Who do you think is the GREATEST LIVING (SFF&horror) author?

[terryweide]

As long as Ray Bradbury is still alive, I'd put Bradbury above Ellison, Le Guin, Silverberg, Moorcock, and maybe ahead of King, if for no other reasons than Bradbury influenced a lot of these writers and because he's had impact outside of the genre.

If you say Ray Bradbury, people know who he is. If you say Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe, Joe Landsdale, etc., people who read sci-fi/fantasy know who these people are, but the average person may scratch their head.

And now I see Fied Egg commented on Bradbury as well.

 

[biodroid]

For horror, I would say Stephen King and Dean Koontz in no particular order. Reasons: Stephen King for sheer story telling brilliance and originality and eeriness (read The Shining). Dean Koontz because he is fast paced and can really freak you out even though he has a handful of horror books. Check out Phantoms, that was one mother of a scare filled book with a great story and Watchers (which is a horror classic IMO) and the very eery Winter Moon and Midnight.

I assume SFF is short for Sci-Fi and Fantasy so here goes (for living authors):
Fantasy:
(IMO) Joe Abercrombie and Brent Weeks are deserving of this because they just capture the violence and intrigue so well and keep the pace up. I was breathless after book 2 of Night Angle trilogy. We all know Joe is a great writer and his characters are really likeable and despicable.

Sci-Fi:
I have read mostly dead authors but very little like Dune and Arthur C Clarke (can't remember the book).
Living authors I would say Richard Morgan and Peter F. Hamilton. I would really like to give Alistair Reynolds a shot as I have heard good things about him.
Oh yes Greg Bear is good but he can drag a story with filler like Forge of God. That president is a big *****ng *****le, and extremely irritating.

 

[antiloquax]

@D_Davis Well, I might re-visit "The Dark Tower". I just remember being a bit annoyed with "Wizard and Glass" as I felt he was leaning too much on "The Wizard of Oz". "The Gunslinger" is outstanding!

I am enjoying this thread a lot. I haven't read any Christopher Priest yet, but after learning about him on here, I am keen to do so.

Maybe we should think about the best SF, Fantasy and Horror writers dead or alive?

 

[D_Davis]

@D_Davis Well, I might re-visit "The Dark Tower". I just remember being a bit annoyed with "Wizard and Glass" as I felt he was leaning too much on "The Wizard of Oz". "The Gunslinger" is outstanding!

WaG is my least favorite. I consider the "later books" to be post-WaG, since there was a very long break until Wolves.

 

[rai]

I started this thread, it is interesting to read the many replies we have had so far. if anyone thinks it shoudl be a poll feel free to make one with the nominees we have.

I am surrprised no one has mentioned George R R Martin so I would like to nominate him. I would have thought he was somewhere in the discussion.

I don't know if anyone wants to make this a poll or just keep it informal.

--

I don't think that how big a seller an author is or how prolific he writes should be the only criteria, but it should have some bearing on the topic. Some of the names given probably haven't published more than 300 pages such as Ted Chang. Now I have not read anything he has written, but is it too much to ask if he should be in this discussion when he has published (according to wiki) only 12 stories as of 2011?

Can we get real? Is this a serious author that people are saying is in the discussion for "Best LIVING SFF author"?

 

[D_Davis]

I don't think that how big a seller an author is or how prolific he writes should be the only criteria, but it should have some bearing on the topic. Some of the names given probably haven't published more than 300 pages such as Ted Chang. Now I have not read anything he has written, but is it too much to ask if he should be in this discussion when he has published (according to wiki) only 12 stories as of 2011?

Can we get real? Is this a serious author that people are saying is in the discussion for "Best LIVING SFF author"?

Depends on how good those stories are.

Ligotti has published far fewer things than Laurell K. Hamilton, or Jim Butcher, but it is a forgone conclusion that he is by far the better prose-stylist and author; his work will become part of the horror canon, just as Poe and Lovecraft did before him. No disrespect to Butcher and Hamilton, but if we're talking best and important, then we have to measure the author's worth based on quality and staying power.

