# Authors who can do no wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2007, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839 "2007-12-31T21:37:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/81 "2008-01-03T22:37:27Z")
I guess I’m crochety, but not even Pratchett is completely 100% for me. So that leaves pretty much Patrick O’Brian (some of his later books weren’t as brilliant, but we’re still at 99.99% or better.) And Barry Hughart who did the “Master Li and Ox” fantasies. Larry Niven went \* seriously \* downhill with the last couple of Ringworld novels and Destiny Road which, if not unreadable, was pretty bad. And pretty much every other author I’ve ever idolized has had at least one horrible clunker (or turning point novel after which everything they wrote was pretty bad). ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/82 "2008-01-03T22:57:37Z")
[QUOTE=Finagle] I guess I’m crochety, but not even Pratchett is completely 100% for me. So that leaves pretty much Patrick O’Brian (some of his later books weren’t as brilliant, but we’re still at 99.99% or better.) And Barry Hughart who did the “Master Li and Ox” fantasies. Larry Niven went \* seriously \* downhill with the last couple of Ringworld novels and Destiny Road which, if not unreadable, was pretty bad. And pretty much every other author I’ve ever idolized has had at least one horrible clunker (or turning point novel after which everything they wrote was pretty bad). [/QUOTE] That’s what cost Spider Robinson his place on my list, too. After he gave up all hope of originality and moved the gang to Key West, he’s been nothing more than a cheap hack. And I agree completely about **Destiny’s Road.** ---
**Author:** ![PinkoAtheistCanuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@PinkoAtheistCanuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PinkoAtheistCanuck)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/83 "2008-01-03T23:17:39Z")
Robert J. Sawyer, Terry Prachett, Spider Robinson and Eric Flint. ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/84 "2008-01-04T03:52:30Z")
Pratchett, of course. Steven Brust. Charles de Lint Dick Francis Dorothy Sayers Roger Zelazny I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of right now. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/85 "2008-01-04T07:28:08Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia] Neal Stephenson (caveat: have not tackled the Baroque cycle) [/QUOTE] Take those books slowly as they dont really move all that fast, its more a prepared dinner type of book than fast food gratification. [QUOTE=Larry Borgia] China Mieville (_Iron Council_ dragged a little) [/QUOTE] Thats the book that pretty much decided for me that he would not be on my pick up books list, I am not even sure what i did like about , if at all. [QUOTE=Larrry Borgia] **Declan** , I’m just starting my first Asher book: _Gridlinked_ [/QUOTE] His books are best described as a universe rather than a straight a to z series. Some are stand alones and others are the Ian McCormic story line. He is heavily influenced by Ian M Banks and some of his robots are hilarious. Declan ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2008, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/86 "2008-01-05T23:49:33Z")
Seconding Pat Barker. She’s brilliant. A.S. Byatt. I haven’t read her four-part series that begins with “The Virgin in the Garden,” but I’ve read almost everything else she’s written, and I’ve loved it all. Margaret Atwood. Well, I did hate “Bodily Harm,” but every other novel or collection of essays, short stories, or poetry that I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed. Stephen Millhauser. Stephen R. Donaldson. Sherman Alexie. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/87 "2008-01-06T00:38:01Z")
I forgot one. **WEB Griffin** One hell of a story teller. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/88 "2008-01-06T01:01:39Z")
Pterry Colleen McCullough Ian M Banks Heinlein Patrick O’Brien And finally an author that seems to be unknown here,Paul Doherty. An Englishman who writes very gripping and intriguing historical mysteries. I’ve read quite a few authors in the past who’ve come close but fallen at the final fence,Ed McBain,Michael Moorcock and Alistair McLean for example. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/89 "2008-01-06T02:54:55Z")
Norman Mailer Hunter Thompson Not all perfect but you admire the gift anyway. ---
**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/90 "2008-01-06T03:29:51Z")
What I find interesting is that although I am a voracious reader and read dozens of books a year (will try to keep count this year), I have never heard of most of the writers on this thread. Some, of course. But most? Never heard of 'em. 😕 Some of the books mentioned intrigue me and I will scope them out. One book by one author: Dragon’s Egg by Robert Forward. While it has its faults, I will say it is one of the greatest scifi books ever written. The premise is that life has evolved on a neutron star, and it is gripping and wonderful. As far as I know, Forward did not write any other fiction. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/91 "2008-01-06T03:49:46Z")
