Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

10mo ago

Who do you consider a Great Author of the last 50 years or so (first well-known work after 1970)? I'd like to get a feel for who's who in modern literature. Any language/culture. Fiction only.

Bonus points for any books you believe are classics from that time period. Any language, but only fiction please.

I'm really excited to see what Lemmy has.

216 comments

Terry Pratchett.
- Agreed, I'm most of the way through The Colour of Magic and I can't remember the last time I was reading something where at times I have to stop and fully comprehend what I just read because it was so dang well written that I have to go back and read it again immediately.
  
  And you're on one his weaker books! 🫣
  https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html
  This link has always been helpful for explaining his books.
  
  That will never end. Every re-read for me is fantastic.
- I am on 12 of 42 or however many he wrote, but damn it if his little quips aren't masteries of word play. So far Sorcery, Wyrd Sisters, and Mort are my favorites.
  I tell people it's like living in a Monty Python universe with a dash of magic.
  
  Be sure to include The Amazing Maurice and Equal Rites and the Tiffany books as well; the only thing YA about them is the ages of their protagonists.
  
  I’m more of a fan of his later works myself. It trades some silliness for depth as time goes on. And I really loved Susan who you haven’t met yet

Neil Gaiman

Sir Terry Pratchett.
A phenomenal author whose ability to weave a story is fantastic, but was also adept at writing in jokes and references that make re-reading the novels a delight.

He died in 1982 but his works are hugely influential:
Philip K Dick.

William Gibson. He's a huge influence on modern scifi
- Not just modern scifi but modern reality.
- Thought so too, and looked it up, Burning Chrome is from the 80s.
- This was my first thought, but realize he's probably not well known enough.... Yet

Brandon Sanderson
The man is a top flight book generating machine. Where he's taking the Cosmere, I don't know, but I'm gladly awaiting for the novels he'll write the in future to find out. Reading the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn is a joy.
I also really enjoyed how he wrapped up The Wheel of Time. He is much less reluctant to kill off characters than many other authors, and that series needed some serious character culling to bring closure.
- I’ve got the hardcover for his new mystery novel ordered. Can’t wait for it to arrive and to read it.
- Second this one

Douglas Adams is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of the period.
He is known for light, surrealistic science fiction comedy, not a genre generally considered "high art" but his mastery of language is superb. He is a master of analogies in a way that is both funny but also makes the reader think about the roles and conventions of symbolism in language.
- "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
- Oh wow I was legitimately surprised that Adams even fit in this thread. I'd have thought he was a mid-20th century author, writing at around the same time as Tolkien. But nope. The book of Hitchhiker's Guide came out in '79…

David Foster Wallace
Stephen King
Haruki Murakami
Kurt Vonnegut
Toni Morrison
Just a few names that popped into my head
Edit: some of these are based on popular opinions. For example, I never really got into Toni Morrison
- Vonnegut is wonderful but his first book is 1950s and his greatest success is likely the 1960s. Question asked post 1970.
  
  Yeah, I knew he started in the 50s. But you’re right, I looked it up and some of his notable stuff was earlier than I thought
- I’m happy to see someone else mention Murakami.
  I went on tear in university—a long time ago now—reading everything that had been translated to English by then. And, while they had the most bizarro plots, I found them to be the most compelling reads, wanting to read more and more, until I ran out of things to read.
  He definitely deserves a place on this list.
- Love DFW

Terry Pratchett (first book 1971 so barely counts haha)

Neal Stephenson
- I had to scroll way too far for Stephenson. He has some ups and downs (as all creators do), but some of his novels are mind blowingly awesome.
- Diamond Age is my all time favourite (although I read it just one time as I do with all books). In the current age of AI it is very relevant. If nano technology and AI will progress we'll maybe head into the depicted scenario and I hope I'm still alive then.
  Cryptonomicon, Anathem, The Baroque Cycle are wild rides and masterpieces too. Anathem was a bit hard to get into but it got really exciting after the first 300 pages (of ~1000) or so.
  
