Who do you read?

[onyxhawke]

So, who makes your "must buy" list? Who makes your "will probably buy list"?  Why? What book(s) put them there? What genre or genres do they write? Is this something your normally read?


Talk!

Comments

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

Must Buy List (and what put them there): Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), Charles De Lint (Any of his Memory and Vines/Someplace to be Flying series), C.E. Murphy (Urban Shaman), J.A. Jance (the Joanna Brady series), Emma Bull (War for the Oaks), Neil Gaiman (American Gods/Ananasi Boys)

The vast majority of this is modern/urban fantasy, but J.A. Jance is mystery (but happens to be set in the town we're now living in...)

The Will Probably Buy list is much larger and broader in spectrum... It runs the gammut from manga to sci-fi to fantasy to nonfiction, so it's really all over the place.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I read a lot of mystery, urban fantasy, fantasy and horror. I used to have a lot of must read authors but have found, as of late, that the rigors of a book a year have churned out some really shoddy and unentertaining works so my interest has waned (thinking of Tony Hillerman, Anne Perry and others here).

Mostly I cull my reading list from my book clubs and base my choices more on the blurb than by author name. Recently I've gotten back into Charlene Harris and P.N. Elrod and have added a few others to my avoid list

[wandereringray.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, must buys? *ponders*

David Weber, because his Honor Harrington series rocks my world. :D (hard sci fi)

Yasmine Galenorn, because her Otherworld sisters are too cool for words. (urban fantasy)

Gena Showalter, because her Alien Huntress heroines are fun and because her other books make me laugh out loud. (erotica)

Simon Green, had me at "there are fairy tales ... this isn't one of them" *grins* And his Deathstalker series is twisted space opera at its finest. (space opera, sci fi)

There are more who'd I'd pick up, but I don't want to flood the page. *laughs* Mostly I look for stories that will make me laugh, cry, whimper. I love books that make me forget where I am.

[cordova829.livejournal.com]

I think that if I like someone's writing style enough, they earn my "must buy" respect.

Ringo, because ocassionally he throws out something that is gold.

Travis, because if I don't he'll kick my ass.

Dr. Monkey, because he's funny and hit me with a coconut once.

The 1632 series, with the exception of things with DeMarce's name on the cover.

Mad Mike, because his writing kicks the shit out of anyone else's I know.

Timothy Zahn, because I love his work.

Jonathan Stroud, because he's very talented and not many people have heard of him.

[tcastleb.livejournal.com]

Lately, most of my books have been spur-of-the-moment buys that have to do with a critical paper I'm writing on LGBT SF/F. If I can use it for the research, I want it. They're all SF/F.

The "Probably will buy" list mostly aims toward specific SF/F content; if there's LGBT stuff in there, I want it. Like (and forgive me if I get the name wrong) Clegg's book about Mordred--I want that one. It also goes for people I know and consider friends and therefore want to support--Toby Buckell, for instance (though I still haven't bought Ragamuffin and feel guilty about it.)

As for "must buy" specific people--Lynn Flewelling; I love all her books. Anything to do with Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover. Jacqueline Carey has been relegated to paperback only after the first Imriel book, and now it's more to have the whole set of books. I'll buy Greg Frost's (frostokovich's) new book when it's out because I heard him read from it and I'm intrigued.

The one recent exception is pbray's The First Betrayal and The Sea Change, because she blogged about how hard it was to write a torture scene in the second book, which made me curious to read it.

[retterson.livejournal.com]

Must Buys (hardcover editions):

Neal Stephenson because his prose makes me weak in my knees and because his stories are clever and original and complex.

Gregory Maguire because his stories are compelling and fantastical and timely.

George MacDonald Fraser because Harry Flashman is my hero. Fraser writes alternative history that is anything but and yet is.

J. K. Rowling because of Harry & Co. and because you can't argue with the fact that she struck a mighty cord.

Stephen R. Donaldson because he defined modern fantasy.

Can't think of any others on the Must Buy list for SFF.

Most other modern SFF writers don't make the Must Buy cut for me because their prose sucks, and because much of what is deemed original and clever is just random weirdness thrown in to astound and astonish modern readers who never learned to read well (and hence, need their sentences cut up into small pieces to aid their comprehension) and who have the attention spans of toddlers sitting at a table loaded with shiney objects.

But that's just my opinion.

[djonn]

My list of "must buys" is somewhat limited in that as a longtime reviewer, I get (or have gotten) all manner of stuff kind of automagically. So some of these are technically classed as must-acquires, by whatever means. However:

Diane Duane: utterly reliable whether working in someone else's universe (Star Trek, etc.) or one of her own (So You Want to Be a Wizard, Stealing the Elf-King's Roses).

Elizabeth Peters: mostly lightweight but very well plotted mystery, nicely balanced between a strong sense of fun and sharply intelligent characters.

Elizabeth Moon: there's no more intelligent writer of military SF in the genre, and her prose and pacing run rings around Weber (whom I like well enough when he's not engaging in 20-page infodumps). But that's not all she can do; Remnant Population and The Speed of Dark prove she can handle classic SF themes equally well.

