Authors are arranged alphabetically. I don’t make much distinction between genres – a good story is a good story, and a good idea is a good idea – so everything from hard scifi to high lit is represented. More authors added as I have time.
Lloyd Alexander
The best young adult fantasy series in existence is the Chronicles of Prydain. Taran Wanderer and The High King, the last two books, are the best. Favorites for bedtime stories as my sons get older.
Isaac Asimov
Dull, monotonous lecturers for characters, but massive, world-encompassing ideas. Better at short stories, I think.
Alfred Bester
Smooth dialogue, provoking ideas, bizarre protagonists. Everything under tight pressure. Few write like this. The classics are The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man, but there is more.
David Brin
Extremely imaginative fellow and the science is also good. Mostly known for the Uplift Saga. Kiln People, The Practice Effect, and The Postman are also good, and he is also a great short story writer.
Stephen Brust
Brust is probably the closest living author in terms of style to Zelazny (see ‘Z’). He wrote a lot of books concerning a witty assassin named Vlad Taltos. The first of these is Jhereg. They start funny, and then get gradually more serious, and then parody themselves to a degree as Vlad’s collection of immortal allies starts to sprawl. He also used Vlad’s world to retell the Three Musketeers as a nice tribute to Dumas. I have not followed his work in some years; the last few books I read seemed a little off. Plan to revisit.
Orson Scott Card
Card has to be here for Ender’s Game, but he has to share some space with Robert Jordan for Best Self-Destruction of a Literary Setting, given the many unnecessary sequels/prequels/whatnot. Not sure what happened – for awhile there, he was about the best there was. His worldview is odious.
Lee Child
Saw this book in the store. The Killing Floor. Picked it up. Looked interesting. Don’t usually go for action thrillers but I felt reckless. Turned out it was good. Reading some more. Strange side effect, though. Now everywhere I go I’m narrating in first-person staccato.
The later books move to omniscient third, which allows for more complex, if increasingly unlikely scenarios. Reacher either has incredibly bad or incredibly good luck. Still, I like the constant focus on observation and induction in the protagonist, so the series feels less like a guilty pleasure. They still are, of course.
Michael Connelly
The biggest problem with protagonists is making them human, and Connelly is very good at making Harry Bosch just that – an imperfect man that repeatedly makes mistakes. Still, over the course of 14+ novels, he can clear a homicide like nobody else. I am occasionally annoyed by Connelly’s insistence on having a last-minute revelation in every book, but I would be lying if I didn’t also say I don’t always figure it out in advance. Strong plots, strong characters – he deserves his mass-market position. Ballard is a worthy successor. Mickey is okay.
James A. Corey
The pseudonym of two brilliant writers who have written the best sci-fi epic since Dune – The Expanse.
Philip K. Dick
The first novel I can remember reading was Dick’s Eye in the Sky, which is still a good read. What I call a “second wave” sci-fi author, most of Dick’s work centers on the horrible limitations of human perception, which is not surprising for a guy who was both brilliant and disturbed. A Scanner Darkly is probably his best novel, though I might change my mind.
Gordon Dickson
I haven’t read even half of his output, but Way of the Pilgrim is in my top ten.
Stephen Donaldson
A perverse pleasure, like slowing down to look at a multiple-fatality car wreck while simultaneously picking at a scab on your arm. I am referring of course to The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, starting with Lord Foul’s Bane and including its five increasingly masochistic sequels. Covenant may be the least likable protagonist in the history of fiction.
Cory Doctorow
His writing is growing on me, benevolent and pedantic as it is.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes! Second favorite fictional character. See ‘O’ for the first.
David Eddings
I recall liking his stuff when I was younger. Now I think it would taste a little like rock candy. But I give big credit for anyone that can drag me through a series to completion.
Philip Jose Farmer
Another “second wave” author. Farmer wrote quite a bit, though I am mostly familiar with him via To Your Scattered Bodies Go and the four Riverworld books.
Richard Garrett
“The Best Policy” is my second favorite short story, ever. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder. There is also, of course, Lord Darcy.
Harry Harrison
Immortality for creating the Stainless Steel Rat. My personal favorite is The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted.
Frank Herbert
Dune gets my vote for the best science fiction novel, hands down. The rest of the books go in interesting but unpromising directions, abandoning everything that was so fascinating in the beginning – the balance between the ecology, the Fremen, palace and Mentat intrigues stop working. I blame the clones. Herbert has a lot in common with Card; they pushed too hard. The Lynch movie and miniseries both neglect (by omission and abuse, respectively) the most important minor character of the novels, Count Fenring, which makes much of the plot of the adaptations pointless.
Robert Heinlein
The juveniles are about as good as it gets. My favorite is Tunnel in the Sky, but it’s hard to pick it over Rocket Ship Galileo or Red Planet (ancestors to Varley’s Red Thunder), or Space Cadet. And let’s not even mention Starship Troopers or The Puppet Masters. The rest is a mixed lot, possibly by comparison to the above gems (even Troopers), and possibly due to declining skill or changing taste. The highlights after are The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (his best overall) and Stranger In A Strange Land. But he is the quintessential postwar SF author, ahead of his time.
