Bonus points for any books you believe are classics from that time period. Any language, but only fiction please.
I’m really excited to see what Lemmy has.
Terry Pratchett.
Agreed, I’m most of the way through The Colour of Magic and I can’t remember the last time I was reading something where at times I have to stop and fully comprehend what I just read because it was so dang well written that I have to go back and read it again immediately.
That will never end. Every re-read for me is fantastic.
And you’re on one his weaker books! 🫣
https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html
This link has always been helpful for explaining his books.
I am on 12 of 42 or however many he wrote, but damn it if his little quips aren’t masteries of word play. So far Sorcery, Wyrd Sisters, and Mort are my favorites.
I tell people it’s like living in a Monty Python universe with a dash of magic.
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Be sure to include The Amazing Maurice and Equal Rites and the Tiffany books as well; the only thing YA about them is the ages of their protagonists.
Equal Rites was great! I think that was my first introduction to Granny but I wished there was a sequel.
There kinda is. Esk shows up in I Shall Wear Midnight. Tiffany resolves a lot of the threads left by the witches
I’m more of a fan of his later works myself. It trades some silliness for depth as time goes on. And I really loved Susan who you haven’t met yet
Neil Gaiman
Cormac McCarthy
I like to think that if Cormac and Hemingway ever met in a bar, they’d take turns sliding a pistol at one another across the table, for entirely different reasons.
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Anyone mentioned John Boyne yet?
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was really a YA book, but some of his other stuff is world class. A Ladder to the Sky, Heart’s Invisible Furies etc
Agree with plenty of the ones mentioned here, like: Stephenson, Egan and Murakami.
A very observant author is Peter Carey.
His wonderful book, Bliss was written in 1981 and felt like someone in 2010 looking back at the debauched mid 80s. Amazing foresight.
Cormac McCarthy, wrote some books you might have seen as movies such as The Road and No Country for Old Men.
Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is a crazy good book.
Iain M. Banks.
Also Iain Banks. One of his M-less books was on Play as an M and it’s the only non-pew fiction I’ve read in a long time, but I actually finished it.
I remember reading an interview of his where he said he wrote his contemporary fiction in order to support his science fiction writing. Whilst they’re still good novels, his regular works didn’t have as much of his soul as his SF.
Douglas Adams is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of the period.
He is known for light, surrealistic science fiction comedy, not a genre generally considered “high art” but his mastery of language is superb. He is a master of analogies in a way that is both funny but also makes the reader think about the roles and conventions of symbolism in language.
Oh wow I was legitimately surprised that Adams even fit in this thread. I’d have thought he was a mid-20th century author, writing at around the same time as Tolkien. But nope. The book of Hitchhiker’s Guide came out in '79…
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”
To me, it has to be Steven Erikson. Malazan series is simply amazing.
Just finished book 1 earlier this year, looking forward to getting to the rest of them.
James S A Corey
It’s a pen name but still.
A pen name for whom?
Daniel Abraham & Ty Frank. The Expanse series evolved out of a D&D-like game they hosted together. Abraham also has a good sized Fantasy catalogue to check out too
Just starting book 4 and the series really live up to the reputation.
I’m on book 8, and if you can believe it gets even better. I’m a little speechless about it.
I’m going to repeat Ursula K Le Guin and Margaret Atwood because it’s hard to overstate how much of everything is in their works. Iain (M) Banks I’ll also echo, but will add China Miéville because there aren’t enough anarchists in this thread.
- John Scalzi - Old Man’s War series and The Interdependency series
- Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse
Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse
That was pretty fun except the 4th book.
I’m a big John Scalzi fan. Whenever one of his books release, it’s basically xmas for me. There have been a few less than stellar books, but overal they are very enjoyable.
Scalzi - the first few books yes, afterwards I just lost interest and read them for the sake of reading them.
For me I enjoyed both of Scalzi’s series, the story written in a plain language but it’s still exciting and captive, with some plot twists added.
Each series is set in different universes with their own limitations.
Ray Bradbury. All his books are amazing.
Bah, I don’t feel like reading? He wrote tons of short stories.
first well known work after 1970
The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950, Fahrenheit 453 in 1953
I actually didn’t check that. I would have sworn early 70s.
Turns out I am thinking Bradbury Theater
Marilynne Robinson! “Housekeeping,” “Gilead,” absolutely stunning writer.
Tom Robbins and Tim O’Brien