Sherwood Smith: Smart high fantasy, for younger readers (the Wren series, Crown Duel, a couple of authorized Oz sequels), adults (Inda and its sequels) -- all playing both into and against convention. Also see under space opera (the Exordium cycle, written with Dave Trowbridge).

Patricia Wrede: More smart fantasy for various ages, with and without Caroline Stevermer as co-conspirator.

L. J. Smith: This is more accurately a "will buy", as (mostly teen) readers have been waiting for the last book in Smith's "Night World" series for years now owing to a combination of life crises and seeming publishing delays. All of Smith's work is classed as for younger readers, but it's the flavor of book that crosses over. There are two straight fantasies (Night of the Solstice and Heart of Valor), plus a number of trilogies and series marketed as "teen horror" -- but that's deceptive, because a couple of those trilogies (the "Forbidden Game" and "Dark Visions" in particular) are pure descendants of classic Andre Norton fare, and the "Vampire Diaries" and "Night World" series are really what we'd now call paranormal-romance crossovers (and are better written and plotted than a lot of what you see in that genre these days).

[loup_noir]

I can't think of an author these days who's automatically on my "must buy" list. Once books topped the $5 price tag, I began reading more than the blurb and the opening page before buying them.

"Probably buy" includes Emma Bull, because I've liked everything of hers that I've read; Patricia Briggs, Carrie Vaughan, because I really like her Kitty series; history books about certain eras and technical books. There used to be a lot more fantasy authors, but I'm finding it harder to get into fantasy these days; SF, the same problem.

My main genres these days are urban fantasies, paranormals and mysteries. I prefer series with long character arcs, like Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski books. Mysteries have become a sort of catch-all these days, with protagonists as likely to be witches and werewolves as cops.

[jleemoffatt.livejournal.com]

1 - Jim Butcher - anything Dresden and I'm in heaven. Sure some of the main stories aren't exactly inspiring, but I just LOVE Harry. He's so damned funny.

2 - Rob Thurman - thanks to your recommendation I am Rob Thurman's bitch. I would read her cereal boxes if she wrote them.

3 - Rachel Caine - I love Rachel's unique take on urban fantasy with the weather wardens, and her YA series with vampires is shiny too. It doesn't hurt that she's a super cool person too, and was the first professional writer to encourage me in mine.

4 - Lian Hearn - The Tales of the Otori, these books are like Crouching Ninja, Flying Samurai. I also enjoy how she splits the POV from 1st to 3rd depending on the main character for the chapter. She'd does beautiful historical fantasy Japan.

5 - Kij Johnshon - also fantasy Japan. This woman made a fire destroying the wood and paper buildings of Tokyo poetry in Fudoki. Her rendition of the Fox Woman was just incredible too. I wish I was a quarter of the writer that Kij is.

So for me it's mostly Urban Fantasy, which is what I write, and Asian based fantasies because I've always had a thing about samurai and geisha. Probably why my other project is a SCIFI based in futuristic Tokyo.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

First: dead people. Lots of dead people. If it's dead and pulpy, I'm interested: Howard Jones' collections of Harold Lamb's fiction, the Night Shades collections of Klarkash-Ton et al., Lemuria Press' upcoming edition of Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis, the Haffner collections of Leigh Brackett. I'm all over that stuff.

Among the living, Michael Chabon is certainly on my must-buy list. Also Judith Berman, whose Bear Daughter is a very strange and wonderful, yet accessible, book. A strong second here to djonn's endorsement of Sherwood Smith. Then, too: Peter S. Beagle. Gene Wolfe (although the last book or two in his multibook series always disappoints me). On the sf side, Charles Stross and Lois Bujold (I'm not so crazy about her fantasies, although Curse of Chalion was pretty impressive).

Neil Gaiman is a maybe-buy: I wasn't as impressed with American Gods as most people seemed to be, though it had some great things in it. I like what I've read of Naomi Novik's Temeraire books. I respected (though didn't really enjoy) Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, and would probably buy books by her again (although I haven't yet). Other maybe-buys: Tobias Buckell (whose Crystal Rain was intriguing, if not an absolute success), R. Scott Bakker (although I'm getting very tired of Big Huge Books That Are Only Really Parts of a Bigger Huger Book), Scott Lynch (I like his ideas but his writing seems strangely amateurish at times).

Um. That'll do for a start.

[sacredchao23.livejournal.com]

Liz Hand is at the top of my list. Amongst a lot of really excellent other stuff she wrote what is probably the most beautiful books I've ever read, Mortal Love.

[brashley46.livejournal.com]

Will Sanders, Journey to Fusang.
Steve Stirling, Snowbrother.
the red bear, Mother of Demons.
Dr. Monkey, A Mankind Witch.
Kage Baker, In the Garden of Iden, because I'm in love with Mendoza.
Elizabeth Moon and CJ Cherryh and Julie Czerneda and Lois Bujold ... Steven Brust, To Reign in Hell.

Probably buy? Mindy Klasky, Wen Spencer, Jana Paniccia, Misty Lackey. Harry Turtledove. Ursula leGuin. Larry Niven.