Or look at T.E.D. Klein - he's published one great novel, one amazing collection of novellas, and a small handful of other not-so-good things, and yet other authors and readers consider him to be one of the best writers of horror today; based solely on how good those few things are.

 

[D_Davis]

That's probably why this topic is impossible to answer beyond us simply stating who our favorites are.

I mean, look at Lovecraft. He wasn't very popular when he was alive and writing. He lived much of his life in abject poverty; sometimes he couldn't even afford paper to write on, and used circular mailings as stationary! His work wasn't even collected in his life time, but he is considered one of the pillars of the genre today. If you asked your question while Lovecraft was still alive, I wonder what people would have said?

A. Merritt and Alfred Bester also left this life in poverty, while their works carried on.

Moby Dick was considered a complete failure when it was first published.

I think as far as living authors go, we can only state who are favorites are and why. We need the filter of time to distinguish who the greats are, and this often takes longer than any author's life to determine.

 

[J-Sun]

I don't think that how big a seller an author is or how prolific he writes should be the only criteria, but it should have some bearing on the topic. Some of the names given probably haven't published more than 300 pages such as Ted Chang. Now I have not read anything he has written, but is it too much to ask if he should be in this discussion when he has published (according to wiki) only 12 stories as of 2011?

Can we get real? Is this a serious author that people are saying is in the discussion for "Best LIVING SFF author"?

The only person who mentioned Chiang at the point you posted was me and this was the context (with added emphasis):

And who knows where someone like Ted Chiang will end up if he can somehow keep it up. But that seems like apples and oranges at this point.

So can we get real and interpret what I write as what it means?

However, yes, if we were disregarding tenure and only asking who'd published the best dozen stories in the last twenty years, I suspect one could make a strong case for Chiang. But, again, I figured that wasn't what you meant and said so.

Incidentally, in my list of "SF writers who started publishing in the mid-60s or earlier and are still alive list", I left out Harry Harrison (as well as Gene Wolfe and several others). While Harrison has written a lot of successful stuff and has even been made a Grand Master, I again only mention him now to correct the initial list.

 

[rai]

Gollum has also mentioned Chiang.

 

[J-Sun]

Gollum has also mentioned Chiang.

I stand corrected - before I made my last post on this thread, I used my browser page search to verify and even searched for only 'ang' to allow for misspellings but missed Gollum mentioning 'Chaing'. Well, if someone like Gollum and a philistine like me mention him, he has to be good.

 

[antiloquax]

@D_Davis Thanks for your reply. You've whetted my appetite for "Wolves of the Calla".

 

[Connavar]

That's probably why this topic is impossible to answer beyond us simply stating who our favorites are.

I mean, look at Lovecraft. He wasn't very popular when he was alive and writing. He lived much of his life in abject poverty; sometimes he couldn't even afford paper to write on, and used circular mailings as stationary! His work wasn't even collected in his life time, but he is considered one of the pillars of the genre today. If you asked your question while Lovecraft was still alive, I wonder what people would have said?

A. Merritt and Alfred Bester also left this life in poverty, while their works carried on.

Moby Dick was considered a complete failure when it was first published.

I think as far as living authors go, we can only state who are favorites are and why. We need the filter of time to distinguish who the greats are, and this often takes longer than any author's life to determine.

Thats whats nice about literary history. It doesnt care if you sold 300 million books you will be forgotten for a small,not rich in his liftime author when he is the better writer.

There are authors from pulp era who sold millions,much better than Lovecraft,Howard,Bradbury,Bester etc But today 70-80 years later its like they didnt exist as writers.

Its the same today even if we think bad writers sell tons of books. Publishers,marketing dont write literary history.

 

[J-Sun]

Thats whats nice about literary history. It doesnt care if you sold 300 million books you will be forgotten for a small,not rich in his liftime author when he is the better writer.

