Your Personal Top 5 Current Speculative Fiction Authors?

[J-Sun]

Derived from Silver Owl's Your Personal Top 10 Speculative Fiction Authors? because I realized that my top 10 was so old. My newest author started publishing in the 80s and was even prominent from the 90s on. So, by current, I mean "of authors who have published a book of new material in the last couple (at most, five) years and considering only their work of the last fifteen (at most, twenty) years" who are your favorites? (And, if you want, what experiences have you had with them?)

Greg Egan qualifies for this, too, but is already on the top 10 list so, otherwise:

• Neal Asher (skipped Spatterjay and Owner but have read most everything else (allowing for two in the Pile) - my favorites have been The Line of Polity, Prador Moon (both novels), and The Engineer Reconditioned (collection); can't wait to get to The Technician and The Gabble (the two in the Pile) and for Dark Intelligence to (I hope) appear in an affordable edition)
• Jack Campbell (aka John G. Hemry; not a literary critical darling choice but I just can't wait for the next Lost Fleet/Lost Stars book and have a happy blast each time one does come out so I'd be lyin' to leave him off at this point in time)
• Alastair Reynolds (actually, ironically compared to his rep, for his short fiction - Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, and Galactic North, and Zima Blue, plus several stories in anthologies. I have read four of his novels, too.)
• Karl Schroeder (have only read Ventus and Lockstep among the novels (with more in the Pile) and The Engine of Recall collection but I really like him so far)
• Brad R. Torgersen (still new yet, but promising. I've only read the Lights in the Deep collection (with the Racers in the Night collection in the Pile, though I've read some of it in the original magazines already))

 

[Randy M.]

Are you considering science fiction only, or can we reply with any writer of sf/f/h?


Randy M.

 

[Vince W]

Current authors...hmmm.

Ernest Cline - He's only written one book so far, but it was a cracker and I'm hoping his newest Armada will be more of the same.
Hannu Rajaniemi - I've only read The Quantum Thief so far, but it was a heck of a book. I have the other two waiting.
Neal Asher - Not quite in the same class as Banks, but still some really good books.
Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space secured him as one of my favourites.
Stephen Baxter - Proxima is on my shelf begging to be read.

 

[Silver Owl]

Are you considering science fiction only, or can we reply with any writer of sf/f/h?


Randy M.

I think it's anything from any of the 3.

 

[J-Sun]

Are you considering science fiction only, or can we reply with any writer of sf/f/h?

I think it's anything from any of the 3.

Yep - I took your "speculative" thread to be SFFH and meant this one to be the same - just if some people don't make the cut for all-time because they don't have the body of work and duration or whatever, people could add other current authors here.

It does happen that all mine are SF, though, so I probably should have made it clearer.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Um, okay, current (I think a good lot of my top 10 were current)

Bujold, Rothfuss, Gaiman, Beckett, Zafon - two sf, three fantasy, two magic realism-y....

 

[Randy M.]

Yep - I took your "speculative" thread to be SFFH and meant this one to be the same - just if some people don't make the cut for all-time because they don't have the body of work and duration or whatever, people could add other current authors here.

It does happen that all mine are SF, though, so I probably should have made it clearer.

Okay. Thanks Owl and Sun. Now to cogitate on an answer ...

Randy M.

 

[Connavar]

Richard Morgan - wrote the best SF book i have read in the 2000s, Altered Carbon like PKD but on hardcore noir style.

Tim Powers - he is a master of those weird secret histories novels. I hope to see return to his best 1980s,90s form.

Tanith Lee - very original voice with strong stylised fantasy prose, i adore her creepy dark fantasy stories.

CJ Cherryh - She is great writing alien vs human culture stories, she makes the kind of space opera, space culture SF stories that usually bore me actually be fascinating.

Paul Kearney - a good student in the school of hardcore S&S ala Robert E. Howard, David Gemmell

 

[Randy M.]

J-Sun,

I find I'm like you, most of my favorites come from years ago, and it may be years after they first appear before I sample a "new" writer. Anyway, here's the list, and it wasn't all that easy to compile.


Glen Hirshberg: While his latest (Motherless Child, 2012) is not my favorite of his books -- I prefer The Snowman's Children and the collections The Two Sams and American Morons -- it is still quite good. And Hirshberg at short length is especially terrific.


John Langan: Another writer who has caught me with his short fiction. The title story in Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters and "On Skua Island" were terrific, as are the stories I've read so far in The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies. Further his novel, House of Windows is a slow-burn, thoughtful novel of an couple, both academics, living in a haunted house. He melds ghosts and Lovecraft-like cosmic horror beautifully.


Caitlin Kiernan: Haven't read her recent novels written as Kathleen Tierney, but the two prior to that, The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl are among the finest weird fantasy/horror novels I've ever read. Her collection, To Charles Fort, With Love is a bit uneven but when good is excellent and when not as good is still readable. My favorite, "Le Peau Verte" is not everyone's cuppa, but to me seems as weird as anything by Machen, Blackwood or Lovecraft.

