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Favorite Contempory Authors?

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Devils_Advocate

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  • 1 month later...

My favorites are Terry Goodkind, Philip Pullman, George R. R. Martin, Orson Scott Card (mostly for Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Enchantment), J. K. Rowling, and Koushun Takami (he has only written one novel, Battle Royale, which is the best thriller I have ever read).

These days I think most high-quality writing takes place in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Most modern "literature" tends to be very naturalistic and depressing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
My favorites are Terry Goodkind, Philip Pullman, George R. R. Martin, Orson Scott Card (mostly for Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Enchantment), J. K. Rowling, and Koushun Takami (he has only written one novel, Battle Royale, which is the best thriller I have ever read).

I second J.K. Rowling and Terry Goodkind and add the hilarious Terry Pratchett and the absorbing Katharine Kerr. :D

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  • 2 months later...
My favorites are Terry Goodkind, Philip Pullman, George R. R. Martin, Orson Scott Card (mostly for Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Enchantment), J. K. Rowling, and Koushun Takami (he has only written one novel, Battle Royale, which is the best thriller I have ever read).

These days I think most high-quality writing takes place in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Most modern "literature" tends to be very naturalistic and depressing.

I don't want to sound like a snob but J.K. Rowling is children's fiction, how can an adult read this? I agree with Rand that 99.9% of science fiction is junk, I went through them in junior high and enjoyed Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury and Verne. However after reading classic good literature it was impossible to go back to these, the kind of science fiction that passes muster for me today is Orwell and Huxley.

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I don't want to sound like a snob but J.K. Rowling is children's fiction, how can an adult read this?

The Harry Potter series is exquisitely written in terms of plot and characterization (thematically, it is also quite good). Most modern "literature", by contrast, is not worth the paper it is printed on. I know this after being subjected to "The Best Short Stories of 2004" in a fiction writing class. These stories depicted the most awful mediocrities you can imagine, going about their worthless lives in a drunken stupor, proceeding endlessly from failure to abject failure. No thank you. I prefer to read about heros battling evil, which is what Rowling provides.

You ask how an adult can read children's fiction. I ask you why an adult should not read children's fiction. Indeed, some of the best fiction I have ever read was written for a young audience. Why is it irrational to appreciate such work?

Edited by Tenzing_Shaw
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  • 2 months later...
Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss him. Any particular titles you can recommend?

Sorry, just saw this. :thumbsup:

Read "Vimy". Canadian History written the way it should be taught.

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  • 1 month later...

The most suspenseful, engaging, all consuming novel I had ever read:

Th1rteen R3asons Why written by Jay Asher

I had sat down, for my 15 minute break at work on Sunday night, and after finishing Imaginary Friends by Yolanda Jackson ( which was really good in the beginning, but quickly turned into a violent work, a major blood bath, which I was not looking for, but besides that, it wasn't all that bad for a contemporary work, and seemed like an almost amatuer work, needed editing for spelling and so forth indicates that to me, but anyways) earlier at work, I began reading 13RW. I began at 9:00pm. I did not do anything but move my eyes while reading until I was called away to move a patient bed from one of the floors - and that was at 11:00pm!!! It's fascinating, and pulls me right in, all else goes away! Only way I would have come out of being pulled right into it, would be when I finished it, but I had to at least do something, since I was afterall on the timeclock. I liked this type of noevel way way WAY better than that Ahorn's book, which she droppe dout of college to write, if I am recalling what she did correctly, her Love Letters, of which I was tremendously disappointed in. Thought the idea behind the letters was great, though, which is why I was interested in it. But anyways, this one kinds reminds me of it, since it was to do with communication to people after a persons death, one in the form of letters, this one in the form of audiotapes, the one died, while the other killed herself. What was great about this one, is all the consequences that can result from our actions, sanctioning, and how we affect others. I kept reading because I wanted to understand her, just like Clay did in the novel.

It's a dual narrative, which may be unique to literature, for I have never encountered it before. Hard to understand it when I had my K2 read some of it to me while food shopping after work that night, because of such a narrative. It just all blended together, can hear italics, you know :P

Anyone ever heard of this novel? I never did, and I'm trying to figure out how a kindred spirit of mine had come across this one herself, being in med school and all, she reads more than even I do it seems!!

Edited by intellectualammo
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  • 6 months later...

A kindred spirit of mine sent me a novel, in response to what I had sent to her, one titled The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I'm 17 pages in tonight, and I can say that from just some of what I had read on those pages, it is enough for me to post her as among my favorite contemporary writers, if not the favorite. It's because of her character Margaret Lea, her growing up with books in a bookshop, and her thinking about books and their authors, what books are like when their authors are no longer living. This novel was sent to me at the perfect time, with Salinger's death and all, and the topic of reclusivity - I find this waiting in my mailbox last night, about a writer, Vida Winter, who does give many interviews, is like the top selling writer, perhaps more than the Holy Bible - everyone it seems knows her works, or of them, her face, etc. - but nothing about her. Anyone read it? Back to the novel...

wait have to leave this first:

"People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. [...] All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic."

Edited by intellectualammo
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Right now, I'd probably say that my favorite is Orson Scott Card. I absolutely love his Ender's Game series, and now I'm reading through the Ender's Shadow series. There are a few bad premises in it, but other than that, it's a very engaging and satisfying story. I picked up Shadow Puppets, the third in the Ender's Shadow series, yesterday and finished it last night. Hard to put it down. I only have one more book left in the series, and I know I'll miss the story just as much as I missed the Ender's Game stories, if not more.

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Edward Rutherfurd, comes to mind. Sarum, Hawaii/Alaska, The Tell? (an archeological dig in the middle east).

Nicholas Ostler did a thought provoking work in Empires of the Word.

[edit]Underlined titles.[/edit]

Edited by dream_weaver
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