There are authors from pulp era who sold millions,much better than Lovecraft,Howard,Bradbury,Bester etc But today 70-80 years later its like they didnt exist as writers.

Its the same today even if we think bad writers sell tons of books. Publishers,marketing dont write literary history.

I don't know if that's absolutely true. There are definitely cases of ignoring million-sellers and re-discovering overlooked geniuses but I think the bulk of the classics were extremely popular in their lifetimes. I think literary history may have a mildly corrective effect when it comes to sales but I don't think it's sales-blind. (Not that it necessarily should be, as part of literary history that's interesting is its dual-service as the history of ideas and the human mind throughout history. So sales can be "vulgar" but it can also indicate that a lot of people were exposed to a work's ideas and it made a cultural impact whereas a guy writing stuff for the trunk may have been a genius but had no impact on his contemporaries.) Still, a corrective for simple popularity without contributions to the mental zeitgeists is good and unpopular geniuses can certainly contribute to the zeitgeists of the times that rediscover them, if not their own.

 

[Connavar]

I don't know if that's absolutely true. There are definitely cases of ignoring million-sellers and re-discovering overlooked geniuses but I think the bulk of the classics were extremely popular in their lifetimes. I think literary history may have a mildly corrective effect when it comes to sales but I don't think it's sales-blind. (Not that it necessarily should be, as part of literary history that's interesting is its dual-service as the history of ideas and the human mind throughout history. So sales can be "vulgar" but it can also indicate that a lot of people were exposed to a work's ideas and it made a cultural impact whereas a guy writing stuff for the trunk may have been a genius but had no impact on his contemporaries.) Still, a corrective for simple popularity without contributions to the mental zeitgeists is good and unpopular geniuses can certainly contribute to the zeitgeists of the times that rediscover them, if not their own.

Its not sales blind but take SK for example he will be remembered because horror,fantasy fans think he is important in his fields and not because he sold many other books. But will he become a titan of horror classics like HPL and co ?

Kakfa show you dont need to impact your contemporary times at all to be remembered as classic author. His works was realesed after his death i think. Poe is even bigger example. Robert E Howard died poor and half of his works unpublished but he has tons of fans today and a founding father of fantasy subgenre reputation.

Big Sales or no sales its what people will remember of the writing or the stories.

 

[J-Sun]

Yeah, I agree with all your examples - I think we're in basic agreement: that it's not absolute one way or the other.

 

[Connavar]

By the way since this thread is not only for saying your best living SF writer but also fantasy,horror i would rank my best living authors like this:

Jack Vance(SFF)
Tim Powers(Fantasy)
CJ Cherryh(SFF)
Charles.R Saunders(Fantasy)
Richard Matheson(SFF,Horror)

Its not as easy you might think because most of my the greatest authors i have read in the fields are old greats who are dead. There are highly acclaimed authors i havent read either.

 

[JustPassingThrough]

I never thought of it until I read the last post and then found myself shaking my head and agreeing, agreeing that most of my favorite with science fiction and horror are dead!

My favorite current science fiction writer is Robert Reed, but can I say he is the greatest living, not when you still have Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury and the such with us (and thank goodness they are).

With horror the only time I've been creeped out by a story is one by Joe Hill, but again, you have others still with us that have done so much more. Peter Straub one could say.

 

[GOLLUM]

I stand corrected - before I made my last post on this thread, I used my browser page search to verify and even searched for only 'ang' to allow for misspellings but missed Gollum mentioning 'Chaing'. Well, if someone like Gollum and a philistine like me mention him, he has to be good.

ER...I would hardly call you a philistine J-Sun and sorry for the typo but getting back to Ted Chiang he is definitely someone I would happily recommend. In Chaing's case as I think you allude to, it's definitely a case of quality and not quantity that consolidates his reputation as an excellent writer. Most of his work is in the area of short fiction at which he is a master. For anyone interested, most of this is collected in Stories Of Your Life and Others. I also have a copy of The Lifecycle Of Software Objects, his first longer work, that I admit I have not yet read but mean to this year.