[QUOTE=vison] One book by one author: Dragon’s Egg by Robert Forward. While it has its faults, I will say it is one of the greatest scifi books ever written. The premise is that life has evolved on a neutron star, and it is gripping and wonderful. As far as I know, Forward did not write any other fiction. [/QUOTE] Actually he had at least one other novel: [Flight of the Dragonfly](http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Dragonfly-Robert-L-Forward/dp/0671559370/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199591179&sr=8-1) about a manned space exploration mission to a star with a habitable double planet. Well, a double planet in the liquid water zone around said star. I didn’t like it near as much as I liked Dragon’s Egg. There is a rewritten edition titled Rocheworld but I haven’t read it. Also there’s a sequel to Dragon’s Egg titled Starquake, but again, I haven’t read it. I was that disappointed by Flight. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/92 "2008-01-06T04:05:05Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] Actually he had at least one other novel: [Flight of the Dragonfly](http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Dragonfly-Robert-L-Forward/dp/0671559370/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199591179&sr=8-1) about a manned space exploration mission to a star with a habitable double planet. Well, a double planet in the liquid water zone around said star. I didn’t like it near as much as I liked Dragon’s Egg. There is a rewritten edition titled Rocheworld but I haven’t read it. Also there’s a sequel to Dragon’s Egg titled Starquake, but again, I haven’t read it. I was that disappointed by Flight. [/QUOTE] I bought a book called **Ocean Under the Ice** at the bookstore a few years ago specifically because A) it was about an ice-covered ocean, always a topic I’m interested in, and B) it was by Robert Forward. And somebody else … Martha Forward, I think. It said “A Rocheworld novel” on the front. I think it was the 3rd Rocheworld book. So that’s at least five Robert Forward sci-fi novels. I’ve never been able to find a copy of **Dragon’s Egg** , sadly. I just remembered another good sci-fi author: John Cramer. He wrote two absolutely spectacular books, **Twistor** and **Einstein’s Bridge**. The latter I found particularly interesting because it combined high-energy physics, parallel universes (after a fashion), bizarre aliens, nanotechnology, time travel, and alternate history, all in one package … and yet it managed to do it quite well. Cramer is actually a high-energy physicist, and he came up with the [Transactional interpretation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation) of quantum mechanics, which I’ve seen referenced in several other works of science fiction. That’s how you know you’ve made it as a physicist, I tell you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/93 "2008-01-06T04:25:09Z")
James Ellroy Charles Willeford Charles Bukowski Neil Gaiman TC Boyle Richard Price Joe R Lansdale David Goodis PJ O’Rourke ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/94 "2008-01-06T09:29:59Z")
Cormac McCarthy as already mentioned is out of sight in this category for me. He’s never written a bad book, even his comparatively weaker efforts ( **no country for old men** and **cities on the plain** IMO) are still good. Given that he’s produced some straight up modern masterpieces like **Suttree** , **Blood Meridian** etc then his quality is outstanding. I suppose it does help here to be fairly restrained in your output over the years. Good to see that he was nominated as on of the top 50 green heroes in the guardian yesterday for the impact of his ‘environmental parable’ \*\*the road \*\* :dubious: Gene Wolfe is my favourite author and I’ll buy anything by him without a second thought, the quality is getting a bit thinned out in recent years though I have to say. I never thought he had a bad book in him until the **Wizard Knight** diptych. He’s quite elderly now, but his short stories are still extremely good. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/95 "2008-01-06T20:44:15Z")
