[Mostlyharmless]

I notice that some authors seem to inspire very divided views; some people love them while others can't finish the books. By contrast there is general, if negative, agreement on a few authors. For example, hardly anybody admits to liking Goodkind (yes I know he writes fantasy but, judging only from posts in the fantasy section as I have never read his books, he seems the best example). However, I am not so sure if there is anyone generally liked.
Thus I wondered if anyone had tried to calculate the dispersion of opinion about authors as opposed to trying to rank them. The problem is that one might need to allocate books to a naïve audience at random as most readers would avoid books that they suspect they will dislike and thus not post reviews. It would be interesting if the dispersion correlated with obvious political views but that does not seem to account for some examples such as Iain M. Banks. Another possible source for dispersion might be sexual content in authors such as William Barton.

[Sparrow]

First of all, I discount the opinion of anybody who reads the first chapters and then goes no further because it doesn't fit their taste. Those folks seem to take the adventure out of reading. Some people have such short attention spans they never allow a book to grab them or aren't willing to explore work outside their comfort zone. I think if you've put the effort in and still don't appreciate the writer than fair enough, you have a valid opinion.

I think what you're mostly talking about are 'guilty pleasures', writing that we suspect isn't of the highest grade but opinions-be-damned we can't get enough. Jordan & Goodkind probably fall into that category for many of us.
Personal tastes can't be nailed down, but good writing certainly can.

I can state Kipling and Conrad are "writers of the very highest calibre"... we can debate if we liked or disliked a certain story written by them, but we can't debate whether they were great writers.

[spiralcity]

Writing is a form of art and art can be nothing more than subjective. Opinions will vary on anything we read, complaints of all nature will crop-up about everything and everybody.

I read for pleasure and pure escapism. I understand that what I am reading is fiction and I expect a great deal of exploring the unknown and pushing the envelope while dealing with what we call “the laws of nature”. Some people cannot tolerate our so called laws to be broken or bent, they do not find this plausible therefore it kills the book for them. Good prose, bad prose, poor character development, ect. ect.ect. This cycle will continue as long as we have books to explore.

There is no true way to rank a book or author this will always fall on personal taste. Even if we find a group on this site who like’s “x” or hates “y”, it means nothing. Read what you enjoy.

David Gerold once said:

"The literature of the fantastic is about awakening the feeling of awe- and exercising it."

Can you find your “AWE“?

[psikeyhackr]

I notice that some authors seem to inspire very divided views; some people love them while others can't finish the books. By contrast there is general, if negative, agreement on a few authors.

I think any classification should be by book not author. I mostly like Heinlein but did not care for Glory Road. A Fall of Moon Dust and Childhood's End and very different kinds of stories by Arthur C. Clarke.

But one factor that I don't see discussed here much. Is age of the reader and the introduction of new ideas. An idea is new to an individual the first time they encounter it even if the idea is 1000 years old. I think the age at which a child encounters and understands an idea can be very important. It alters perspective from then on. So how much most people over 25 like or dislike some book or author is important to the publishing business it may have nothing to do with the mental development of the next generation.

Alexi Panshin talked about Heinlein's novel, Beyond This Horizon affecting him when he was 12. I read it last year not having even remembered the title from grade school probably. It contained an incident I never forgot but didn't know where I read it for 30 or more years.

Books often explain the thinking of the characters more than movies or even people that you deal with in the real world. Of course that thinking is obviously the thoughts of the author. I noticed this with Heinlein again in The Door Into Summer. He talks about the automobile industry in the year 2000. It is very funny considering the economy today. Or very not so funny.

But the way most people here talk about liking and disliking books or authors you can't tell what ideas are in the book. I didn't see any ideas in Player of Games it was just an entertaining story because I used to be a chess addict.

psik