  Gotta say, every time I go out and look at the moon I can’t help but wonder what would happen if it somehow exploded. Then I find myself wondering why I’m not in an asteroid-mining ship and end up questioning all my life choices.

Two authors I haven't surprisingly seen mentioned
Neil Gaiman is great. If you haven't read his works yet, start with *the ocean at the end of the lane". A wonderful, short read.
This second one is going to be controversial.
George RR Martin. The books are actually well written, and yes the final book probably won't get written, but it won't take away from your enjoyment. He is a very good writer.
- GRR Martin knows how to write people. I think I learned a great deal of humanism just by reading his works alone

This isn't a perfect example but Cormac McCarthy has been my favourite author for years now, and his first major work Suttree was from '79.
My all time favourites novel is Blood Meridian from 1985. If you're familiar with metamodernism, which is basically very modern works that have their cake and eat it when it comes to modernist ideals and postmodern critique, you'd clock that practically every western is either a modernist white hat western or a metamodern "the west is grim and hard, but also fucking cool" western. The only straight postmodern takes on the west that I know of are either Blood Meridian or pieces of work that take direct notes from it, such as the films Dead Man from '95 (except maybe the Oregon Trail video game from. 85'). Blood Meridian otherwise is a fantastic novel which meditates on madness and cruelty, religion and fate, race, war and conquest and so many other themes. It also has one of the best antagonists ever written in Judge Holden, a character who I would have called a direct insert of Satan if not for the fact that his deeds and the novel as a whole are closely inspired by true events. I feel the novel takes inspiration from Apocalypse Now, specifically the '79 film and not Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness. If you enjoy that film, you're likely to enjoy this book. The opening and closing chapters are fantastic, but I often find myself re-reading chapter 14. It has some of the best prose and monologues of the entire novel, and encompasses in my opinion the main turning point of the novel.
His other legendary work is The Road, a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel. I'll talk on this one less but as our climate crisis grows and our cultural zeitgeist swings more towards this being the critical issue of our time, the novel fantastically paints itself as both a fantastic warning to our 21st century apocalypse and the unresolved 20th century shadow of nuclear winter. Despite this, it hones in on a meditation of parenthood and could be considered solely about that, with other themes of death, trauma, survival and mortality being explored through parenthood. Of course the unsalvageable deatg of the world that make the setting also makes this theme extra tragic. There is an adaptation into a film from 2008 but it isn't anywhere near as potent as the novel and I'd suggest should only be seen in tandem with reading the novel. The prize of this novel has really evolved to fit the novel too. McCarthy is renowned for his punctuation lacking prose, but where Blood Meridian is practically biblical in its dramatic and beautiful prose which juxtaposes the plain and brutal violence, The Road sacrifices no beauty in it's language but is so somber and meanders from mostly terse to so florid, while also always perfectly feels like how the protagonists are seeing their world.
- No Country for Old Men was great too, and it made a better transition to film than The Road, in my opinion.
- The Road is perhaps my favourite novel I've read. Absolutely haunting
- I was looking for McCarthy ITT. I'm going to read Blood Meridian this year after listening to the audiobook years ago. I read The Road around the same time and struggled to get through it because it was so absolutely dreary. I get it obviously I just wanted to say that.
  I would recommend also No Country For Old Men as I thought it was all the things McCarthy is amazing at but isn't so violent as the Judge's gang or as consistently hopeless as the world of The Road. It's paced like a thriller while still having an amazing villain. Talking about CM makes me think I should reread these books. I was just out of college when I read/listened to them.
- I finished reading them in December, and I'm still obsessed with the genius in The Passenger and Stella Maris. I've read the books and listened to the audiobooks. The audiobook for Stella Maris is exceptional.
- This is a great nomination. His prose is excellent, stories compelling, and writing solid. I'm not actually a fan of his books, but I recognize his superb talent and contributions to modern American literature.

