Truly odd. Bakker seems more than capable, intellectually and articulately, to elaborate upon the issues he was being criticized for. Even then, if people want to blast and flame, let 'em. As far as I'm concerned, they're his books; he can write whatever the hell he wants and summarily dismiss the agitated PC crusaders. I truly cannot grasp what would persuade him to go down that road.
For what it's worth . . . . While I like to feel I have some expertise on older authors and works, I reckon I am not fully in touch with recent work (and often can't remember when what was written)). That said, I would think that even just for two novels (Light and Nova Swing)--and I'd hope we want quality, not quantity--M. John Harrison is it for science fiction. In fantasy, if what I see here is representative of the competition, how could Jeffrey Ford (The Beyond; The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque; The Girl in the Glass; The Shadow Year) not be high in the running? But there are others, not (so far as I noted) mentioned here. For example, what of Jeff VanderMeer? Yann Martel? (OK, only one book.) Or Michael Cisco? What a powerhouse, he. And I'm probably forgetting some other stars.
Regardless of how ill-judged that might have have been, I don't see what it has to do with whether the guy's the best SFF writer of the decade or not. Do we have to start taking writers' forum behaviour into account now?
I'll go with Neal Asher. Indvidual books may not be the best this decade but for consistanly putting out quality books regualry(ten this decade i tink), he gets my vote.
I'm nearly tempted to say Stephen King off the back of the concluding volumes of the Dark Tower books. Owlcroft's hat tip to Vandermeer and Ford is a good one, which makes me think of another F(f)ord(e) - Jasper, who has released consistently good novels regularly since first publishing The Eyre Affair in 2001.
To be fair, Werthead may, or may not, have meant the aside as something which discounted Bakker in his own mind. He mentioned the fact, sort of as an aside, but didn't elaborate. Bottom line, though it is easy to interpret it that way, Werthead may not have meant that forum board behavior was particularly relevant to him. You know, something just comes to mind and you mention it. So...mentioned.
I need to read Jeffrey Ford. Harrison and VanderMeer are decent prose stylists, but have severe weaknesses when it comes to character, plot and theme, which do not make them serious contenders for the position. I need to read some of Gene Wolfe's 2000s work. If it's as strong as his 1970s and 1980s output, he would be in strong contention. I think if the books were supremely brilliant then the author's behaviour would be irrelevant. However, the books do have some problems (including a rather surreal form of sexism not to mention severe pacing problems in TTT) and the fact the author also did something a bit off (and a tremendous breach of internet protocol, as much as something exists) merely reinforces the existing negatives. However, since Bakker is not as good an author as Mieville and thus was not seriously in the running for the position IMO, it isn't that important. I've also met Bakker in RL and he was a thoroughly decent and funny guy. I think he just made a severe mistake in judgement there.
Of all the writers who have published works this decade, I don't think anyone has impressed me more than Kelly Link. Her collections Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners contain - even though they can be a bit uneven - some of the finest and most original writing that I've ever encountered. Stories like "The Faery Handbag" and "Magic for Beginners" easily place her among the finest short fiction writers the genre has ever produced. Another writer that might also be worth mentioning here is Ted Chiang. He's produced two thirds of his work this decade and even though I'm not his biggest fan, I have a hard time coming up with many recent books that were better than Stories of Your Life.
On VanderMeer I am going by general reputation and the writing in his blog. But on Harrison . . . my goodness, "decent" prose stylist? "Severe weaknesses"? We must be reading different authors named M. John Harrison. The one I read has, and is widely praised by other notable authors--it would be supererogation to pile up a list of even most of them--for, a superb, crystalline prose style. And as to character, plot, and theme, many of his peers consider it a scandal and a condemnation of the literary establishment that he has not won any major mainstream literary prizes. (But he is a book reviewer for prestigious British newspapers.)
I'd agree. M. John Harrison is a great writer. But how easily this thread has dissembled into a "name your favourite writer" exercise! Harrison, for all his merits, doesn't come anywhere close to being "writer of the decade". Neither do John Crowley or even Paul Park, two of my other personal favourites. The one writer who does is Steven Erikson, as I've said before. No other writer has dominated the field in this decade quite like Erikson; no other writer has had the influence he has. Surely that's true?
