[Dominus]

I'm, as a teen, interested in whether the people on this forum 18 and under have noticeably different tastes in authors than the dumb (just kidding http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif) adults. Will you tell what your age is, and say, your top 3 authors currently? Just wondering if our tastes refine, or decline, with age.

Sorry for not clarifying, but you old geezers can answer too.

Age:16
Fav. Authors: Jordan, Tolkien, Michael A. Stackpole.

Posted by a curious kid.

Constitui

[This message has been edited by Dominus (edited January 13, 2002).]

[whitebelly]

Sorry for gate-crashing your exclusively under-18 party, but hey, if you want to know whether you teens & we golden oldies have noticeable different tastes, you have to ask us as well!!

So here goes

Age: 30
Fav. authors: Jeanette Winterson, Virigina Woolf, Jonathan Coe, Sylvia Plath, Amélie Nothomb, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, Emma Donoghue, Bruce Chatwin, ...

In the strict fantasy genre camp (though I hate labelling books): I like Tolkien, was mildly interested by J.V. Jones, absolutely loved George R.R. Martin, and am now reading through Hobb's Farseer trilogy, which I like, though I have some reservations about certain twists in the plot.

wb

[Bond]

I'm not 18 or under but I can tell you that at that time my favorites would have included Alexandre Dumas (pere), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, O. Henry, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Victor Hugo, and Weis and Hickman amongst others. They still are. As one could probably tell I found classic period adventures fun to read. Everyone else was into Stephen King or Anne Rice.

I haven't been reading as much recently as I did back then but I would now include Robert Jordan, J.K. Rowling, and for something out of fiction, Michel de Montaigne (anyone know of an essay writer better than the original?)and Paul Krugman. I find it impossible to just narrow it down to just three. I would need a more specifically defined category heading. If fantasy only: Robert Jordan, Weis and Hickman, and J.K. Rowling, with honorable mention for sentimental reasons to C.S. Lewis, Raymond Feist, and... Sheherazad. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif

Whitebelly, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath committed suicide didn't they? I wonder what they have to say to a teenager? On instinct I'd save it for a later day but since I haven't read them I'll leave it at that.


[This message has been edited by Bond (edited January 14, 2002).]

[whitebelly]

(small off-topic intrusion ...)

hello Bond,

You're right, but hey, I read them when I was eighteen and I survived!

Seriously now:

Woolf committed suicide in her early sixties - she had been suffering from bouts of madness since her teens. She filled her pockets with stones and simply walked into the river Ouse. But for all that, and that may come as a surprise to some I guess, her writing is cool, poised, balanced and certainly not the work of a "madwoman". She is not at all what people think of as a 'suicidal' author. If you didn't know that she HAD committed suicide, you'd never guess, I think.

Sylvia Plath is another matter - she was a suicidal person, both in her life (she gassed herself at age thirty, and survived a serious attempt at 18 or so) and in her art, which focuses very much on death. There are different ways of interpreting Plath, and my view was that she was mythologising her story in her poetry, which is full of cycles of death, yes, but also rebirth - so yet again, not what I would call your typical doomsaying 'suicidal' author.

Errh, am I making any sense? http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by whitebelly (edited January 13, 2002).]

[Elessar]

wb, you read Calvino?
Have you read "Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore.." (I don't know the original title).
Okay, that was off-topic, so I'll include something here as well..

I'm 23, and I like Tolkien, Pratchett, Asimov, some of King (some of his writing I find genuine, some I find pretty bad).
I like Rowling, Herbert, Henning Mankell (does anyone else?).
I like Tom Clancy, even though I'm afraid the world ain't as he pictures it; but I like the subplots and how he manages to get them all together in the end *G I haven't read a Clancy book in a while, maybe I'd not enjoy them as much nowadays.
Oh, I like Straub (as little as I've read by him).

I guess at first I forgot to mention Shakespeare, Goethe (well, not much of him just yet), some Schiller, Golding, May, .............

Unable to pick three?


-- Elessar


[This message has been edited by Elessar (edited January 15, 2002).]

[Cardo]

I´m 19 and my favourite authors didn´t change dramatically/magically on my birthday (some 10 months ago) they still are GRR Martin, Feist and Tolkien.
And yes, I like Henning Mankell too at least the Finnish translation was good and I´m looking for some Swedish original books.

[Dominus]

I know that your tastes don't suddenly change when you turn a certain age, but since 'young' and 'old(er)' are relative terms, I just said 18 as a definable point in life.

Respondi

[Warewolf]

Only three?! I have to limit myself to my THREE favorite authors?! Very difficult...can I cheat and list 5? http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Age: 27 (28 in 2.5 wks)
Authors: Tolkien, Jordan, Goodkind, Rawn, King (Martin might be on the list, but I've only read the first book in ASoIaF).

[Sammie]

age:19
(not sure if i quite fit the 'young people' camp!)

fav. authors in general are what they've been ever since i started reading 'adult's' bks: du Maurier, Winston Graham, John Wyndham, Gerald Durrel ....etc, etc.

fav fantasy three, probably: GRRMartin, Tolkien (reawoken by the film!), Robin Hobb

I do know that 2 or 3 yrs ago, McCaffrey and Eddings would both have been in there, and that, while i still like them, they are no longer big favorites. Tolkien is an endurer tho.


[This message has been edited by Sam82 (edited January 16, 2002).]

[Shadowen]

Hmmm..33 (34 in a couple of weeks >gulp< )

Fav authors are (fantasy) Hobb, Martin, Jordan, Sean Russell, Kate Elliott, Lynn Flewelling, Jacqueline Carey and so on.

Non fantasy - Charles Dickens, Brian Moore, Georgette Heyer, Daphne Du Maurier. Sorry, couldn't restrict myself to 3. That's the crabbit old maid in me! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif