Who's your current favourite author?..............

[Pedro Del Mar]

I regularly read Jim Butcher.

Not tried him before until last night when I started the first in the Dresden Files. Only read a little but seems intriguing so far

 

[Highlander II]

Not tried him before until last night when I started the first in the Dresden Files. Only read a little but seems intriguing so far

"Storm Front" is pretty darn good for a first book. And we have a Jim Butcher section here at Chrons if you want to discuss the books with us. XD

 

[ddawson]

Can't have just one. Tim Powers, AA Attanasio, Robert F Jones (deceased), and John Champlain Gardner (deceased) are probably my all time favorites.
Currently reading a Wesley Chu book which is very enjoyable. Just read Roger Levy's first book which was very decent.
Peter F Hamilton, Orson Scott Card, Neal Stephenson, just to name a few in recent years.
Older faves were Herbert, Tolkien, Van Vogt, Edmund Cooper, Kate Wilhelm, Dick, Le Guin, Howard, Burroughs, Joe Haldeman - just off the top of my head.

Have to keep digging for new ones all the time because Faorites can't write fast enough to keep the addiiction fed.

 

[soulsinging]

"Storm Front" is pretty darn good for a first book. And we have a Jim Butcher section here at Chrons if you want to discuss the books with us. XD

I need to pick this series up again. I read like 5 in a row and burned out. I think I stopped at whichever book involved him doing investigations on an adult film set. There were a few "fan service" moments that I began to find kind of absurd, like when his cute female sidekick cop had to take her pants off to get under a laser sensor... I guess she was wearing MC Hammer style parachute pants?

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

ha ha, sounds like it gets more interesting! I've the other books waiting to read, just getting through the Fionavar Tapestry before picking up the next in the series

 

[soulsinging]

ha ha, sounds like it gets more interesting! I've the other books waiting to read, just getting through the Fionavar Tapestry before picking up the next in the series

Yeah, don't get me wrong, they were a blast to read. I think I just read so many in a row that the humor was starting to wear thin, so that scene got an eye roll instead of a chuckle from me. I never intended to stop, just needed a bit of a break. Good thing I've got this place to remind me!

 

[Highlander II]

I need to pick this series up again. I read like 5 in a row and burned out. I think I stopped at whichever book involved him doing investigations on an adult film set. There were a few "fan service" moments that I began to find kind of absurd, like when his cute female sidekick cop had to take her pants off to get under a laser sensor... I guess she was wearing MC Hammer style parachute pants?

The adult film set is in book 6 - "Blood Rites". I didn't really see that scene as a 'fan service' moment - it's surprising how much 'space' clothing takes up, so it's possible those few millimeters made a difference. And most of Jim's 'fan' nods are more geek-oriented - like BtVS and Star Wars shout-outs. Usually, in these books, if someone's naked and they're not having sex, it's for a reason, not just gratuitous 'because this is hot'.

 

[Robert Gibson]

My current favourite author has been the one who has stayed the longest in my fav author list. Since i have read so many different authors in the lasy 6,7 years fav author changed often in the beginning. I was new to many genres like SF,Fantasy,many classic lit when i joined this forum early 2007.

Jack Vance is the still the one i admire most, the one i have read most books of and the one i could read for many more years. Not only because he is a literary great but his imagination, his prose style, his worlds, his stories always being about what is human, no matter the colorful settings fit my taste, my prefered themes perfectly.

Im glad he lived so long that i could even send a fan letter, message to him that got to him through JV yuku forums, his family.

Vance was a literary superman who also had a special kind of humour all his own; his characters spoke a hilariously perfect English at odd moments and were past masters at haggling. An unusual achievement of his was to create an interstellar civilization (the Oikumene, later the Gaean Reach) which was so roomy, you could believe how life wasn't too different in some ways from now: the extra room meant a relaxation of the pressures which in our own lifetimes have led to such rapid change. So many of the folk of forty thousand years hence have life-patterns and concerns not so different from our own, but in vastly more diverse settings. Of course some of the social structures are strange - he is brilliant at creating bizarre customs - but there is plenty of room also for what we would feel as normal life.

 

[Robert Gibson]

Neil Gaiman is my very favourite contemporary novelist and Emily Dickinson is my all-time favourite poet.

