Your single favorite writer and why!

[GregX]

So, if you had to narrow it down to one, and only one, who is your single favorite writer and why? It can be a novelist, a screenwriter, it can be a television writer; a comic book writer; it can even be the guy who write fortunes for the cookies at Chinese restaurants. Just pick one, and say why.

My all time favorite author would have to be the great Harlan Ellison. I think his work is just bloody brilliant. Everything he does. There is nothing he hasn't written that isn't a work of genius. I regret to say that I haven't read everything he's written, but I've read most and am working on getting my hands on what I have yet to acquire.

I also admire him as a person. There is nothing I respect more than a man with backbone, who won't let anyone walk all over him. He went after James Cameron when Cameron admitted to stealing his ideas when developing "Terminator." He stands up for the intellectual property of writers, and encourages other writers to get what their owed. He marched for civil rights back in the 60's, and has led a life just as interesting and epic as anything he has ever written. And he has never, ever bullcrapped anyone.

He recently admitted that he's dying, and the world will be a much less interesting place with one of our few voices of true genius gone. I've never met or spoken to him, and I know that is going to be one of my life's regrets.

[LeatherJeans]

One of my favorite all time writers is Judy Blume. Super Fudge was awesome.

[SilentBat18]

aaahhh a thread i feel at home in.... but why do you have to make me narrow it down?

I guess if i have to pick one, it would be Garth Stein, and one of my favorite books by him is The Art of Racing in the Rain. i recommend it for anyone who loves good books. How Evan Broke his Head and Other Stories is a very close second. I'm waiting for another book to come out.

[Terror of Death]

Novelist and comic book writer Brian Keene. His books manage to blend realism, black comedy, horror, social commentary, action, and rich characterization flawlessly. There are countless comics and novels that I really love but I can honestly say not a single one comes close to acheiving the level of greatness of Keene's works. There is also the nice bonus of all his books sharing the same universe so its a blast rereading them in order to piece togther the continuing timeline and trying to figure out which story takes place in which world. Not to mention that we share a lot of the same views. I dont love all his novels and comics but the good far outweighs the bad. Some of my personal favorites are The Rising, Dead Sea, Terminal, and Dark Hollow.

[defunctzombie]

I guess mine would be Arina Tanemura since I have all her published stuff in two languages. I guess it's because deep down I am a shojo nut and her writing is the good kind of shojo. Full Moon is excellent.

[Bloody Marquis]

I've been warming up to Warren Ellis recently. Planetary was a perfect examination and deconstruction of pop culture, as well as having my favorite re-imagining of the Fantastic Four. Transmetropolitan makes me wish more journalists could be like Spider Jerusalem. Nextwave was a superb satire of everything Marvel. And FreakAngels is always to fun to catch up on.

Also, the guy has a very interesting worldview. Some of his blogposts show him to be a very layered individual, like his recent one about his daughter's cat dying.

[G. Wen]

Emily Dickinson. Although she hardly published when she was living, her meter was progressive for its time, and led the way for more avant garde poetry styles. Her best poems are her short ones, where she says so much with so little. Her poems on death are never depressing or goth, but accepting and philosophical. She is the best American poet.

[Michael24]

Michael Crichton. He's the only author whose works I ever exclusively followed. Whether it's old-fashioned adventure stories like The Great Train Robbery and Congo, or techno-thrillers like The Andromeda Strain and Next, I just enjoy his books a great deal. He's basically the reason I started reading (and writing) in the first place. I read Jurassic Park when I was about 13, and I was pretty much hooked on reading after that. One of the things I really like is that for all the technological and scientific elements he often incorporated, he wrote it in a way that was easy to understand. As a result, I've enjoyed reading about some subjects (such as microbiology in The Andromeda Strain or quantum mechanics in Timeline) that would probably very likely just confuse and bore me if I was reading about them on their own. I've discovered things from his works that I was also completely unaware of, such as the fact it's actually possible to patent genes, basically preventing anyone else from doing research on them.

He was also fascinating to listen to. A little monotonous, perhaps, but with knowledge on a wide range of subjects that, just like in his books, he could discuss in a manner that was easy to understand and informative.

I haven't read everything he's written, but I'm slowly working my way through the ones I'm behind on, as well as his earliest books that were written under pseudonyms. I'm eagerly awaiting his next posthumous novel, expected sometime in the Fall of 2012.

[Lord Dalek]

Rod Serling. The majority of Playhouse 90s and Twilight Zones are better than half of what's on tv these days.

If only he'd written a novel.

[purplehairedwonder]

I feel like a poor English degree-holder when I say this, but I don't have a favorite author. I tend to read in series, and that's generally the only thing the author has written (especially for the longer ones). Then for solitary books I like, I often don't follow up on the author's other works--for no particular reason.

For instance, Pride and Prejudice is my absolute favorite book, but that's also the only Jane Austen I've read (which is terrible in and of itself). And my favorite series is Harry Potter, but I wouldn't call JK Rowling my favorite author.

