Who are the GOOD authors?

[Iamwinterborn]

I have had enough of people complaining nonstop about the crappy work authors put out.

People say "X can come up with a good story, but he definitely isn't a classic"

Or, "X needs to stop mentioning Zinc Oxide"



I think we can all agree on those points. But there's the definite implication that there is someone else, who may not be as well known, who IS writing quality books.


Who ARE these mysterious authors?

 

[Calgacus]

I have had enough of people complaining nonstop about the crappy work authors put out.

People say "X can come up with a good story, but he definitely isn't a classic"

Or, "X needs to stop mentioning Zinc Oxide"



I think we can all agree on those points. But there's the definite implication that there is someone else, who may not be as well known, who IS writing quality books.


Who ARE these mysterious authors?

Alan Furst, who writes great books about interwar Europe, mostly espionage-related, though not quite as formulaic as most spy fiction.

And I'm reading Zoo Station by David Downing right now. Also interwar espionage type stuff, but with a different feel. Excellent depiction of Berlin just before the war.

 

[SuttlersWagon]

I like Bill Bryson, though he writes non-fiction. Actually, everything I've read of late is non-fiction save for 'Gettysburg' by Newt. Which was excellent right to the very end, where it became a bit muddled for a bit, but turned right around for a strong finish.

On the note of good non-fiction, I just finished two very good books that I would like to relate to the History buffs round here-

'Caesers Legion' by Stephen Collins mainly about the Tenth, but covering all the Spanish legions and a few others as well.

'Seize the Fire' by Adam Nicolson about Trafalgar and Nelson. Rather pro British, but so am I, and they did beat bloody hell out of the allies that day.

 

[Wanderlust]

Michael Marshall Smith, author of Only Forward, Spares, The Straw Men, and others. He'll write a story that has fridges slagging off the main character for being a murdering drug addict while at the same time pondering the morality of cloning people for their organs while delving into the future history of a war fought in Earth's mythical inner realm before flip-flopping completely and becoming a truly moving story of adolescent betrayal. Kind of thing.

 

[MacCaulay]

If you're talking about Alternate History, then I'd probably put Mike Resnick at the top, even though he only writes short stories. As for people who pretty much put out good solid well researched stories that you can still read and not be bored to tears by...

...I'll be honest: Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen. Those two can write a damn AH book like nobody's business. Yeah, 1945 was poopy, especially compared to what they did afterwards. But the Gettysburg trilogy is amazing. Probably the most realistic Civil War alt.hist you'll ever find. And they're actually good writers. It reads smooth.

Douglas Niles and Michael Hobson are that way, as well. They wrote one called MacArthur's War about Operation Olympic, and a two-parter called Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front where Rommel isn't killed, Himmler takes over in a coup against Hitler, and assigns Rommel command of the Ardennes Offensive. All kinds of awesomness ensues when Patton and Rommel go at it in the Bulge.

 

[MrP]

Jon Courtenay-Grimwood is very good. A lot of his stuff is generally cyberpunk set twenty odd years in the future, but in an ATL whose PoD precedes the current day. For instance, a French Fourth Empire is in one, about to get squashed by either German or Russian neo-Nazis, I forget. The surviving Ottoman Empire has a trilogy to itself, too. I've felt everything he's written was a good investment of my time, so recommend him without hesitation.