Authors

[tiger_spot]

It's been going around.

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

In no particular order:

T.S. Eliot -- The Wasteland has a special place in my heart. My dry, black, bitter heart.

Robert Heinlein -- Can't say I like his stuff so much anymore, but it was certainly influential.

C.S. Lewis

Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

Roald Dahl

Lois McMaster Bujold

Stephen Jay Gould

Steven Brust -- Not so much influence, I don't think, but a memorable body of work.

John M. Ford

Ursula K. LeGuin

Sherri Tepper -- I don't like her work that much, but I find it interesting.

Kage Baker

Stephen King -- Umney's Last Case

Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman


(The "influential" part means this is biased towards authors I encountered fairly young, so there's been time to be influenced. Authors I've read more recently who will belong on this list in a few years when their work's had time to marinate include Peter Watts, Pamela Dean, and Jo Walton.)

Comments

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

I thought about Tepper, too - but her later work all feels like the same story, told over and over, just changing setting and character names. What do you think of her?

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

For each of her books I've read, I've gotten through about a third or half of the book quite happily, then run across some tragic flaw in the worldbuilding that just breaks it. I wouldn't really recommend her work, in general (although I would recommend some books to people who mentioned liking similar works or themes), but I think she definitely counts as influential for me, even if sometimes in a don't-do-that way rather than a role model way.

[suzanne.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You know I think there's potential for a book of short stories/essays about people's first encounter with Wasteland.

Or J. Alfred. Hmm.