Cormac McCarthy, wrote some books you might have seen as movies such as The Road and No Country for Old Men.
Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is a crazy good book.

Neil Gaiman. The man can write novels, YA novels, graphic novels, children’s books. And they all have such well crafted worlds that you just want to lose yourself in them.
I also think Neal Stephenson and Corey Doctorow deserve WAY more attention than they get.
- I'd second all three.
  Neil Gaiman is absolutely one of my favorite authors and from what I've seen, a pretty great human being as well.

I'm going to repeat Ursula K Le Guin and Margaret Atwood because it's hard to overstate how much of everything is in their works. Iain (M) Banks I'll also echo, but will add China Miéville because there aren't enough anarchists in this thread.
- This

Alan Moore
Saga of the Swamp Thing and Watchmen are two amazing runs of comics he wrote.
Huge fan of his recent-ish novel, Jerusalem.
- He also hates fanboys who miss the point of characters like Rorschach

Cory Doctorow and I suggest reading Walkaway. I found it transformative.
- Little Brother too, very good.

Can I cheat? Ursula K LeGuin's first famous book, A Wizard of Earth sea, was published in 1968. Amazing stuff. Also I love her short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
- I only read "The Left Hand of Darkness". That novell was fire (no pun intended). Excellent world building and super captivating and immersive writing.

Considering how many of his stories have been adapted to tv and movies, in addition to being great on their own: Stephen King.

Iain M. Banks.
- Also Iain Banks. One of his M-less books was on Play as an M and it's the only non-pew fiction I've read in a long time, but I actually finished it.
  
  I remember reading an interview of his where he said he wrote his contemporary fiction in order to support his science fiction writing. Whilst they're still good novels, his regular works didn't have as much of his soul as his SF.

Terry Pratchett! The Discworld books have kept me busy for years now and I don't even consider myself much of a reader.

Andy Weir -from a not too avid reader

Really love how nobody is hating on any of the replies here.

Greg Egan
Rudy Rucker
Vernor Vinge
Hard, computational SF aren't given nearly the respect they should, and these apply math, comp sci, and physics in a way nobody else does. If there's any civilization in the future, they'll be seen as visionary.
Runners-up are Robert L. Forward, Alastair Reynolds, but Forward has very little computation, and Reynolds doesn't show his math too often.
- Reading Egan is like getting a PHD in mathematics and a PHD in quantum physics, then going to Burning Man and doing 18 hits of acid.
  Strongly agree about Reynolds and VInge.
- Haven't read Egan or Rucker, so I can't speak to them. Vinge had amazing ideas that still pop into my head from time to time, but I couldn't get into his writing style; he never really pulled me in, despite how much I wanted to bet pulled in.
  
  I couldn't finish a Deepness in the Sky. It didn't seem like the sci-fi was important - it was just a setting.
- Some of Rudy's books are free, and they will blow your minds. Software, etc. and Postsingular as "what technology can do to us", and White Light as "how does infinity work in a story context"; he also has a couple non-fiction books on infinity.
- The problem I had with Vinge's Sky series is that the first book is so, so amazing. Like wonderfully amazing concepts that I wanted to read all about, so I immediately went and read the other 2.
  Book 2 is ok but crap compared to book 1.
  And book 3 sucks.
  Neither book 2 or 3 explore any of the interesting concepts from A Fire Upon The Deep, and I wanted so, so much more, and it just left me deeply disappointed.
- Reynolds sometimes lacks a touch on the human side of his work. That being said, I've not read much of his more recent novels so he might have matured since finishing his 10 year contract.
- Vinge's Deepness in the Sky is a masterfully done book that's tough to chew through but I'll be dammed if it isn't one of the best books written with an alternative species perspective to that of the human

James S A Corey
It's a pen name but still.
- Just starting book 4 and the series really live up to the reputation.
  
