What sorts of fiction do you like?

[RangerWickett]

Who are your favorite authors? I can't choose one for myself. I haven't read anything I really loved since before I started college, other than Octavia Butler's "Kindred." And after college, most of the stuff I used to love no longer seems as good anymore. That's half the reason I'm asking, so I can find some great writers.

What style of writing do you prefer? Having taken creative writing courses, where mostly I read modern literary fiction, I can't really get into the heavily affected dialogue of many fantasy novels. I still love Tolkien, but the subject matter necessary to make his writing style work is hard to come by.

Do you enjoy novels? Comics? TV? Movies? Theater? Me personally, I like it all. I'm a pop culture junkie.

Anything else you'd like to say? I write, so I'm trying to figure out what people like. I don't really intend to change my style, but I do have a lot of different ideas in my head, so I'll probably work on the ones that seems like the most people will enjoy.

I'll enjoy reading what folks say.

 

[Pielorinho]

My all-time favorite author, reigning supreme for nearly two decades, is Ursula K. LeGuin. Although a few of her books are stinkers (you sometimes get the impression she's just read a political book that cheesed her off, and she turns it into a novel that thinly veils polemics under the guise of a story), most of her stuff is thoughtful, wise, beautiful, and awesome. She's like the homemade whole-wheat bread of my reading regimen: delicious, filling, and good for me.

China Mieville, on the other hand, is like a Gorgonzola and Kalamata Olive dish: pungent, almost overwhelming, and intensely flavorful. Or maybe he's like a crazy guy on the street who knocks you down, grabs you by the lapels, and whispers lunacy in your face, and it starts making sense to you, which scares the snot out of you. He's the closest I've come in a long time to finding someone as good as Le Guin.

George R.R. Martin is a superior hazelnut chocolate chip cookie. No, he's not nutritious, and he's not especially filling, but damn he's tasty. A Song of Ice and Fire is my favorite non-literary reading in years.

Mr. Westlake, of the Dortmunder novels, is --okay, the food analogy has run its course. His prose is nothing special, and his characters aren't remotely plausible, but it's rare that a book makes me giggle as much as his do. I can still think of scenes from his books and start snickering, several months after reading them.

Mimetic fiction? The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, is the best I've read in a very long time. If you've been in academia at all, it'll be very familiar and very eerie. My brother-in-law called my sister's voice mail while reading it to tell her that he'd put it in the freezer.

Oh, and have you read Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler? It's my favorite book by her, considerably better (IMO) than Kindred.

Daniel

 

[Olive]

Who are your favorite authors?

This changes a bit from time to time. On the all time, buy everything they put out list it would be George Orwell and Iain Banks. Currently I'm also loving China Meiville, George R. R. Martin and Ursela LeGuin. Tolkein is an all time love as well.

I absolutely adored oryx and crake by Magaret Attwood recently (in fact I've loved ehr last few), and The Corrections was shere genius. Because of the amout of study related writing I do, I tend to read fluff to relax which is why i rad a lot of fantasy stuff. But I try to read all the Booker prize winners each year.

What style of writing do you prefer?

It's funny, because my favourite style is fairly journalistic, Orwell being the case in point. I like a lot of the gonzo stuff too, especially Hunter S. Thompson. LeGuin is fairly sparse too. But Meiville is lush. So my favourite style of writing is fairly sparse, but i'm not limited to that in my tastes.

Do you enjoy novels? Comics? TV? Movies? Theater?

Yes. And non-fiction writing too. My favourite playwrite is Tom Stoppard. I love his twists on language. I read a lot of comics, although 've stopped buying them and don't miss them at all. I do love Alan Moore though.

Anything else you'd like to say?

Not really! Except perhaps that Pielorinho has good taste.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, and have you read Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler? It's my favorite book by her, considerably better (IMO) than Kindred.

Daniel

Okay . . . LeGuin either wrote Left Hand of Darkness or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I read them both in a nifty-keen Science Fiction and Fantasy Creative Writing class, and I liked them both, but I can't remember which one was by whom. And yeah, Wild Seed was great. I read that one back in high school, though, and didn't trust my memory.

I did forget that I truly adored a book called "Small World" by David Lodge. I took an Arthurian Literature class, and the reading I enjoyed most from it was the modern fiction one. Go figure. *grin*

Then again, I sorta, um, didn't do the reading for, like, Le Mort d'Arthur. I'd read it before in high school, and I think I had a deadline to finish with Deadly Games, so I skimped on some of the reading. *snert*

 

[ShadowX]

Okay . . . LeGuin either wrote Left Hand of Darkness or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I read them both in a nifty-keen Science Fiction and Fantasy Creative Writing class, and I liked them both, but I can't remember which one was by whom. And yeah, Wild Seed was great. I read that one back in high school, though, and didn't trust my memory.

