Get to Know you Meme

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eledonecirrhosa asked

We've met in person at science fiction cons... but I have no idea who your favourite genre authors are!


I've had an odd relationship with genre fiction over the years.

As a teenager, I was fascinated by SF, read everything the local library had and ended up cycling to Wythenshawe where there was a bigger library.  I was fortunate the Gollancz did all their SF in the classic yellow jackets as it made it so much easier to fine SF on the shelves.

I loved Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and Eric Frank Russell and read a lot of Andre Norton as well.  Other writers too, but those were the ones who stuck in my memory.

I still reread Heinlein, but Clarke's characters lack depth for me now, even though his science is great.

A colleague of my father's once left behind a copy of Triplanetery, the first of EE Doc Smith's 'Lensmen' novels.  I loved it. Bought all the others and loved them too.  As an adult, I got a new set (one of my siblings must have ended up with the originals), dived in eagerly, only to stop after a few chapters and think "This is terrible.  The characters have all the personality of wet cardboard!"

Some writers hold up well, I still read Tolkien, but others fell by the wayside.


I encountered Lois McMaster Bujold not long after I first encountered slash fanfic.  The local post office had reduced price copies of several of her novels, including "Ethan of Athos".  A mainstream book with a gay character!  I bought it on the spot.  Later in the week, I bought the other two novels they had by her.  No gay men in those, I was hooked by the quality of the writing.  Still am.  There's an awful lot of Bujold on my bookshelves.

Other favourites include Elizabeth Moon, David Weber Ursula le Guin, John Scalzi and Ellen Kushner.

I enjoy good space opera with convincing military tactics.

I've missed out on a lot of writers.  I hit a point when we were very short of money and I got very stressed and book-buying fell by the wayside.  Even SF books I had in hand failed to get read. I've owned 'Sailing to Sarantium' for about a decade but am only just now reading it (and it's first few chapters are very promising)

Urban Fantasy rarely works for me, thought the Succubus novels by Richelle Mead turned out to be an exception. (mainly due to the quality of the romance and some very interesting characters)

I also like some historical fiction, but it has to be accurate to the period.  Nothing annoys me more than poor research.

Thus, Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, Patrick O'Brien and Georgette Heyer are well represented on my shelves.