Long-Term Reader Relationships

[davedoty]

Since I don't expect answers to stick to one genre, I thought this was the place for the question.

What authors have you had a long-term relationship with?  I mean contemporary authors still creating new work that you follow, not just authors you still remember fondly but don't read, or whose stuff you still read, but you don't read the new stuff/they don't make new stuff/they are dead.

Also, I mean authors you've read more-or-less continuously.  You might lose track of them for a couple of years, but not that you completely forget about for 10-15 years, then rediscover.

Obviously, depending on your age/reading habits, what constitutes "long-term" will vary.  I got a pretty solid list by looking at authors I've followed for ~20 years.

Steven Brust - I picked up Jhereg in an airport in the 80s.  I don't remember exactly when, but I do remember specifically seeing Teckla laid out as a new release, so sometime before that.  His work is sometimes uneven (there were a few volumes where he seemed to be phoning in the Vlad Taltos novels), but the good has always been more than enough to overcome the bad.  And while I really enjoyed and miss his non-series work, the regular release of Vlad novels has actually renewed my hope that we may actually see the end of the series.

Terry Pratchett - this should probably be more properly labeled "Discworld" since I've only read a couple of non-Discworld Pratchett novels, but I did say authors, not series.  I first discovered Pratchett when the first three or four Discworld novels came out in US editions as a breeder set.  I clearly remember visiting specialty shops trying to find Sourcery since it wasn't out in a US edition yet.  The faux-Douglas Adams stylings were enough to keep me around in the early books, and he grew as I did, turning into more of a political satirist than anything.  And just when I got fed up enough with the increasingly formulaic and stale characters he'd been beating us with, he apparently reached the same conclusion and spruced up the line with new lead characters and more one-off book stars.  Yay!

Grant Morrison - comics are a little trickier, since authors can keep stumbling into books I already read without me necessarily "following" them.  And the large body of work, often with pre-existing characters I already have strong feelings for or against, can influence my view of those works.  But since I discovered Grant Morrison in 1990, there has never been a time that his name came up on a project that I didn't at least stop to see what it was about.  I haven't read everything he's ever written, and don't intend to.  But I still get excited by the prospect whenever I see a new project coming out from Grant.  (I don't know if he'll ever be able to knock Animal Man and Doom Patrol from their early lead where I'm concerned, though.)

Anyone whose new material continues to excite you, even after all these years?

[Sandikal]

I've been reading Ian McDonald ever since I picked up "King of Morning, Queen of Day" back in 1991 or 1992.  I read everything he wrote over the years as soon as it appeared in the book store.  I didn't see him on the shelves for quite a few years, then I ran across "Ares Express" on Amazon a couple of years ago and was thrilled.  "River of Gods" and "Brasyl" came shortly thereafter and I was so excited, I bought them in hardback.  McDonald is one of the few authors I must buy in hardback.

Connie Willis is another author I've had a long-standing relationship with.  I first noticed her when the short story "All My Darling Daughters" appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine back in the very early Nineties.  Since then, I've read almost everything she's put out.  Although her debut was a very disturbing story, I find that most of her work is quite humorous.  She is one of the best Christmas story writers I know of.  I really want her to put out a new Christmas collection.  My copy of "Miracle" is all brown and has that old paperback smell going.  I want a lovely hardcover book that includes all the stories in "Miracle" and some of the ones she's put out since.

[Sgarre1]

I wrote a *cough* bit *cough* about Grant Morrison in this thread.

http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=2812.0

I read everything Gustave Flaubert ever wrote, but he's dead, so he doesn't really count....

“In the early works of Joyce, Lawrence, Eliot & Pound, there is a straightforward willingness to regard the modern scene as being made up of hard, brutal, ugly appearances, which the poet was nevertheless determined to melt down and transform into strange and beautiful images, music harshly mechanical, yet disturbing, in his poem-novel or his poem. In their later work, all these writers turned away from that external scene of the modern – the poetry of the city, of the machine –, which had at first fascinated them with its challenge. They became interested in ideas, or in levels of consciousness where the outside world is but a menacing evil on the fringe of a universal dream, a transforming ecstasy of love, or a compelling and timeless orthodoxy.”
Stephen Spender – THE STRUGGLE OF THE MODERN

[lowky]

Probably closest for me would be my guilty pleasure of horror, Stephen King.  I have read pretty much everything he has ever written.