If I had to narrow down to one author, though, I'd choose Terry Goodkind. He wrote the Sword of Truth series, which spans 12 books. I recently reread the entire thing and found an entirely new appreciation for it. I'm so used to reading fantasy books aimed at teens, so a decidedly adult fantasy was a welcome relief and the two leads rank among my favorite literary characters.

Goodkind wrote another stand-alone novel that loosely connects with the SoT series and it wasn't quite as good, so now he has another book taking place after the finale of the SoT series coming out next year. I'm really excited for that since the world he created is so interesting and the characters rich.

[SilentBat18]

For instance, Pride and Prejudice is my absolute favorite book, but that's also the only Jane Austen I've read (which is terrible in and of itself).

i recommend Sense and Sensibility; i highly enjoyed that one. i tried getting through Emma though; now it's sitting on a shelf somewhere with a bookmark stuck in the middle of it. i felt it was verbose, uninteresting, and looong.

[Hanshotfirst113]

Rod Serling. The majority of Playhouse 90s and Twilight Zones are better than half of what's on tv these days.

If only he'd written a novel.

More than half, probably.

[Punisher]

Stephen King. While the Dark Tower series is in itself my favorite series, it's his stand alone novels that really make him stick out from anyone else. Books like Cujo, Pet Semetary, and Misery are all books that I could read time and time again. I don't think his writing style is perfect, and I definitely don't agree with just about every single one of his personal views, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying his work and realizing he is a mater of creating interesting stories, whether horror or not.

[Gatomon41]

Man, trying to choose a favorite author is like saying who is your favorite Saint: they're all awesome, so how can you single out one?

Tolkein, Heinlien, Cordwainer Smith, Fulton J. Sheen, Asimov, C.S. lewis, there are just so many to choose from.

But overall, i would have to choose G.K. Chesterton. Not only is his writings witty and humorus, it also has the intellgence to back it up.

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Your reasons are pretty good

I can't put a single favorite writer as single among all the rest, fiction writers have their work, and text book writers have their different field of work

Among writers of fiction Tom Defalco managed to capture my interest in characters I care not for at all I often find boring, so I have to give props to him

In a local newspaper here in Bahrain there is a great writer among several, but his name popped to my mind the first, one of high school biology textbooks writers, I love biology, hence I hardly miss an article written by Dr. Nothmi Khalil Abu-AlAtta Mousa, I have confidence in his articles cause they agree with so many video discoveries I saw

[Ryoutarou]

There are three authors in particular that I'm very fond of reading. They're all modern writers, so I'm not sure if that says anything about my tastes.

The first is Trenton Lee Stewart, he's a somewhat new writer, known for being the author of the incredible The Mysterious Benedict Society books and though I'm likely ten years too old to be reading them, they're fun and engaging books. The humor is witty, the characters are charming and there's a great blend of humor and mystery that moves the plot along at a very fluid pace.

I'm a big fan of just about anything Michael Scott writes, his stuff is basically when I started to take "don't judge a book by its cover" to heart because, to be honest, a lot of his books have some fugly artwork. He's got a huge catalog of books that I'm nowhere near done working my way through but do enjoy trying to conquer. I initially became interested in his works when I read the first in the The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series and found out that he had been a writer for quite some time, so I started to read some of his earlier works and was hooked. He doesn't write anything that will change the world, but his stuff is fun and plays out like good adventures that are hard to put down.

Annnnd finally I really do enjoy what Karen Traviss writes. I tend to be fond of Star Wars EU books (at least those that don't feature characters from the movies) and she brings the characters alive for me, which is great because that entire franchise can be home to some very tedious writers.

[Classic Speedy]

Probably Roger Ebert. His movie reviews are interesting to read even if you don't agree with his critique, often funny without being over-the-top snarky (a mistake many critics seem to make, stumbling over themselves trying to be witty and instead coming across as jerks), and he explains his criticisms quite well. Often, I can picture a movie's overall feel just from the way he writes about it, which is actually a lot harder to do than it sounds.

I also love his journal. It shows he's smart in areas other than movies, and is quite thoughtful and introspective at times, pondering the big AND little questions in life in an intelligent way.

He's such an influence on me that I've subconsciously and consciously taken some of his writing techniques and methods of analysis and used them in my own reviews. Whether I've been successful or not is up for debate, and I'm not saying one should completely copy the way other people write, but my point is, when there's a writer (or anything) you really like, sometimes an influential writer's style rubs off on you.

[Azeke]

Stanislaw Lem.

From his brutally hard sci-fi works to humour pieces he was amazing in everything.

It's very rare when you got goosebumps after finishing something (be it a movie, game or a book). A buzz in your head telling you just how overwhelming and life-changing that thing you just watched/read/played was.

I got that feeling from most of his works, even and especially his short novels.