Wait, what? What influence has Erikson had? Serious question. I'm not even disagreeing, I just want to know. If I had to pick most influential epic/secondary-world writers for this decade, GRRM would be first (just a sea change toward low-magic realism, gray characters, and Anybody Can Die worlds), probably China Mieville running second (very clear influence on anybody who takes the New Weird label, and a lesser but still apparent influence on Mark Charan Newton, Felix Gilman, other authors hybridizing some of that city-centered strangeness with more common genre tropes). When I think of things that are unique to Erikson, or at least primarily associated with him as something he popularized in the late '90s through now, I... don't really come up with a lot. Tom Lloyd maybe? (I haven't read Lloyd so I don't know if there are any clear points of similarity -- I'm just grasping for someone who's trying to do the high-magic, high-powered, sprawling epic with a millennia-long history, and that's the first name that comes to mind. Somebody correct me if that's not actually what's going on in Stormcaller and its sequels.) I've heard he championed David Keck, but I'm not aware of any marked similarity in their writing styles and also Keck doesn't appear to have been especially successful. So for me nothing comes to mind. But possibly I'm missing it or just looking in the wrong places.
But it says up here . . . . I assuredly don't know. But the thread title is Best SFF writer of this decade, not most influential or best-selling or mostest anything else. In science fiction (which I think eliminates Crowley), I still reckon it's Harrison. In fantasy, it's much more open (which is worth a whole thread of its own), but yes, Crowley, and Cisco, and Ford, and probably several more are legitimate candidates.
Perhaps we need to create sub categories to help determine an author(s)? IE: Best selling Epic fantasy Trilogy Urban Fantasy Steam Punk High Fantasy Low Fantasy Standalone New Author etc. I realise that best selling doesn't always mean quality work or make a great author (see Twilight) but, criteria needs to be created in order to establish some sort of guidelines other than name your favorite author and defend them. Of course, I also know that we will never come to a consensus on this question but perhaps we can narrow the field a bit.
I'm curious to know what Wert has read of VanderMeer besides that story in the Vance festschrift, because I cannot think of one of his weaknesses as an author being characterization after reading Shriek: An Afterword, which is one of the closest things to a fantasy take on Nabokov's Ada that I've read. But I do have a bit of a bias there, I suppose As for MJH, Light and Nova Swing certainly are among the best SF stories I've read this decade for prose, thematic elements, and even characterization. But since this purportedly is about fantasy and not SF alone, let's see what others would be considered by myself for this, besides VanderMeer (whose work as an editor/anthologist is about as "important" as his work as an author, so far): China Miéville certainly has had some great stories published, plus those stories certainly became associated with a movement that may end up inspiring quite a few authors. D.M. Cornish is one of the best YA writers of this decade whose works seem to be flying under many radars, unfortunately. Margo Lanagan simply is publishing excellent collection after excellent collection, followed by a novel, Tender Morsels, that straddles several categories and is equally great/controversial. Bakker is the best of a rather weak and increasingly self-referential epic fantasy subgenre. But I think Serbian surrealist/fantasist Zoran Živković may be the best of the bunch. Raise your hands how many have read him in a translation, though.
Well . . . . Both, yes ("SFF"), though it's on the fantasy board (can't be in both, I guess). I can't seem to get as firmly behind Mieville as, apparently, most other folks can. I do think he's good, but not quite great (much less "best"). I'm glad to see he finally moved off Bas Lag, which should have been a one-book locale. The City and the City is a very clever conceit, but aside from the base idea itself the book is decent but nothing to send a telegram about, anyway not for me. I admit that Lanagan is news to me, as is Živković. But I must say I still have a good feeling about Cisco's chances in any head-to-head. And if Crowley is in the running (haven't checked dates, but I think so), he's another heavyweight contender on the match card.
Cisco is good, but I think Ligotti is a bit better (and in fact, I should have mentioned Ligotti in my list above). As for Crowley, which books for the past ten years. The completion of Ægypt, or something else?
Faking it. I had to go look up what was released when. And I have to confess that I still haven't read the concluding volume of "Aegypt" (one of the 63 unread on my "waiting" shelf). But I am willing, from prior experience, to take its quality on faith. I am also faking it as to Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, but the reviews were good and, well, Crowley is Crowley. His other works of the decade are not (I think) really in the realm of fantasy.
