[KatG]

Well, are we doing British fantasy authors in general or those who Stateside readers may not have heard much about yet? Neil Gaiman is a major bestseller in the U.S., so he doesn't quite fit the latter criteria. Neither does Mieville. M. John Harrison, Peake, Lord Dusany and Eddison are classic authors who are known in the U.S., though wasn't there a forgotten British fantasy authors thread a bit back that covered some of them? In Canada, there is of course Guy Gavriel Kay, who is quite well known in the States.

Charlie Stross, who was mentioned, does seem to be coming out from Warner Orbit in the UK, if the first in the series is "Accelerado."

[Arith]

Hi guys, thanks for the answers. The reason i posted was to find out about British/Canadian authors that are not well known/published in the states. I started reading Ericson several years before he was published in the US by ordering his books from Amazon.uk. I was curious if there were other gems out there that American readers may not be familiar with. Thats why i had gone to Amazon.uk and found Barclay and Cobley. I'm not really asking about British/Canadian authors in general just trying to find some new material to read that i may not be aware of. Thanks :)

[Eventine]

Well, are we doing British fantasy authors in general or those who Stateside readers may not have heard much about yet?

That'll show me for skim reading!

But, I've got little idea of who's popular or not in the US, so will use ignorance as my defence :D

[Randy M.]

And if we're wondering where it all came from, a lot of the pre-Tolkien fantasy writers also seem to be British - Lord Dunsany, ER Eddison, Clark Ashton Smith.
Substitute, say, Gregory MacDonald (think the first name is right) or William Morris or Sir H. Rider Haggard or William Hope Hodgson or Saki or John Collier: Smith was a Yank. (I'm talking fantasy in the broadest sense. I haven't read anything by the first three, but I believe MacDonald wrote a couple of novels and a bunch of fairy tales; Morris wrote some work that might be a precursor to Tolkein; Haggard was mainly adventure stories some fantastical. I've read little by Hodgson, but C. S. Lewis and Tolkein both had read him and the former at least wrote about him favorable. Saki and Collier both wrote short stories with fantastic premises many of which could legitimately be called horror.)

I do think the U. S. came a bit late to fantasy as we know it. There was L. Frank Baum and maybe a couple of others, but most of the tradition seems to stem from the U. K.

There are some mainstream writers who write stories within the scope of fantasy that I hope to get around to reading. There's a Scot named Alaisdair Grey I know next to nothing about. Then there's Brian Moore, who's claimed by the Irish, the Canadians and the Americans because he lived and worked in all three countries, but was born Irish, I believe. Lastly, Angela Carter, who I have read several short stories by, and much of whose work is fantastic in every sense of that word.


Randy M.

[Pug]

I think you mean George McDonald. Lewis, I believe, was a fan of his.

[Randy M.]

I think you mean George McDonald. Lewis, I believe, was a fan of his.

I knew I'd do that. Gregory MacDonald is a mystery writer, I believe. Fletch was his character.

Yeesh.

Thanks, Pug.


Randy M.

[Rob B]

KJ Parker is another British writer who has very little exposure in the US. Parker's books are available through the Science Fiction Book Club, but I think that is about it. Mr. Hobbit wrote up a nice review of the latest book by Parker, Devices and Desires (http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/249.html)

Sean Williams fantasy novel, The Crooked Letter previously only avilable in Australia, will receive a US release through Pyr (http://www.pyrsf.com/crookedletter.html) in July of this year.

Pyr will also be publishing the US edition of Ian McDonald's River of Gods (http://www.pyrsf.com/riverofgods.html) this year.

[Brys]

Substitute, say, Gregory MacDonald (think the first name is right) or William Morris or Sir H. Rider Haggard or William Hope Hodgson or Saki or John Collier: Smith was a Yank. (I'm talking fantasy in the broadest sense.

Randy M.

Oops - I meant William Hope Hodgson, not Smith.

[FicusFan]

KJ Parker is another British writer who has very little exposure in the US. Parker's books are available through the Science Fiction Book Club, but I think that is about it. Mr. Hobbit wrote up a nice review of the latest book by Parker, Devices and Desires (http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/249.html)

Sean Williams fantasy novel, The Crooked Letter previously only avilable in Australia, will receive a US release through Pyr (http://www.pyrsf.com/crookedletter.html) in July of this year.

Pyr will also be publishing the US edition of Ian McDonald's River of Gods (http://www.pyrsf.com/riverofgods.html) this year.

Sean Williams I think has written lots of books with Shane Dix that have been published in the US, by big name publishers. They are both from Australia. They were all SF though, so you may not have seen the name before. The Evergence, and Orphan trilogies and the on-going Geodesica series. They have also written media-tie ins together and they are published here. He has something like 34 entries on Amazon.

Charles Stross also has many books published here, in SF and Fantasy. He also has some short stories that are being put out by the vanity presses, but he has also been nominated for awards, so he is pretty well known.

Interesting we actually have some UK authors that were being published here before they could get published in the UK, and some are still only available in the UK via US books: Liz Williams, Karin Traviss, Jay Caselberg/James A. Hartley.

[Rob B]

I was aware of the books Williams co-authored with Dix, but I think he's got a decent list of books outside of the US where he is the sole author. I've been curious for a while about their Geodesica and Evergence books.

I did read their Star Wars trilogy and thought it the weakest of that entire New Jedi Order saga.

Good point Ficus about the UK authors only seeing their books published here in the US and Traviss does spring to mind immediately. I'm pretty sure there are others, in addition to those you've mentioned.