[Metal-Demon]

Going through my bookcases this morning, I started to wonder who will be the "the next big author" whose works will be mentioned alongside the likes of JRR Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Glen Cook, Terry Prachett, GRR Martin, et. al. (I purposefully left out Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind since it seems to me just as many people hate them as like them!)

Who are the current rising stars of modern fantasy? Whose writing has the potential to become legendary? In 10 to 20 years time, whose work do you feel the "fantasy community" will still be talking about with reverance?

Steven Erickson?
R. Scott Bakker?
Patrick Rothfuss?
No one??

[Roland 85]

No one. The genre has branched too much for just one "next big name" I think. As for your list, Erikson is already famous enough I think. Many people don't seem to be able to stomach Bakker though, and as for Rothfuss, he failed quite miserably in my view, due to the broken promise of fas publishing.

[Winter]

I think the best way to look at the "Legendary Author" sort of thing is not to go by popularity. In that case, Jordan has already reached that status along with Goodkind, Paolini and Stephenie Meyer. Popularity, the 'next big name' has little to do with quality and even though it seems that just as many people hate them as love them, we have to remember that we people of the internet are a tiny, but vocal, part of the actual audience. And even amongst our vocal little fantasy community, not just this site, authors are viewed differently.

Steven Erikson for example: in some places he is praised, in some places the reaction to his books are moderate, and yet, in some places, there seems to be little discussion of his work that does not lead to roiling hatred being spewed in the books' direction.

To me, the better way of naming a "Legendary Author" is by trying to consider how well an author's work will be perceived in a decade or in two decades or even further on.

That said, I do have to wonder at Martin being placed on a Legendary Authors list. As good as the first three are (the fourth was decent, but there was a decline in quality, in my opinion) people seem to forget that they are only part of a series. George R.R. Martin still has a few books to go and there is always the possibility that he will not finish the series at all or somehow bungle the thing. There is a chance that he could become legendary, for eventually turning in a fantastic epic fantasy series or for botching a promising series, but he isn't now. And someone cannot turn around and say that Martin is up there for his other works. As good as they might be, I am sure the amount of people who can claim to have read them before A Song of Ice and Fire, at least on this board, is limited.

Continuing on that train of thought, it is for similar reasons that I would hesitate to consider Lynch or Rothfuss for even positions on a list of rising stars. Their initial releases are popular, very much so, but Rothfuss has only one book to his name from a proposed trilogy and Lynch has only two from a seven book series--there is too much room for either to botch the series before the end. Actually, considering the four year gap that both authors have between their last books and their next, I can see their next book being pivotal in whether they really do become rising stars or just stellar disappointments.

[Loerwyn]

I think Abercrombie will be up there, because I hear a lot of good things about him and he's quite popular, but that's mainly going by what I see here.

Depending on what Sanderson does, I can see him having a good shot at being one of the next "Legendary" authors.

[Roland 85]

Yes, especially if he manages to pull off the WoT ending. I'm with Winter on his argument about unfinished series.

[Alchemist]

You seem to be talking about a particular brand of fantasy, or at least secondary world fantasy of whatever variety, be it epic, gritty, etc. One thing that has changed over recent years, afaict, is that the other sub-genres of fantasy have become larger, especially the "intrusive" fantasies set in our world. So you really have at least two different streams that are relatively autonomous: The secondary world fantasy and the real world fantasy; or, to use Farrah Mendelsohn's taxonomy, portal-quest and immersive fantasies on one hand, and intrusion and liminal fantasies on the other. So it seems you're talking about the former, those set in secondary worlds (portal-quest and immersive)?

As someone mentioned, "legendary" could mean either popularity or classic status and/or literary greatness or, as I take you to mean, some combination of the two. I think we can safely say that a book like Eragon is strong in the former, not so much the latter; I would be very surprised if it was being read thirty or forty years from now. But what if we re-frame your question to: Who are the authors writing (and publishing) today that will still be read, may even still be writing, 20+ years from now?

