warrior-Prophet. Truly excellent charcaterisation and plot.
The only person I would name in the same league is Steven Erikson, for the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Epic fantasy with a twist. You know where Feist has several demi-god characters running around? Something that I always thought did not do his work justice. Erikson manages to pull this off. Gods, mortals, immortals, strange new races (Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur, Barghast, Jaghut, and many more), a global, even pan-dimensional, history of immense complexity... It goes deeper and deeper and deeper, unravels layer upon layer of plot, and when something appears to be clear, the next layer is revealed and you goggle at the manipulation that has been going on.
To give an inkling of the scope... Book 5, Midnight Tides, is the story of one of the characters who starts to tell his companions the history of himself and his world/dimension. One would think you'd be annoyed, as you want the main plot to continue, but the tie-ins to the main plot, the revelations into the scale of the Main Evil Guy's plans and the sheer quality of the writing and the love you bear the new characters introduced... Where Robert Jordan annoys me to no end for not getting on with it, Steven Erikson could write abouit an excursion to the outhouse and have me riveted every single word.
The books are large and they are wordy, so be warned.
Malazan Book of the Fallen: Gardens of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice, House of Chains, Midnight Tides
Other authors I like: George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams. |
_________________
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day; set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. |
|
WERTHOR
Joined: Jan 24, 2005
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 13:13 |
|
Ok, here some english speaking author's that I real love, even if for very different reasons:
Terry Pratchett
Jonathan Coe
Nick Hornby
Arundathi Roy
Mordecai Richler
Irvine Welsh
I was very surprised, reading this post, that some Italian authors were enlisted, as Umberto Eco and Andrea Camilleri: actually theese two authors wrote their books with a very tipical style (Es. Camilleri's books of Commissario Montalbano are wrote in a Sicilian dialect, as some pages of Eco's "Baudolino" are wrote in a Medieval Italian); I'm glad to hear that they have been enjoied even with the translation; or did you read them in Italian?Damn I envy you, once I tried to read the Welsh's book "Glue" in it's "original language" (not Oxford English, for sure  ) but I could't understand a single word! |
|
|
Colin
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 15:51 |
|
The best fantasy fiction I've ever read was Orwell's 1984 and a compilation of translated short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, whose prose is so good it's a pleasure to read, almost regardless of the plot. The way he wrote was so clear that it translated brilliantly - he spoke perfect English but always wrote in Spanish. Tolkein wasn't a great writer, but his vision was extraordinary. I'm on the lookout for a hardback compilation of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, as I want to re-read it. I remember crying with laughter the first time I read it, many years ago.
I haven't read much lately by living authors; Pratchett is always decent, though some of his latest books have taken on a harder, more serious edge than before, and I'm finishing off R. Jordan's never-ending series because I've got this far in it - I've read a chapter or two of his latest one, which started off well enough, though there's still way, way too much padding. I could go through his books with a highlighter and remove half of each volume. What would be left would make for a very good story. |
_________________
Join The Cult of Tzeentch, mutate randomly! | Hug a newb! Join the Faculty of Academy Instructors! |
|
guimas
Joined: Jun 08, 2005
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 16:04 |
|
Neil Gaiman. The books, specially Stardust, American Gods and of course, Neverwhere are amazing. Anansi Boys is good, but a bit short....
Terry Pratchet is briliant!
Isaac Asimov: Foundation and Azazel are genious. Too bad about the final two Foundation books, imho. |
|
|
gken1
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
|
| Posted:
Feb 06, 2006 - 16:12 |
|
| Meetgrinder wrote: | | I'm tearing through "a Storm of swords" one of George RR Martins' epic "a song of fire and ice" 6 parter, currently on volume 3 book 2 and gotta admit, it's a brave author that can write something like "The Red Wedding" incident. |
it's now a 7 parter due to book 4 being split into two books. But the Red Wedding strikes a cord with everyone who reads it I think. As in...how can a writer write that???? why!!!!!!
but great stuff. |
|
|
|
|
| |
Secret League Americ...
Search