I did forget that I truly adored a book called "Small World" by David Lodge. I took an Arthurian Literature class, and the reading I enjoyed most from it was the modern fiction one. Go figure. *grin*

Then again, I sorta, um, didn't do the reading for, like, Le Mort d'Arthur. I'd read it before in high school, and I think I had a deadline to finish with Deadly Games, so I skimped on some of the reading. *snert*

I like good fiction. Seriously, I read any fiction, but usually stuff that is more in the fantastic. Also Ursula Le Guin wrote Left Hand of Darkness and Robert Heinlein wrote The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I like mostly horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, and stuff like Mieville and Gaiman that kinda tie together all three. I don't like much modern sci-fi outside of the cyberpunk stuff (especially Gibson and Stephenson), but I'm big on H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Some modern horror's OK, although again I don't like a lot of it. I do dig Stephen King (his earlier stuff, anyway) and Clive Barker out of modern horror. Overall, gotta say Arthur Machen is my favorite horror author, bar none.

Lately, I'm getting more and more into historical fiction. I especially like the historical fiction with a slight fantastic bent, things like The Anubis Gates (although that's really more sci-fi).

 

[Pants]

Who are your favorite authors?

Right now, I quite enjoy China Mieville, George R R Martin, Robin Hobb, and Steven Erikson. A pretty decent mix of high-magic, gritty politics, and grim, feudal worlds.

What style of writing do you prefer? [/color]
Whatever I like. I can't narrow it down, but I can say what I don't like. Salvatore, as much as I like his work, reverts to clumsy writing every once in a while. Weis and Hickman had the same problem in the first Dragonlance book, but they got a lot better. I also can't stand the writing style of some of the 'classic' literature, which often feels bloated and... soulless.

Do you enjoy novels? Comics? TV? Movies? Theater?

I enjoy them all, though I'm not much of a theater fan.

Anything else you'd like to say?

I want to be a writer, so I try and read as much as possible. Right now, I'm reading through China Mieville's The Scar, Stephen King's The Stand, and I've got Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon on stand-by. At some point, I'm going to expand my repetoire of books and start reading stuff other than fantasy, but I just love fantasy so much...

 

[Wombat]

I have had my Top 5 for many years: Ursula LeGuin, Ray Bradbury, Italo Calvino, Robertson Davies, and Margaret Atwood.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy a wide variety of literature, however, as my aching back will tell you after every move

But what sorts of fiction do I like? Whew. Big question. I have hundreds of retellings of the Arthurian legends, so that is one clue, although they range from the (semi-)historical to the wildly fantastical. I read a fair amount of sci fi & fantasy, but less and less over the years, in that I find very few authors who I really like. I get even fussier on historical fiction -- I want the person writing it to be both historically fairly accurate and a good hand with a sentence, which is very rare (Patrick O'Brian, far and away!, is the best of the lot). I read some mysteries (hurrah for Elizabeth Peters!), some horror (rarely the gory, as I prefer the atmospheric -- far creepier and more terrifying!), a fair amount of Magical Realism, a good amount of Urban Fantasy (a la Charles de Lint), and a good amount of "classical" fiction -- 19th and early 20th century standard novels.

I am not fond of most crime or military fiction, although there are always exceptions to the rule; the same could be said for romance novels.

I guess I juse like to read...

 

[Hand of Evil]

My all time author: either Edgar Rice or Roger Zelazany. It is a hard chioce, there are a number of writers that I find stand out.

Type of story: Action adventure, I like pulp, the swashbucking sword fighing stuff. Sorcery and tech can be there but they just don't matter.

At this time I enjoy reading more than any other. While there are some movies that I have enjoyed I have found that I am enjoying them less. Movie makers seem to becoming sloppy and lazy when they put out a film, leaving holes or gaps but then I think I have moved out of the target demographic.

Game Settings: I find them great reads, same with monster books.

Computer Games: I am amazed at the art and detail going into them and I do think it the future of both movies and games will be a blending off these medias.

 

[diaglo]

if we are sticking with purely fiction...

i like a lot of authors with various styles and subject matter. it really depends on my mood. i'm willing to try everything once. twice or more if i like it.

i'm that way too when it comes to picking movies.

i seem to know more what i don't like than what i do. partially cuz i haven't tried everything there is to try and partially cuz i'll give things that i'm wishy washy about several tries before making a true judgement.