[QUOTE=JohnM] I have a couple of things to catch up on (mostly the noirs he wrote under the penname Joe Kurtz), but my favorite genre author is **Dan Simmons**. The thing about Simmons is that while most of his fiction has been in the genre ghetto, he has moved between genres repeatedly. The list of novels for which he has won major awards covers fantasy, science fiction and horror: [snip] [/QUOTE] Although I haven’t read all Simmons’ SF, I might have included him on my list if I hadn’t just started (then thrown across the room about a third of the way through) _Darwin’s Blade_, a cliched and tedious detective story that starts with the eponymous investigator “solving” the infamous car-with-JATO-bottle-on-smashes-into-the-side-of-a-mountain urban legend, then shamelessly incorporates several other old gags and urban legends into its so-called plot. I was shocked that Simmons, whose “Joe Kurtz” novels (_Hard as Nails, Hard Freeze, Hard Case_) are gritty and ingenious, would be so unimaginative. (BTW, Joe Kurtz is the name of the protagonist in those books, not Simmons’ pen name.) My 100-percenters include the previously mentioned **Jane Austen** , **Isaac Asimov** , and **Robert Heinlein** as well as: **Dashiell Hammet**. Sadly, he didn’t write much. **P.G. Wodehouse**. You might argue that many of the stories are very similar, but even if you get tired of the similarities, they are all consistently good. **Agatha Christie**. I haven’t read much of her stuff recently, but when I was reading her I enjoyed the stories and admired how she could always give you enough information to figure out the answer if you were clever, while twisting the plots enough to avoid becoming too formulaic. **Lawrence Block** , whom I’ll include despite one notable dud: _Hitman 2_. I had never heard of Block when I picked up the first _Hitman_ book at the airport for something to read on the plane, and loved it. (It’s a series of interlocking short stories about a contract killer who happens to kill people who deserve it. Witty, clever, and tight little tales.) I started on his other novels and enjoyed almost all of his various series, especially the Bernie Rhodenbarr “Burglar Who…” set. Then the sequel to _Hitman_ came out, and it’s just _awful_. It completely betrays the masterfulness of the original. But the rest of his stuff is so good, I’ll let it slide. (So maybe I should let Simmons slide, too, huh?) ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/96 "2008-01-06T23:41:28Z")
[QUOTE=commasense] **Lawrence Block** , whom I’ll include despite one notable dud: _Hitman 2_. I had never heard of Block when I picked up the first _Hitman_ book at the airport for something to read on the plane, and loved it. (It’s a series of interlocking short stories about a contract killer who happens to kill people who deserve it. Witty, clever, and tight little tales.) I started on his other novels and enjoyed almost all of his various series, especially the Bernie Rhodenbarr “Burglar Who…” set. Then the sequel to _Hitman_ came out, and it’s just _awful_. It completely betrays the masterfulness of the original. But the rest of his stuff is so good, I’ll let it slide. (So maybe I should let Simmons slide, too, huh?) [/QUOTE] I presume you’re talking about **Hit List** , right? That (as far as I know) was the sequel to **Hit Man**. I actually liked it – I enjoyed the plot, with the other hit man trying to take out his competition, and how Keller and Dot had to try to outsmart him.. Did you ever read the third book, **Hit Parade**? I’m saving that one up, so I hope it’s good. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2008, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/97 "2008-01-07T04:52:39Z")
[QUOTE=chorpler] I presume you’re talking about **Hit List** , right? That (as far as I know) was the sequel to **Hit Man**. I actually liked it – I enjoyed the plot, with the other hit man trying to take out his competition, and how Keller and Dot had to try to outsmart him.. Did you ever read the third book, **Hit Parade**? I’m saving that one up, so I hope it’s good. [/QUOTE] Hmmm… I would have sworn it was called _Hitman 2_, but it sounds like the one you describe. I don’t have a copy, so either I read a borrowed copy or I threw it out or gave it away because I hated it so much. Maybe I’ll borrow a copy of _Hit List_ from the library and see if it still stinks as much as I remember. And I didn’t know about the third one. Maybe I’ll take a chance on it, too. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/98 "2008-01-07T05:12:38Z")
Charles Dickens Elmore Leonard Sigrid Undset Flannery O’Connor John LeCarre William Shakespeare Alexander McCall Smith Haruki Murakami Par Lagerkvist Knut Hamsun Halldor Laxness Russell Hoban ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/99 "2008-01-07T06:20:19Z")
Mine are: **Dick Francis Mercedes Lackey Elizabeth Moon** There’s more but I’m drawing a blank at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2008, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839/100 "2008-01-07T06:26:35Z")
[QUOTE=Great Dave] Tom Robbins. [/QUOTE] I agree… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-who-can-do-no-wrong/431839.md?page=6)