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).
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.
Take those books slowly as they dont really move all that fast, its more a prepared dinner type of book than fast food gratification.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Actually he had at least one other novel: Flight of the Dragonfly 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.
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 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.
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.
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?)
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.
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.
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
