Top 5 Favorite Authors!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hemingway
  • Start date Start date
Hmmm, this is more difficult than I thought it would be. No particular order

Tolkien - My mom handed me The Hobbit when I was 7 or 8 and there was no looking back
Mark Helprin - for Winter's Tale, one of my favorite books of all time, and the only fantasy he wrote
Ursula LeGuin - loved the world of Earthsea, and most of her other work, including her great essays
Patricia McKillip - started reading her in middleschool and have loved everything from that time on. Her prose is lyrical and evocative
Robin Hobb - Okay, so I didn't love the Soldier Son stuff, but if I can convince myself that there are only 3 Star Wars movies, I can convince myself that Soldier Son didn't happen, right?
 
As of right now I'd probably go:

- Gene Wolfe
- Mervyn Peake
- Matthew Stover
- Steven Erikson
- Jeff VanderMeer
 
Trish

Mark Helprin - for Winter's Tale, one of my favorite books of all time, and the only fantasy he wrote
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Just want to point out that Helprin wrote 3 short illustrated ( by Chris van Allsburg) fantasies as well, such as City in Winter and Swan Lake.
 
Stephen King - He has lost a littl eoff his fastball, but his body of work is top notch.
Graham Masterton - I love everything he's written, especially Doorways
Terry Brooks - I love his Shanara series and other works
Robert McCammon - excellent writer. I wish he was writing more fiction
Richard Laymon - The Traveling Vampire Show is one of the best novels I've ever read.
 
Mithfânion said:
Trish
Just want to point out that Helprin wrote 3 short illustrated ( by Chris van Allsburg) fantasies as well, such as City in Winter and Swan Lake.
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Oh, wow. I had forgotten all about those. They may still be lurking somewhere in the sagging bookshelves from hell. Thanks for the reminder.
 
Stephen King
Steven Brust
Robert Jordan
GRRM
Tolkein
 
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Stephen King
Robert Jordan
Robin Hobb
Mercedes Lackey
Tamora Pierce
 
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Hemingway said:
The point system will assess points based upon their ranking in your list, #1 = 5 points, #2 =4 points, etc.
In the future, lists that do not identify least to favorite, will receive 1 point per each author. The only list I have used this method upon is Fitz, and the last post, so far because it was clearly stated they were not in an order of least to favorite, but in the future as I've already stated lists that do not clearly list least to favorite will receive one point per author.:)
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Someone do an updated Points list! =)
 
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Lani said:
Well, I decided to actually do some counting, however since a lot of people didn't do the rankings, I decided that instead of the original scoring tactics I will just count up how many times each author was mentioned in the Top5 list and here's what I've got:


George R.R. Martin 36
Robin Hobb 30
J.R.R. Tolkien 29
Tad Williams 14
Neil Gaiman 14
Raymond Feist 13
Stephen Donaldson 12
Gene Wolfe 10
Robert Jordan 10
Guy Gavriel Kay 9
Steven Erikson 9
J.K. Rowling 8
Matthew Woodring Stover 8
David Gemmell 8
Ursula LeGuin 8
Terry Brooks 7
David Eddings 7
Michael Moorcock 6
Stephen King 6
Terry Pratchett 5
RA Salvatore 5
Robert E. Howard 4
Jacqueline Carey 4
Terry Goodkind 4
Melanie Rawn 4
E.R. Eddison 4
China Mieville 4
Lord Dunsany 3
Roger Zelazny 3
J.V. Jones 3
Orson Scott Card 3
Jon Carroll and Pat O'Leary 3
M. John Harrison 3
Luis McMaster Bujold 3
Phillip Pullman 3
Lynn Flewelling 3
Steven Brust 3
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman 3
Fritz Lieber 2
Enid Blyton 2
John Crowley 2
Sara Douglass 2
Edward Whittemore 2
Tim Powers 2
Mervyn Peake 2
John Marco 2
CJ Cherryh 2
Jeffrey Ford 2
Janny Wurts 2
Frank Herbert 2
Philip Dick 2
James Barclay 2
Greg Keyes 2
Jeff Vandemeer 2
Dave Duncan 2
LE Modestitt 2
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So I stopped tallying scores at this point because, starting with ROB!(moderator), a lot of you people kept voting over and over. Or at least more than once, which skews points. And I think 8pages is enough data to be enough. So added to each individual votes above; here are the point totals(I didn't count anyone voted only once):

GRRM 100
Tolkein 97
Hobb 76
Feist 47
Williams 33
Donaldson 30
Eddings 29
Wolfe 28
Jordan 26
Gaiman 26
King 25
Erikson 24
Pratchett 17
Stover 16
Brooks 14
Kay 14
LeGuin 14
Brust 13
Gemell 13
Rowling 13
Dick 10
Goodkind 10
Salvatore 8
Eddison 8
Zelazny 8
Dunsanay 6
Pullman 6
Howard 6
Weis&Hickman 5
carey 5
Jones 4
Whittemore 4

A few things to note at first glance.
Eddings wasn't voted by many people, but when he was he was at the top of their list. Is it Love/Hate? Or not many have read him?
Donaldson was voted by a lot, but usually at the bottom of the Top5.
 