[kibitzer]

Neal Stephenson: ever since I picked up Cryptonomicon. That caused me to go back and read Snow Crash then most of his others. I haven't kept up with the more recent titles such as the Baroque Cycle trilogy.

Iain Banks: Not sure which of his I first read, but Espedair Street is a firm favourite. I think he's kinda dropped off a little recently. I never finished Dead Air, for example. Curiously, I'm not so into the Iain M Banks stuff.

F. Paul Wilson: His Repairman Jack series is outstandingly fun. I look forward to each new book with great anticipation. And a cheer for my local library for consistently buying them in! I've read a fair whack of his other books but he's quite prolific!

Jim Butcher: purely for Harry Dresden. Fun, complicated, involving.

Dan Simmons: I buy and read his stuff sight unseen. They guy is awesomely adept and moving across and through genres though there's usually a horror thread in there somewhere. The first I read was the Hyperion Cantos; what can I say about that? I don't have the words. It was mind expanding. I also love almost everything else he's done -- the Joe Kurtz novels, for example, are the hardest of hard-boiled detective stories and wonderfully entertaining. Song Of Kali genuinely gave me the creeps. I have to say, though, that The Terror was a hard slog -- overlong.

Poul Anderson -- well I really shouldn't because he's dead. But man could that guy write a good story.

As for Grant Morrison, well... yeah, you should probably see the thread Sgarre1 referred to ;-) http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=2812.0

Edit: oops, I see you're already in that thread Dave.

[Bdoomed]

Really just Palahniuk right now.  I haven't gotten around to reading all of his stuff yet, but I plan to, and I plan to read anything he puts out in the future too.

[lowky]

Really just Palahniuk right now.  I haven't gotten around to reading all of his stuff yet, but I plan to, and I plan to read anything he puts out in the future too.

I have read almost everything, i think i am missing a nonfiction he wrote, but yes i will read anything of his, also anything by Christopher Moore.

[MacArthurBug]

Probably closest for me would be my guilty pleasure of horror, Stephen King.  I have read pretty much everything he has ever written.

ditto that, Charles deLint, Spider Robinson- and quite a few others actually.

When I find an author who writes worlds the way I like 'e I'll read just about everything they put out. I've even read past where I should have stopped. (Hamilton, oh Hamilton you've broken my fangirl heart)

[Listener]

When I find an author who writes worlds the way I like 'e I'll read just about everything they put out. I've even read past where I should have stopped. (Hamilton, oh Hamilton you've broken my fangirl heart)

Agreed. She drives me nuts but I'm invested in the characters now.

As for me:

Sean McMullen -- one of my very favorites, he does fantasy and postapocalyptic SF very well, and his writing is consistently humorous too. "Souls in the Great Machine" is my top book of his. I feel his last two were a little subpar, but I'm hoping the next Moonworlds book is better.

Peter David's "New Frontier" -- again, invested in the characters.

Christopher L. Bennett -- all of his Star Trek novels, even "Over a Torrent Sea" which got some pretty poor reviews, are chock-ful of sciencey goodness. His "Lost Era" book on what Picard did between Stargazer and Enterprise is excellent.

Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" -- I really must pick up Unseen Academicals before I go on vacation.

I'm not a huge Neal Stephenson fanboy per se -- I skipped The Baroque Cycle -- but I've read most of his stand-alone novels more than once. "The Big U" is one of my favorites because of the absurdity of the whole thing.

Sherlock Holmes -- I have the complete Holmes treasury, and have read every single Conan Doyle Holmes story and novel.

Ian Fleming -- I borrowed the set of original Bond novels from my brother-in-law-in-law and, while they weren't amazing, they were definitely good reading.

Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series -- I'd thought it was only going to be one book, but it turned out to be eight in total -- four Worldwar, three Colonization, and one capstone novel at the end. I liked them all, though I wasn't pleased with the end of the trilogy or the tetralogy because Turtledove's writing is very realistic, and the ends of those series were quite realistic. However, the Turtledove/Richard Dreyfuss collaboration "The Two Georges" is a very fun read once you get past the MC's gary-stu-ness (Dreyfuss, not Turtledove).

Debra Doyle and James Macdonald's "Mageworlds" -- The DMd duo are known to anyone who's attended or applied to Viable Paradise. Right now they're writing historical fiction/fantasy, but Mageworlds is a great Star-Wars-esque tale. There's room for one more book, to tie together the second trilogy, but I think it got kiboshed or something due to the SFF market not having room for it or somesuch. Too bad, too, because I really wanted to know how it ended.

