tired of being political but still bored

[Friar]

I'm sure this has been done before but as a n00bie, it's of some interest to me who your favorite writers might be. I'm always looking for a good read.

1) Cormac McCarthy: The greatest writer since Shakespeare. I kid you not.
2) Jim Thompson: Light stuff but Pop 1280 is undeniably a classic(see the french flick "Coup De Torchon").
3) Stephen J. Gould: No comment
4) The guy who wrote Cryptonomicon: I'm kidding. I know who he is. I think there's a prequel coming out soon. Even if you don't care for SciFi, check out Snow Crash. Out Gibsons Gibson.
5) You ever read Moby Dick? I didn't get it. Seemed like just a sailing story to me.
6) Harry Potter! I kid, I kid...
7) LotR: Actually, I read this and the Silmarilion bi-yearly (is that a word?) and have for the last twenty years. I know, I'm pathetic.

[REP]

1. Me Like Books

George Bernard Shaw
Mark Twain
Reginald Hill
Carl Hiaasen
Charles Willeford
James Thurber

to name just a few

[Friar]

3. no kidding you like books

Do you have any recommendations, I mean like, one per author?

[REP]

5. Oh, All Right

Shaw - Androcles and the Lion; Major Barbara; Pygmalion
Twain - Huck Finn; Autobiogrpahy of; Letters from the Earth
Hill - Deadheads
Thurber - My Life and Hard Times
Hiaasen - Double Whammy
Willeford - Miami Blues

[Friar]

16. thanks

I've read Shaw, Twain and Thurber. I'll look into Hiaasen, Willeford and Hill.

[jafap]

2. Dean Koontz

but I think he is a Randite (as in Ayn). His latest book includes some digs against "class warfare" and Gov. Davis. His literary heroes are often cops. I would not rate this as his best, but Lightning, Watchers, Twilight Eyes, Darkfall, Dragon Tears, Whispers, Bad Place, Cold Fire, and Phantoms are very good.

BTW - who is Gibson? Is that Debbie Gibson, or the guy from the Gibson-Miller band?
When I sold books I decided to read genres other than science fiction to increase my depth. So I mostly stopped reading Sci-fi in the 1990s, except for Koontz. But I do not know most of the ones you mentioned.

Recently I got into Daniel Quinn's books.

If that doesn't help, I can offer you an obscure body in the SK system. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet: "earth".

[Friar]

4. William Gibson

He's sorta well known as the progenitor of "Cyberpunk" SciFi. Necromancer is a fine novel. He's the only scifi guy I mentioned as I also gave up on scifi, pretty much. I thought Koontz was ok as a pop novelist at first but he kept repeating himself after a while.

[REP]

6. William Gibson Wishes He Were the Progenitor of Cyberpunk

It was actually Cordwainer Smith (Scanners Live in Vain, 1950).

[Friar]

7. well, Harlan Ellison comes to mind too

You can't deny Gibson sorta kinda fleshed out the whole thing, though.

[REP]

9. Yeah I Can

Gibson is one of the worst writers I've ever endured. Just terrible.

Smith predates Ellison as well, but is a MUCH better read than Gibson. Well, so is a cereal box, but I don't mean to damn Ellison with faint praise. He can be pompous and self-indulgent, but when he's good, he's very good.

Another fave: C.M. Kornbluth, The Marching Morons. Some elements of this story was used in Robocop, but the story is much more than jet cars and "I'd buy that for a dollar!"

[Friar]

13. yeah Kornbluth

and Dick too. Forgot about some of those old guys from my youth. While Gibson might not be Faulkner, neither are the rest of them. Gibson did bring a certain life to the genre and you must admit he is much imitated.

[jafap]

8. pop, pop, fizz, fizz

It is hard to come up with twenty or thirty original novels. I still would class Lightning, Watchers, Bad Place, and Twilight Eyes as Sci-fi, but not cyberpunk. Now Cordwainer Smith I have heard of (although not actually read).

[REP]

10. Sheesh!

I was born at the end of the Golden Age, but it's still my favorite, though many New Wavers (such as Ellison) are pretty damned good. I like writers who do a little thinking, instead of trying to gee-whiz the audience with tedious descriptions of non-existent technology while eschewing characters and plot.

[REP]

11. Heh

Golden Age and New Wave science fiction was all about depth - worrying about the shape of things to come, so to speak. The very best science fiction isn't space operas or about whizz-bang technology, but the sociological implications. Ever read Matheson's Born of Man and Woman? Bixby's It's a good Life? Kornbluth's The Marching Morons or The Syndic? Russ's When It Changed? I could go on, but I'm getting tired of typing font brackets!

[jafap]

12. by depth, I was not talking about plot

what I meant was knowledge of authors outside of the Sci-fi genre, not that I had read everyone in the sci-fi genre, but I also wanted to be able to talk to customers who were not into Sci-fi. I have not read any of those books, nor any of those authors, except I think Matheson wrote "Bid time return" (also known as "Somewhere in Time")
As far as Kornbluth's book, I may check that out, but as Pee Wee said at the end of his movie: "I do not need to read it, I lived it" LoL - back when I was in the U of Mn marching band.
BTW - I have read some Ellison, and did not like him at all.

[Friar]

15. Richard Matheson

is one of the greats. The Shrinking Man, Hell House, A Stir of Echoes, What Dreams May Come, many, many Twilight Zone episodes. I think his son is also a writer.

[Friar]

14. LOL

Ok, ok. Let's forget about scifi. I don't really read that much of it anymore anyway. Let's talk about, um...um...Graphic Novels! You guys like Alan Moore and Frank Miller and stuff like that?

[rock]

17. Re Koontz

I haven't read all his stuff, but I highly recommend "The Face" as his best work to date.