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Ok, easily the first 3 of my list are without question the top authors:

1. GRRM (May not finish the series, but how about one more book?)

2. Erikson (Nobody writes a complex gritty story like this guy)

3. Abercrombie (He just outright rocks)

4. Robert Jordan (He really helped put modern fantasy on the map)

5. Brandon Sanderson (Watch out for this guy. He is definitely someone that can write a damn good story. I just finished his latest, The Way of Kings, it was awesome)
 
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind is the single greatest work of fantasy I have ever read.

Tad Williams - Wonderful almost dreamlike quality to his world building. Works quite a bit with the Faerie trope but somehow makes it feel tangible. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is one of my all time favorite trilogies.

Joe Abercrombie - The First Law = Remarkable battle scenes. Abercrombie writes in such an uncompromising way and tramples on many fantasy tropes. Raw, gritty at times down right brutal.

Paul Hoffman - Has created one of my favorite characters in Literature with Thomas Cale. The Left Hand of God is a fantastic debut.

R. Scott Bakker - The Prince of Nothing/Aspect-Emperor is the kind of fantasy literature I love. His writing exudes complexity and intelligence.

Sean Russell - Swan's War Trilogy - Creates fantastic vivid imagery

Top 6 I know but I just couldn't leave Russell out.
 
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1. Stephen Donaldson
2. Jose Saramago
3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
4. Scott Lynch
5. George RR Martin


This lists has changed many a time over the years!
 
Sad, very sad.

It is impossible to take with even a grain of seriousness any evaluation scheme wherein writers like Hobb, Feist, and Eddings are even competitive with--much less finsh ahead of--writers like Wolfe and Gaiman. It doesn't even rise to the level of being a joke. It is analogous to placing Jacqueline Susanne or Dan Brown well ahead of Vladimir Nabokov or Charles Dickens.

(Now, I suppose, come the prerecorded rants about "elitism".)
 
owlcroft said:
It is impossible to take with even a grain of seriousness any evaluation scheme wherein writers like Hobb, Feist, and Eddings are even competitive with--much less finsh ahead of--writers like Wolfe and Gaiman. It doesn't even rise to the level of being a joke. It is analogous to placing Jacqueline Susanne or Dan Brown well ahead of Vladimir Nabokov or Charles Dickens.

(Now, I suppose, come the prerecorded rants about "elitism".)
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It's not even elitism at work... the folks who include Hobb, Feist, Eddings, and gosh knows who else on top five lists have simply never read the spectrum of material needed to make an educated list.

And then personal taste enters the picture... you mention Wolfe and Gaiman. Both great writers to be sure, but I have a difficult time reading Wolfe and Gaiman is at times too whimsical for my taste... and remember, the thread is about what writers are your favorites. Sometimes we have a guilty pleasure, a writer who creates stories we really enjoy, but in the end we know the literary quality is second rate.
 
Yes, but . . . .

... and remember, the thread is about what writers are your favorites.

Yes, that part is fine. The problem arises when tallied compendia of favorites are put forth with scores, suggesting--not, I admit stating, but implying--that they represent a sort of "bests" list.
 
owlcroft said:
... and remember, the thread is about what writers are your favorites.

Yes, that part is fine. The problem arises when tallied compendia of favorites are put forth with scores, suggesting--not, I admit stating, but implying--that they represent a sort of "bests" list.
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But I don't think anyone is suggesting that it is a "best" list. It's perfectly clear that the winners in a point system based on a list like this will simply be the most popular authors. Perhaps everyone who puts Feist as their favorite author has yet to read Wolfe. Well, attracting more readers is a criteria for popularity after all. If someone has read both and finds the writing of Feist to be better, that's their choice.

After all, it's only fantasy fiction. No one would be wrong for not wanting to be deliberately mislead and have to work to understand what they are reading. Wolfe may be technically superior to Feist as far as writing skill, but he certainly isn't as accessible.
 
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