Favourite top 10 authors

[Clericnon2boxed]

Hmm I am forgetting a few really good ones probably, however I enjoyed these alot:

1)Isaac Asimov - Foundation Trilogy

2)Jules Verne - Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days

3)Jack London - Whitefang, Sea-Wolf

4)Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

5)Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land

6)Larry Niven - Ringworld, Man-Kzin Wars

7)China Miéville - Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council

8)Tad Williams - Otherland

9)Peter F. Hamilton - Nights Dawn Trilogy

10)Stephen King - The Dark Tower, The Long Walk

edit2: I'll add the names of some books to authors as good as I can remember them

[Raytes]

In no particular order: (edited to include my favorite work by each respective author)

1. Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov - a masterpiece
2. Melville - Moby Dick- Arguably the greatest novel written in the English language.
3. Kafka - In the Penal Colony- The brilliance of this man still amazes me. Makes me wish I was an insomniac if I could write this well.
4. Joyce - Ulysses
5. Konrad - Heart of Darkness - My 2nd semester short fiction Professor told us that after reading it five or so times, we would begin to understand that it is one of the most important pieces of literature written anywhere. I doubted him then but now after reading it five or six times I think I'm beginning to agree.
6. Frost - collections of poems
7. Neil Gaiman - American Gods
8. Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five- one of the few (read: one or two) sci-fi authors that transcends the genre, and I think this is his best work.
9. Poe - Fall of the House of Usher
10. Orwell - 1984

[Fammaden]

I don't like making lists. Heinlein is way up there for me too though. So is King. But in no particular order:

Frank Herbert

Clive Barker

Anne Rice

C.S. Lewis

Chuck Palahniuk

Joseph Heller

P.J. O'Rourke

Charles Bukowski

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Raytes

In no particular order:

1. Dostoevsky
2. Melville
3. Kafka
4. Joyce
5. Konrad
6. Frost
7. Neil Gaiman
8. Vonnegut
9. Poe
10. Orwell

Nice list, Vonnegut is up there for me as well, as is Poe. Orwell also, to an extent but I have only read 1984 which I love, and Animal Farm, which was ok. In the same vein, I really love Huxley's Brave New World as well.

[Montolio]

1.) R.A. Salvatore.. yeah, I know.

2.) Louie L'Amour.. is that odd?

3.) Tolkien.. go figure.

4.) C.S. Lewis <3

5.) Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game was fantastic.

Top 5 for now, might update later. Those aren't in any particular order either.

[Zaniel]

In no particular order:

1) Iain Banks
2) David Brin
3) Maxim Gorky (I prefer him to Dostoevsky)
4) Vonnegut
5) E.E. Doc Smith !! zomg cold war sci-fi
6) Larry Niven
7) Robert Silverberg
8) Alexander Dumas
9) Harry Harrison
10) Robert Jordan (so sue me!)
11) Dean Koontz (better than King IMO)

Also used to read all Leon Uris' books but there's only so much you can read about Israel/Holocaust before you burn out. Used to read a few of the Tom Clancy-esque authors but got bored of mock WW3 scenarios. Used to read all Jack Higgins, Ludlum etc.

I'm on a non-fiction history book kick at the moment so I'm not reading a lot of fiction.

[Tea on tuesday]

1) Nabokov
2) Marquez
3) Sterne
4) Melville
5) Saul Bellow
6) Octavio Paz
7) Raymond Chandler
8) Hemingway
9) Henry Miller
10) L. Ron Hubbard

[brekk]

only need 1

Karl Marx

fuck the bourgoise

[Khorum]

1. Vladimir Nabokov -- Lolita
2. Phillip K. Dick -- A Scanner Darkly
3. Dostoevsky -- The Brothers Karamazov
4. Thomas Pynchon -- Gravity's Rainbow
5. Charles Bukowski -- Factotum
6. Neal Stephenson -- The Baroque Cycle
7. Robert Anton Wilson -- The Illuminati Trilogy
8. J.R.R. Tolkien -- duh
9. William Gibson -- Neuromancer
10. Kurt Vonnegut -- Slaughterhouse Five

Was a pain ordering them into a top 10, left too many great authors out

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Not going to put any of the classics into it, I prefer not to try to claim that Tenneyson was better than Keats, etc.

So for modern writers....all spec fic...

1. George RR Martin
2. Steven Erikson (in the middle of the third book, he might flip to the top once I get further into the series)
3. Lois McMaster Bujold
4. Terry Pratchett
5. Robin Hobb
6. Frank Herbert
7. Robert Jordan
8. David B. Coe
9. Neal Stephenson
10. Brandon Sanderson (who just cracked into it on his first novel "Elantris". Still haven't go to Mistborn yet).

[Kuro]

No real order

1. George R.R. Martin (Like everyone else in this forum apparently lol)
2. Robert Jordan (If you ignore every WoT book between 4 and the latest, it's good yo!)
3. Piers Anthony (When I was a little kid, the Xanth series was enjoyable. Then it turned into softcore porn and I stopped reading. But I'll always like him since Spell for Chameleon was the first actual book I read.)
4. H.P. Fucking Lovecraft (<3 u)
5. Michael Crichton (Good at sounding like he knows stuff)
6. John Wick (Writes game storylines, original storyline for Legend of the Five Rings, unfortunately, he's also written for neopets >.<)
7. The D&D Crew (It may not all be classics for the ages, but Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and the other settings make for enjoyable recreational reading.)
8. Frank Herbert (Completely forgot dune lol, thanks Tirinal~

[Tirinal]

I find the lack of Frank Herbert... distressing.

[Ham n Cheese]

King, Rice, Palahniuk, Dick.

I don't read much though

[Aulirophile]

Robet Heinlein
Terry Pratchett
Frank Herbert
Neal Stephenson
Orson Scott Card
William Gibson
Vernor Vinge

I'll doubtless think of the other three later. Heinlein is Heinlein, the clarity of thought he put into his books is something I grew up with and influenced me greatly.

Pratchett is one of the best humor as social commentary people I've ever read.

Frank Herbert just... put things together. Systems. If you read between the lines in his Dune series there was so much there, a whole developed and detailed universe with its own history that you could reach in and grab.

Neal Stephenson might, in some ways, be better then Heinlein. What he does in the Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon, and a lesser degree in Snow Crash and Diamond Age, is by far some of the most amazing writing I've ever imagined.

Card has a lot of interesting works, mostly religious and philosophical in nature, though I first started reading him because of Ender's Game.

Gibson invented the term "cyberspace." What more needs to be said?

Vinge wrote one really amazing book, A Deepness in the Sky, and some other very good but not, in my opinion, as good stuff, but that one book was good enough to get a mention.

I could probably toss out Neil Gaiman, Lois McMaster Bujold (the Vorkosigan books are fun, but her two most recent fantasy novels are out and out amazing reads), George R.R. Martin (who will make the list if he finishes ASoIF without screwing it up...), Stephen King, etc. Dean Ing is fun to read to. Asimov gets an honorable mention because he's the only person alive who has at least one book in every general category of the dewey decimal system, all of which are very informative in the non-fiction categories.

[Ham n Cheese]

I wish people would list their favorite books by said authors