  I'm on book 8, and if you can believe it gets even better. I'm a little speechless about it.
- A pen name for whom?
  
  Daniel Abraham & Ty Frank. The Expanse series evolved out of a D&D-like game they hosted together. Abraham also has a good sized Fantasy catalogue to check out too

Ken Follet: Pillars of the Earth. Historical fiction. You're transported back to the 1200s. Cathedral building with raunchy politics, a bit of HBO Game of Thrones mixed in. It was extremely visual... and fondly memorable for me.
- Not to mention the two sequels World without End and A Column of Fire, set in the 1400s and 1600s, respectively, and the prequel Kingsbridge set around the year 1000.
  Then there's the century trilogy which takes place in the 20th century, and a whole lot of smaller works like A Dangerous Fortune, which manages to make you care for some bankers in 19th century London.

I haven't seen Chuck Palahniuk mentioned, and he was very influential to a bunch of us millenials, I imagine. He is very good at writing about the nihilism of modern times.
Fight Club is the most popular example of his novels, and its a great read. I am also really particular to, Rant:The Oral Biography of Buster. Its such a weird story, and was one of the first books to really spark my interest in reading fiction. He has a bunch of other good novels I would recommend, like Snuff, Choke, and Lullaby.
- Jesus, that dude shaped a lot of peoples worlds. I honestly don't know if I was scared of the drain at the bottom of the public pool because of him, because I know that I didn't read his short story until I was in college, but I wonder if it had already started spreading around in the secret and sly ways of the school hallways, before text messages were ever imagined.

Haruki Murakami. I've liked everything he's written up to 1Q84. I'm sure his newer stuff is good too I just haven't caught up to them yet lol
If you want something more like hard sci-fi/cyberpunk, I recommend the Otherland series by Tad Williams. It's seriously probably the best modern sci-fi I've ever read
- Have you read the expanse and if so, is it better than the expanse?
  
  I have not read The Expanse yet, but it looks like a good series!

Ones that many people have mentioned: Atwood, Wallace, Murakami
One I don't think anyone has said yet - Paul Auster. I've only read New York Trilogy so far, but I thought it was superb.

I would say Robin Hobb. She writes easy to read, character driven fantasy novels that gracefully deal with a gamut of difficult topics (e.g., orphanism, otherness, sexual violence, mortality, etc.). The books really helped me build empathy for people and concepts that were far afield of my own experience.
- I did not enjoy that story. I kept waiting for Fitz's mentor's patience to result in a plan, but apparently their plan was to just let Royal do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, for as long as he wanted to do it. The story was compelling, but there was no pay off in the end. Other people I've talked to about the book have felt similar.

Vonnegut
- I upvoted because Vonnegut is the GOAT and most definitely wrote some bangers after 1970, but his first well known books were published in the 1960s. So, he is pretty close to OPs cutoff for modern writers, I guess.

John Scalzi - Old Man's War series and The Interdependency series
Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse
- I'm a big John Scalzi fan. Whenever one of his books release, it's basically xmas for me. There have been a few less than stellar books, but overal they are very enjoyable.
- Scalzi - the first few books yes, afterwards I just lost interest and read them for the sake of reading them.
  
  For me I enjoyed both of Scalzi's series, the story written in a plain language but it's still exciting and captive, with some plot twists added.
  Each series is set in different universes with their own limitations.
- Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse
  That was pretty fun except the 4th book.