Stephen King
As long as you stay away from the really long ones – which are most of them, unfortunately – King is hard to beat. The novellas are the best. Different Seasons, for example. Too many to list. Recommend Danse Macabre for a change of pace. For a parallel, try Peter Straub.
Stieg Larsson
H had me listen to Larsson’s three books about Liz Salander and Kalle Fucking Blomquist on tape, so I actually don’t know how they read, I suppose. But they’re just delightful, even if the first one has about the slowest opening for a novel I’ve encountered in awhile, discussing insider trading in Sweden at length. Eventually, though, and disturbingly enough, you want to hear more about insider trading in Sweden…
Ursula K. LeGuin
Mostly here for the The Dispossessed and many clever turns, but also Earthsea. Preachy, perhaps, but I have no objection to good preaching.
Stanislaw Lem
I have no idea how his stuff reads in Polish, but The Invincible is in my top ten.
George R.R. Martin
Martin is still writing – supposedly – the massively depressing fantasy epic that he started in A Game of Thrones. But I’d be lying if I didn’t want to see how it ended, even after the HBO version slid to a glum halt. But I suspect the books will not end. Perhaps that is for the best.
John Mortimer
Author of all the Rumple of the Bailey short stories, most of which are also TV episodes penned by the same. The formula rarely if ever changes. But why change perfection?
Larry Niven
Another of the heavy hitters of hard sci-fi. Best known for Ringworld, which spawned many an imitation. Also wrote a lot of great books with Jerry Pournelle (See ‘P’) – The Mote in God’s Eye (probably the best), Inferno, Footfall, Lucifer’s Hammer, etc.
Patrick O’Brian
Stephen Maturin is my favorite fictional character, even more so than Holmes. Master and Commander is the first of the 20-book Aubrey-Maturin series; The Reverse of the Medal is the best. O’Brian more or less mastered the art of prose rhythm in a way few have. You barely have to comprehend the sentences to feel it.
Jerry Pournelle
See Larry Niven, his often co-author, for a list. Pournelle is the first guy I would call for advice if I was a military dictator on a frontier world, and that’s only because the author of The Prince is unavailable. I would pay him a hefty consultant’s fee and we would get along fabulously.
J.K. Rowling
Ok, ok, I give up. I read them, too. She’s funny. It almost veered into Jordan territory, but she ended it pretty well. But then she threw it all away, yet another casualty to Twitter.
Fred Saberhagen
You could accuse Saberhagen of milking the idea of berserkers and magic swords to death, but why? It would be like booing Ted Williams for hitting singles.
John Scalzi
Another Heinlein descendant – see Old Man’s War and The Last Colony.
Jack Shafer
Wrote Shane, which is without equal.
Brian Stableford
Stableford has written a massive amount, but I recall him mostly for the mid-1970s stuff – the Hooded Swan saga, and the Daedalus Mission books. Good chain sci-fi.
John Steakley
Wrote Armor. And if you’re going to write just one novel, that would be the one…
Neal Stephenson
Stephenson writes like someone permanently hooked up to a sugar and caffeine IV, with a cybernetic hookup to the entire holdings of the British Museum. Snow Crash, Cryptonomion, the entire Baroque Cycle, and Anathem are all very good.
John Steinbeck
This probably marks me as lowbrow, but Steinbeck is my favorite ‘lit’ author. Of Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, etc. Southern California = the most epic place on Earth.
Rex Stout
Wolfe and Archie are America’s answer to Holmes and Watson. Stout’s mysteries are not always that mysterious, and often tediously social, but Wolfe and Archie are always entertaining. My favorites are The Doorbell Rang and the Zeck trilogy, but I could easily add a dozen more.
Sheri Tepper
There’s a formula to Tepper’s books, but it’s a good one. Grass is the basic template.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The movies are blasphemy; the books are divine. I read them front-to-back every five years or so. The Hobbit flows the best.
Harry Turtledove
Turtledove has cranked out a lot of alternative history books over the years, but the one I can’t forget is The Guns of the South. Great premise, executed well, though the politics are apologetic at best with Lee and Forrest. Lincoln, though – just so.
John Varley
The Gaea trilogy – Titan, Wizard, and Demon – is Niven’s Ringworld with less math, more lesbians, and a sense of humor. Just as good are Red Thunder, Red Lightning, and Rolling Thunder, an ongoing tribute to the Heinlein juveniles. The critical “ideas per page” ratio that is so important in hard sci-fi is consistently favorable in Varley.
Roger Zelazny
No secret that Zelazny remains my favorite author. Like Bester, but more witty and philosophical, thinking man’s fantasy. Protagonists are typically immortal, embedded in a complex mythology, and wickedly sardonic. Without Zelazny, there is no Brust or Gaiman. Very few get dialogue better. Hell, very few get description better. He wrote many stinkers, but the bright points are bright. His best is Lord of Light, but I am also partial to Jack of Shadows, Creatures of Light and Darkness, A Night in Lonesome October, and of course Amber – the first five in particular, starting with Nine Princes in Amber. There are also five collections of excellent short stories, including my favorite, “For a Breath I Tarry,” which is in The Last Defender of Camelot.