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! The Discworld books have kept me busy for years now and I don’t even consider myself much of a reader.
Terry Pratchett. Brandon Sanderson has a nice essay about Pratchett.
So many good answers already that I agree with. So I’ll add James Ellroy and Clive Barker
For Ellroy, the entire LA Quartet remains a pivotal sea change in “hard boiled” crime fiction; taking a lot of the conventions created by the likes of Hammett and Chandler and updating them for a modern audience.
Barker is a more personal choice. But his writing is just so evocative and descriptive that I couldn’t NOT mention him. Imajica literally changed my literary life, with Weaveworld being (in my opinion) a less dense, more reader friendly version of Imajica.
Frederik pohl
Nice someone still remember him. I would say half/half since while his most famous book was in 1977, but he started in 50’s
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She used to teach writing courses at the university where I work. According to some of the old IT hands, whenever she came in with computer problems she was a delight to work with.
Sir Terry Pratchett.
A phenomenal author whose ability to weave a story is fantastic, but was also adept at writing in jokes and references that make re-reading the novels a delight.
Australian author Peter Corris. Over 40 years or so, he wrote a lot of Australian non-fiction, including a
n autobiography of eye surgeon Fred Hollows, many Australian fiction books including The Winning Side (personally I think this is/should be a classic of Australian literature); and the Cliff Hardy series of Sydney-noir detective books.Edit: thanks to those that corrected me
Stephen King.
King of Horror.
He has written hundreds if not thousands of stories over the last half century. So many of those have turned into Blockbuster movie, lame TV movies, Indie films, and TV shows. We can argue later about how “literary” many of those stories are, but his impact on popular culture today is undeniable.
Although he has occasionally written or said some cringey things out of touch with the current zeitgeist (who hasn’t?) and has struggled with his own demons, from what I’ve seen he has always demonstrated that at his core he’s a decent human being struggling, like we all do, in a scary world.
Neil Gaiman. The man can write novels, YA novels, graphic novels, children’s books. And they all have such well crafted worlds that you just want to lose yourself in them.
I also think Neal Stephenson and Corey Doctorow deserve WAY more attention than they get.
I’d second all three.
Neil Gaiman is absolutely one of my favorite authors and from what I’ve seen, a pretty great human being as well.
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Absolutely. Anansi boys is my personal favorite of his, but I think highly of all his books.
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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.”
Ted Chiang
Greg Egan
Peter Watts
Adrian Tchaikovsky
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I’ve enjoyed immensely every book he’s written. :)
Haruki Murakami. I’ve liked everything he’s written up to 1Q84. I’m sure his newer stuff is good too I just haven’t caught up to them yet lol
If you want something more like hard sci-fi/cyberpunk, I recommend the Otherland series by Tad Williams. It’s seriously probably the best modern sci-fi I’ve ever read
Have you read the expanse and if so, is it better than the expanse?
I have not read The Expanse yet, but it looks like a good series!
Its absolutely incredible IMO. Was hoping you had to compare it. Guess I’ll just have for ead other land and decide for myself. What a shame lol.
I have read the first book of the Expanse. I liked it but didn’t find any connection to Murakami, perhaps in later novels?
I have no idea what you’ve just said
I have read the first book of The Expanse, known as Leviathan Wakes. While reading it, I did not discover any connections to Haruki Murakami insofar as the writing nor the way he works a metaphor. I liked reading Murakami a lot; The Expanse not as much. But perhaps in later novels of The Expanse I shall?
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He was beautiful in his descriptions of food. I saved some of the pictures that came out of his recipe book.
aside from some of the more obvious choices (rushdie, wallace, mccarthy, morrison):
don delillo, esp. underworld and white noise
ted chiang, esp. exhalation
marilyn robinson, esp. housekeeping
denis johnson, esp. jesus’ son and tree of smoke
colson whitehead, esp. the intuitionist and the nickel boys
and while relatively new so maybe not at the same status as some other writers, jamil jan kochai and nana kwame adjei-brenyah will be making lists like these in the future if they keep writing the way they have.
Add two line breaks to force a new line
Like this, so your list is easier to parse
sorry, ive never left a comment like that before and didnt realize it would look off. thanks!
markdown certainly has its quirks if you’re not used to it. The line break thing is super handy to know
James Brian Jacques Redwall series
Good choice (I actually did not read any of the Redwall Series, but I watched the heck out of the PBS adaption.)