That's everyone I can think of right now.

[Planish]

Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series -- I'd thought it was only going to be one book, but it turned out to be eight in total -- four Worldwar, three Colonization, and one capstone novel at the end. I liked them all, though I wasn't pleased with the end of the trilogy or the tetralogy because Turtledove's writing is very realistic, and the ends of those series were quite realistic. However, the Turtledove/Richard Dreyfuss collaboration "The Two Georges" is a very fun read once you get past the MC's gary-stu-ness (Dreyfuss, not Turtledove).

Same here, following him since the late '80s.
Also his Darkness series (7 volumes). It's a world where magic replaces technology (which I normally roll my eyes at, but he did it well) and they go through a close analog of WWII, including a sort of Manhattan Project for new magic weaponry.
- most  of his standalone books, particularly "Household Gods", "Guns of the South", "Agent of Byzantium", A World of Difference", "Ruled Britannia", "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump" (hilarious at times) and some short story collections.
- the two Days of Infamy books
- I've got the first of the Atlantis series around here somewhere, but haven't started it yet.
I'm not so crazy about his YA Crosstime Traffic series, nor the Videssos books

Stephen King - absolutely, since reading Carrie in 1975 or so. I've got several bookshelves devoted to him. The only ones that disappointed me were "Bag of Bones" and "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon". I'm till waiting to come across paperback versions of "Duma Key" and "Under the Dome".

Quite a few by Frederik Pohl since the early '70s, my favourite being "Gateway".

I followed Larry Niven from the mid '70s until about the time The Integral Trees came out in 1984, and then I got more picky.

My son introduced me to the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, and I picked up all of them. I'm not so interested in the wider "Honorverse" stories though.

[Talia]

The only author whom I've been invested in for some time, that I can recall, is Mercedes Lackey (which should come to no surprise whatsoever to those familiar with her work.. heh).

Now I'm more than willing to admit her stuff is middling at best, but something about the world she created in her Valdemar books really caught my imagination, not to mention I strongly identified with one of the characters (guess who!).  So I'll always have a soft spot.

There are authors I like more, but most of those have developed over the last 6-7 years or so, when my life started to really really suck so I read a lot more (not that I was a light reader before ).

Lets see. This is really hard to judge, honestly. I have a history that goes back a fair while with a bunch of authors, although if they count as "long term" I just dont know. Seems to me I've been fair smitten with Tad Williams' writing for a good long while, from Tailchaser's Song to the amazing 'Memory, Sorrow and Thorn' and 'Otherlands' series.

Been reading Pratchett a good long while also. His books are always a must-get, as are Gaiman's. (although the latter is almost certainly within the last 6-7 years or so, therefore hardly qualifiable as "long term.." perhaps)

[Liminal]

Samuel R. Delany - I know that his style is off-putting to some, but the musicality and density of his writing are really exciting to me.

John Crowley - Little, Big is still one of my favorite books ever.

Neil Gaiman - From reading the Sandman series as a teen/early 20 something, his work has remained always on my radar.

Stephen R. Donaldson - although his latest Convenant series has been a bit disappointing to me.

Joanna Russ - For Those About To is a brilliant science fiction novel, I think every bit as good as The Female Man

Dan Simmons - even his non-genre books are fascinating, though I absolutely wish he'd write more horror.

[stePH]

Probably closest for me would be my guilty pleasure of horror, Stephen King.  I have read pretty much everything he has ever written.

Me, too, except for his later stuff.  I think the brain-eater got him while he was convalescing from the road accident; the last three books of The Dark Tower sucked.

But in his earlier stuff there's just something about the way he could turn a phrase.  I wouldn't call him "guilty pleasure"; he's a fine writer.  But his later stuff could have used a competent editor.

[lowky]

Probably closest for me would be my guilty pleasure of horror, Stephen King.  I have read pretty much everything he has ever written.

Me, too, except for his later stuff.  I think the brain-eater got him while he was convalescing from the road accident; the last three books of The Dark Tower sucked.

But in his earlier stuff there's just something about the way he could turn a phrase.  I wouldn't call him "guilty pleasure"; he's a fine writer.  But his later stuff could have used a competent editor.

That's always been true of King, when he changed publisher last and received a new editor his books improved somewhat.  But every time his books become #1 best sellers his editors back off, and so his books get longer and more in need of editing.