Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Peter Straub, Joe Lansdale – everybody knows about them
David L. Martin – writes everything from thrillers to literary stuff, always intriguing
Ron Hansen – also writes everything and it’s all good
Pat Barker – I started with the Regeneration Trilogy – she won a big prize for that. Worked backwards to her very first novel, Union Street, and I’ll bet most writers would be proud to call that their crowning achievement. And it was her first. This woman is a revelation.
Bob Leman – he’s in his 90’s and not writing anymore, but if he was, I’d be buying. He was mostly published in Fantasy and Science Fiction and there’s a collection of all his stuff out now, Feesters in the Lake, which is the best dark fantasy/horror I’ve read in years, maybe ever.
I used to buy everything Ken Follett wrote but I stopped with The Third Twin. That was kinda hacky, IMHO, and I haven’t been back to him.
Lessee… John Irving
Salman Rushdie
Terry Pratchett (obviously)**
Bob Heinlein
Stephen King** (though he disappoints me half the time)**
Ross Thomas
James Ellroy
Douglas Coupland
Nick Hornby
Norman Mailer
**
I have to take a crack at Chuck Palahniuck he was highly recommended to me by **Christopher Moore ** who said he only WISHED he could right as good. So tell me whats a good Palahniuck book to start with?
Like Tanaqui, I cainta ford to buy the books by all the authors I like for similar reasons. But there are really only two authors I’ll go out of my way to read: Anne McCaffrey and Lilian Jackson Braun. I’ll only buy LJB’s books if they predate The Cat Who Came to Breakfast (aka The Cat Who Started Sounding Ghostwritten).
Fight Club was made into a movie, so that’s arguably his most well-known book. Not a bad starting point.
I really liked Survivor, and although I’ve heard that it’s been optioned for a movie, it’s very unlikely to be made in the near future. At the very least, they’re likely to change the title if they do.
Choke was…interesting. I’d save this book for later and read one of his others first.
Lullaby is my personal favorite of his so far. Nice blend of creepy supernatural with dark humor.
Nice to see I’m not the only Sharon McCrumb or Sara Paretsky fan here. I’ll second Elizabeth Peters while I’m at it. Under mysteries, I’ll also add Laurie King and Lilian Jackson Braun.
For science fiction, there’s Spider Robinson, Sarah Zettel, the late greats Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and, of course, Terry Pratchett, thanks to you Dopers.
Finally, I have to mention William H. Keith, Jr./H. Jay Riker/Ian Douglas/whatever other aliases he’s using these days, if only because every so often I get to hang out in his hot tub or talk him into posting here (he’s HJay).
I buy everything Umberto Eco writes, and, when I get around to reading it, love his stuff. But it isn’t something I’ve taken time to do since children.
I’ve read the complete works of Jane Austen, but I don’t think she is due for anything else either.
I started To Reign in Hell, but was bored out of my mind. My girlfriend, the hardcore Brust fan, quit a few pages in IIRC. Just didn’t do it for either of us.
American Gods. I loved it. Haven’t read Sandman yet, though I plan on it eventually. Need to read Stardust…and speaking of Tori…
Tori’s a tree in Stardust. It’s mentioned in one of her songs. Something like “When Neil made me into a tree.”
At Swim, Two Boys is about two teenaged boys who fall in love against the backdrop of the 1916 Easter Rebellion. It’s a beautiful book, and I love the fact that none of the major characters turn out to be who you first expect them to be. To avoid giving away too much, I’ll stop now.
Florence King is usually called a humorist, but she’s better described as a wickedly funny essayist. Her most famous books, and the ones I would recommend to someone just learning about her, are Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and Southern Ladies and Gentlemen. In one of his columns, Dan Savage mentioned she was one of the people he would invite to a dinner party if he could invite anyone.
Did anyone say it had to be a living author? I was gonna cite Anthony Burgess. Not my fault that he suddenly stopped putting out new stuff ten years ago. **
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Presumably if you are so keen on an author as to include them in this thread, you already have everything they have written. So the “then I’ll buy it” has to refer to new books only.
If somehow, unpublished manuscripts should come to light by the late Theodore Sturgeon or Robert Heinlein or Edgar Pangborn or Roger Zelazny
then the purchase would be as fast and automatic as the clearing of a room by a Yoko Ono record.
Failing that, the wallet whips out on autopilot when encountering new works by Spider Robinson (whose Yoko Ono simile was blatantly swiped above) — and that’s for the very first hardcover I can lay my mitts on. There is no way I can wait for paperback.
Too much of of the output of James Branch Cabell and Lord Dunsany has been out of print, lo these many years. Anyone issuing a reprint of a volume I do not own would garner an instant sale.
Other authors:
Avram Davidson (Regrettably also departed, but for not as long.)