Other perennial favourites:

• L.M. Montgomery
• Isaac Asimov
• J.K. Rowling
• Jasper Fforde
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Jane Austen
• Tad Williams
• Georgette Heyer

Current favourites ("current" defined as "in the last decade"):

• Cassandra Clare
• Benedict Jacka
• Simon R. Green
• Charlaine Harris
• Joe Hill
• Gail Carriger
• Isaac Marion
• Diana Gabaldon

Favourites that have fallen by the wayside (but I wouldn't object to picking up their books again):

• Anne Rice
• Clive Barker
• The Brontes
• T.S. Eliot
• James Herriot

My tastes has always ran the gamut of genres

Currently reading the 5-volume Cazalet chronicle by Elizabeth Jane Howard. Spellbinding characterisation and really unputdownable. Belongs like the works of Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope to that sub-genre of science fiction called mainstream literature.

 

[soulsinging]

The adult film set is in book 6 - "Blood Rites". I didn't really see that scene as a 'fan service' moment - it's surprising how much 'space' clothing takes up, so it's possible those few millimeters made a difference. And most of Jim's 'fan' nods are more geek-oriented - like BtVS and Star Wars shout-outs. Usually, in these books, if someone's naked and they're not having sex, it's for a reason, not just gratuitous 'because this is hot'.

Yeah, it really wasn't THAT bad or gratuitous, it was just the moment that made me realize I needed a break. And it's definitely the only scene in the entire series that had an effect like that. I think it was just doubly noticeable/funny to me because the book handled the adult film set so well and then that happened on the side. In any case, this has got me itching to revisit the series again...

 

[Highlander II]

Yeah, it really wasn't THAT bad or gratuitous, it was just the moment that made me realize I needed a break. And it's definitely the only scene in the entire series that had an effect like that. I think it was just doubly noticeable/funny to me because the book handled the adult film set so well and then that happened on the side. In any case, this has got me itching to revisit the series again...

Which may have been the point... 'porn sets are so boring... hey wait - my BFF has to shimmy out of her pants to slide beneath a laser... my life is weird' <- so sayeth Harry Dresden. =)

 

[Anne Spackman]

David Gemmell

Have you read David Gemmell's Troy trilogy? I like historical fiction set during the Trojan War and was wondering if you could recommend it.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Sooo many! I think I have to pick Terry Pratchett though because no matter how down I am he can always make me chuckle, especially in his earlier books. Lady Sybil is my role model.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Have you read David Gemmell's Troy trilogy? I like historical fiction set during the Trojan War and was wondering if you could recommend it.

Personally I found it a bit of a let down - some superb moments, and wonderfully ambitious, but too much of a sprawl overall. I think Gemmell struggled with multiple protagonists, and it showed.

However, I could certainly recommend Gemmell's Lion of Macedon, which is set in Ancient Greece, just before the rise of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great.

 

[ratsy]

I've recently become obsessed with John Scalzi. I read Old Man's War last fall and loved it. Now I've read four of his books with 2 more on the TBR file. Very entertaining stuff.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

I'm enjoying Guy Gavrial Kay right now - wouldn't list him as favourite but he's growing on me

 

[Anne Spackman]

Personally I found it a bit of a let down - some superb moments, and wonderfully ambitious, but too much of a sprawl overall. I think Gemmell struggled with multiple protagonists, and it showed.

However, I could certainly recommend Gemmell's Lion of Macedon, which is set in Ancient Greece, just before the rise of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great.

I will have to see if I can get a copy of this to read this summer when I have more free time. I really like historical fiction set in ancient Greece as well. Thanks for the recommendation, Brian.

 

[Connavar]

I will have to see if I can get a copy of this to read this summer when I have more free time. I really like historical fiction set in ancient Greece as well. Thanks for the recommendation, Brian.

Hi Anne have you read other Gemmell series other than Troy? Lion of Macedon is great for Ancient Greece historical,fantasy fans. I really like historical fiction set in Ancient Greece too.

 

[Grimward]

As noted elsewhere (frequently), Janny Wurts is out in front, though I will be waiting some months yet for Destiny's Conflict. Tad Williams, Terry Brooks, Alan Dean Foster (the last of whom I'm growing to like more and am reading currently) also high among the more active writers. Zelazny, Tolkien, Moorcock, C.S. Lewis, Ursula Le Guin and more among the elder statesmen (statespeople?) in my literary cabinet.

 

[Anne Spackman]

Hi Anne have you read other Gemmell series other than Troy? Lion of Macedon is great for Ancient Greece historical,fantasy fans. I really like historical fiction set in Ancient Greece too.

I haven't yet read any more of Gemmell, but I plan to this summer when I have some time off work. Thanks for the suggestion. I looked up Lion of Macedon, and it looks really good.