Brandon Sanderson is the name that comes most readily to mind, although I wonder if he will actually be a "legendary" author and not merely a very prolific good one with a large audience ala Eddings, Brooks, Jordan, etc. He seems to be the cat's meow these days but I haven't been overly impressed with his work--good world building, clever ideas, and decent characterization, but nothing extraordinary or really vital. In other words, great airplane reading but nothing at this point that has sent shivers down my spine or kept me awake to the wee hours of the morning.

If you look at, say, Erikson or Bakker, despite their flaws and the probable high mid-list limit to their market-size (especially Bakker), they both have qualities that make them really stand out; they both do something as writers that no one else is quite doing the same way or as well. And, perhaps most importantly, they both create a densely mythic atmosphere. Sanderson's work seems too...American, for lack of a better way of putting it. Too much a product of the modern fantasy market and not enough a product of the creative imagination. I suppose his inventive magic systems stand out, but still, there is something almost too...fabricated about his work, as if he's trying to write in a certain way to reach a specific (broad) market. What I feel is lacking is a kind of raw, mythic quality; as if his ideas are more rationally derived and arranged ("I'll take a bit of this and a dash of that and, voila! A new world and magic system!") rather than coming from some deeper source. Who knows, The Stormlight Archive might change that.

But I veer off topic! There are a bunch of other possibilities but they, as others have mentioned, all have baggage attached. Rothfuss, Lynch, Abercrombie, Abraham come to mind. China Mieville is worth mentioning but he may be a bit too "fringe" to reach the big time, at least in terms of popularity.

At some point, though, we're probably going to see another hugely popular mega-series, now that The Sword of Truth is finished and The Wheel of Time is winding down. A Song of Ice and Fire is up there, although it is more than halfway through and is in danger of losing steam due to a seven-year and counting gap between books four and five. The Stormlight Archive shows promise, although it seems like Tor's strategically placed successor to The Wheel of Time, so it remains to be seen how vital of a work it will be.

[DailyRich]

If Sanderson can finish of Wheel of Time AND bring his Stormlight Archive series to completion, I'd say he'd be up there.

[Bond]

The authors that will be talked about years from now will be those that have produced the prime examples of the kind of work they were doing or were seminal or distinctive in some way.

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter is too large a phenomenon and of sufficient quality to be forgotten.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is forgettable in my book but will probably hang around due to the wishes of the anti-religious to have something at hand to oppose The Chronicles of Narnia. If a better YA series is written using the same themes, however, it might be replaced in this niche.

Jordan will probably be remembered. His series is popular and a primary representative of both light fantasy of which it is a culmination and multi-volume large epic fantasy in which it is seminal and still largely unrivalled in breadth and scope save for maybe Erikson's MBotF.

Goodkind's SoT is likely to fade from view because from what I can gather in a side-by-side comparison to WoT it trails in virtually all counts. Unless SoT becomes a standard manual for objectivism, which seems unlikely, there is apparently nothing to really distinguish it.

Pratchett I'm guessing probably will be remembered in the way Douglas Adams is remembered although I have to say from what I can tell Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has seeped deeper into popular culture and is more notable than Pratchett's Discworld. Even though Adam's wrote less and has been dead for some years now he is probably as recognizable as Pratchett even though Pratchett is still alive and writing.

Haven't read Stephanie Meyer but despite her success I think her place is not secure. My impression is that she is writing in the crowded vampire romance space and it is unclear from my vantage point what sets her stories apart. In time what is going to stop her series from blending in with all the rest? Someone more familiar with such stories will have to explain.

Erikson might occupy the large epic gritty space and displace something like Moorcock's Elric in the peculiar niche that series occupies. Bakker's series might also belong here.

Martin's place I think is more precarious than is currently being acknowledged. ASOIAF is still only half finished and the main selling point is that it is quality writing. It needs to maintain its quality. Otherwise there isn't really that much that distinguishes it. Its scope is large but not the largest. It is gritty and may lay some claim to popularizing that tone and style but I'm not sure its display of grit is more notable than that in other works. It relies on being the best in writing craftsmanship in enough people's eyes. If Martin stumbles, but manages to be better than works like Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone that still isn't that much of an accolade.

[Highgarden22]

Brandon Sanderson. The Stormlight Archive is going to be huge.

[Bond]

Deleting duplicate post.