M. Rickert: I've only so far read Holiday, which impressed me so much I'm adding her here anyway. At another site I wrote, "I’m not sure I can do this collection justice. Holiday is characterized by a fine, supple, flowing prose in the service of heart-breaking and wonderful stories. The stories are arranged by and take place on holidays including New Years, Christmas and, of course, Halloween. While one story is arguably s. f. the rest deal with personal and frequently subjective accounts of ghosts and faerie, and those times when another world peeps into ours or we peep into another world, when the supernatural mixes with our wants, needs and desires. Like Glen Hirshberg, Rickert is an artist of the melancholy and these stories all deal with those melancholy shadings and shadows around other emotions; these stories also serve as strong examples of what we mean when we say, 'dark fantasy.'"

I have to leave it at that. Other writers I'd consider adding, Holly Phillips or Sarah Monette for instance, I either haven't read enough of to consider, and Theodora Goss has only published one collection of stories and that more than 5 years ago.


Randy M.

 

[Connavar]

Ops if it is considering their books from the last 15-20 years CJ Cherryh is older books than that for me unlike the other 4 in my list who i have read quality books in the last decade.

I can change Cherryh for Nnedi Okarafor the writer of the World Fantasy Winners novel Who fears death (2011)

 

[tinkerdan]

Mine come out of the newer authors and some with their debut novels.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ONA7G9Q/?tag=brite-21

Endeavour by Ralph Kern


http://www.amazon.com/dp/0990479811/?tag=brite-21

Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0099UYMXI/?tag=brite-21

Day One by John Jay Forsberg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OAGX4L2/?tag=brite-21

Emergence by Nick M. Lloyd

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0996142509/?tag=brite-21

The Great Symmetry by James Wells

I'm only half way through this one but it's a pretty fair effort from the great-grandson H.G. Wells.

 

[Spade]

Stephen King - 11/22/63 was a masterpiece and he still cranks out above average to great novels every 6 months.

Stephen Baxter - Xeelee saga is fantastic and I can't wait for the new book this year.

George RR Martin - Only read the first three AS0IAF novels, but they're amazing.

John Scalzi - my go to guy when I need something humorous

Frank Herbert - Still nothing better to me than Dune

 

[Bick]

Frank Herbert - Still nothing better to me than Dune

Current author?

 

[Nerds_feather]

I find this question impossible to answer

 

[soulsinging]

Richard Morgan - wrote the best SF book i have read in the 2000s, Altered Carbon like PKD but on hardcore noir style.

Have you read any of the other books in that series? I think we've discussed our shared appreciation for good hard-boiled stories and I really enjoyed Altered Carbon as well, but somehow haven't read any of his follow ups.

 

[Caledfwlch]

Weirdly, I thought Speculative Fiction meant stuff set in the very near future, rather than space sci fi with technologies that may never exist!

Charles Stross's Rule 34 is a brilliant example of the above - it is set in a near Future Scotland, which appears to be almost completely severed from the United Kingdom, except for Joint Military Defence.
Everyone has something like Google Glasses, and I cannot recall if it appears on everyones eyewear, but "Cop Space" for example shows icons above the heads of people they are passing who hold an ASBO, or are wanted for questioning etc.

Ken McCloud has written some decent speculative fiction too.

 

[Heather Myst]

George R.R. Martin
Joe Abercrombie
Michael J. Sullivan
Mark Lawrence
Robin Hobb

 

[nixie]

Of recent authors it would be,

Joe Abercrombie
Patrick Rothfuss
Brandon Sanderson
Peter V Brett
Jim Butcher

 

[Caledfwlch]

Of recent authors it would be,

Joe Abercrombie
Patrick Rothfuss
Brandon Sanderson
Peter V Brett
Jim Butcher

Big thumbs up for Jim Butcher!!!!

I am gutted they only made 1 series of the Dresden Files - I can see why it didn't last, they seemed to have changed so much for no discernable reason, but apart from his height, Paul Blackthorne looked exactly as I imagined Harry - Paul is 6 ft 2 / 1.92m but Harry is supposed to be 6 ft 9.

I would love to see it given a reboot with a decent budget. To my shock, having just looked up Paul Blackthorne, he is actually British!

At the moment it feels like every major role involving an American character is actually played by a Brit - half the cast of Walking Dead appear to be - And of course, the "Governor" was played by the chap who thought he was the Doctor in one of the Dr Who Xmas Specials, the Next Doctor.

 

[Randy M.]

At the moment it feels like every major role involving an American character is actually played by a Brit - half the cast of Walking Dead appear to be - And of course, the "Governor" was played by the chap who thought he was the Doctor in one of the Dr Who Xmas Specials, the Next Doctor.

Or Aussie. Apparently Americans can't play Americans any more. I'd be irritated but the Brits and Aussies are doing a pretty good job of it. And besides, I'd find it hard to be irritated with Lauren Cohan.

Randy M.