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bipolarber -> RE: WHO are your Favorite Authors, and Why? (6/1/2008 2:36:12 PM)
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Wow. Toughie... I think I'll list a few off the top of my head, and then come back to it as more occur to me...
First and foremost: Edgar Allan Poe. The true American original. The man invented the deductive reasoning detective story. (A.C. Doyle just refined it.) He also created several types of poetry format which he could call his own inventions. He wrote what many (including myself) consider to be the single greatest short story in the English language: "The Masque of the Red Death."
Mark Twain: Again, an American Original. His dour sense of humor and almost bipolar approach to mankind has always floored me. In two books alone, he gave us Tom, Huck, Becky, Injun Joe, Aunt Polly, and Jim...and a glance at the ugliness of racisim. He redefined the rules for dialouge in fiction. My favorites: Life on the Missisippi, and The Mysterious Stranger.
Harlan Ellison: I only ask two things of any author: 1) don't lie to me (that is, screw with the story because you think doing so will make it more marketable) and 2) don't waste my time. The last thing I want to do is spend several hours to several days reading a book and come away feeling like I have nothing for the experience. Harlan ALWAYS delivers. His "machine gun prose" leaves me breathless.
Richard Matheson: Rod Serling opened the door to the Twilight Zone, but when he did, we all found Richard Matheson sitting on the other side, happily pounding away at his typewriter. The man's been living there for decades. Oh, you know his stories. You may not have noticed the name, but you remember his stories alright... "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", or "The Invaders" (where Agnes Moorhead fights off tiny aliens from another world) or how about "Prey" with Karen Black? (That little zulu warrior doll haunts my dreams still) Or "The Incredible Shrinking Man" or "I Am Legend" (screw the movies, read the book!) Or how about the Star Trek Episode where Captian Kirk gets split into good Kirk / Evil Kirk via a transporter accident? He has four or five collections of his short stories out there... and some of the stories that have never been adapted are as good, if not better than, the ones which have.
Pat Califia: Yes, he writes erotica. He writes BDSM erotica in fact. But, his stories are far, far better than simple stroke books. Pat writes about us. And he gets us right! "Doc and Fluff" and "Macho Sluts" proudly sit on my shelf right next to some of the best authors the 20th century has to offer.
Kurt Vonnegut: His essays still leave me grinning from ear to ear. Kurt was a master of understated insult, and overstated satire. "Slughterhouse Five," "Player Piano" "The Sirens of Titan" and "Cat's Cradle."
Ray Bradbury: His stories made me, a kid from the middle of nowhere, Illionois, appreciate the stars, and the world I was growing up in. Thanks Ray.
Brian Aldiss, Greg Benford, Arthur C. Clarke, Phillip K. Dick, Allan Dean Foster, David Gerrold, Robert Heinlien, Dean Ing, Stephen King, Murray Leinster, George Orwell...
Lord, there are dozens and dozens of them... a gross of authors!
And my home is a "batcave o' books" because of them.... Thank God! I'd hate to think what my life would have been like if I had been one of those poor, dumbass people who sit around watching crap TV all day long...
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