My nominations will be limited in scope to fantasy and sci-fi, but there are a few stand outs. Now, on to my nominations.
There are so many amazing authors in our era, but I'll stick to a few only.
Brandon Sanderson - he writes like a machine, churning out books in-between other books. He's unstoppable. I haven't enjoyed his latest stuff, but his early stuff is outstanding high fantasy. Way of Kings blew my mind when I read it, and Mistborn was so original and awesome.
Joe Ambercrombie - The Blade Itself is a wonderful book, as are all the follow-up novels
Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos is the most complex, outstanding, high-minded, thought provoking science fiction I've ever read.
N. K. Jemisin - The Fifth Season and it's sequels are some of the most unique ideas I've ever read. It's incomparable to anything else. It stands alone in creativity.
Honorable mentions: William Gibson, Dennis E. Taylor,
- Sigh. As a fan of Sanderson, Abercrombie, and Gibson, I am now compelled to check out your other recommendations. As if I haven't already had an overly long queue of things to read..
  
  If you like sci-fi and want a really fun and easy read, that is also thought provoking, check out We Are Legion (We Are Bob). I enjoyed those books so much that I read them twice. The 5th book is supposed to be out this year in September, and I'm stoked.
  The Hyperion Cantos is not an easy read, but it is wild. By the end of the series it covers AI, poetry, religion, consciousness, existence, and so many other philosophical categories that it left me somewhat in awe. I still think about it often and I finished it like 5 years ago.
  The 5th Season is like a mix between science fiction and fantasy, and is completely unique. It's like no sci-fi or fantasy you've ever read before. I'm near the end of the series right now, so I haven't fully formed my opinion, but I find myself considering going to bed early, just so I have more time to read it.

Ray Bradbury. All his books are amazing.
Bah, I don't feel like reading? He wrote tons of short stories.
- first well known work after 1970
  The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950, Fahrenheit 453 in 1953
  
  I actually didn't check that. I would have sworn early 70s.
  Turns out I am thinking Bradbury Theater

Cormac McCarthy
- I like to think that if Cormac and Hemingway ever met in a bar, they'd take turns sliding a pistol at one another across the table, for entirely different reasons.

Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time Saga.
The Amazon show does not do it justice on my opinion, but it has been explained with how it's another turn of the wheel and a "what if"
- And Brandon Sanderson, who wrapped the series after Jordan died and is an amazing author himself.
  
  Not only amazing, but also a freaking machine when it comes to churning out books.
- another turn of the wheel is such a fucking cop out. it's just poorly written dreck. they massacred the story, but at least we got a whole episode about the death of some nameless warder and how sad it made Lan.

Stephen King is definitely a great author
- Agreed. I recently read 11/22/63, and even though I'm European with not that much interest in American history, the way King tells his story kept me hooked all the way through the book, truly an amazing author
- Stephen King is an amazing story creator. I think his actual writing is awful though. Apparently he was so coked out and drunk that he doesn't even remember writing Cujo. It shows in the repetitiveness and ramblings in his writing.

Consider Kazuo Ishiguro. I've only read Remains of the Day, and that was because I liked the movie, but the book is basically flawless.
- You need to read The Unconsoled. It’s my favorite book, period, but arguably his best. I stumbled upon it randomly in a used bookstore, not being familiar with Ishiguro, and fell in love with it. Ended up reading most of his others as well, and nothing quite stacks up to The Unconsoled—for my tastes. Remains of the day I actually put down, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood, but it didn’t grab me the way the Unconsoled did. But also recommend never let me go, when we were orphans, and the buried giant, for sure.

I hesitate to call her a great author in her own right and I detest her attitude towards transwomen. That said, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series transformed the young adult fiction genre from a bit of a wasteland of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy novels into a quality genre with significant cross-generational appeal.
I'll mention Orson Scott Card as well, but his books have worn thin over time as he squeezes every penny out of the Enderverse. Ender's Game got me through a miserable hospital stay as a young child, so it will always have a special place in my heart. Speaker for the Dead I also loved.
- Harry Potter is successful despite of Rowling's writing, not because of it.
  
  Yes, it's not so much that she's a great writer on the level of many of the others listed here. But in terms of cultural impact, she made a huge splash.
- I loved Orson Scott Card's books when I was younger, even the later Ender books. Unfortunately he's also a pretty terrible person much like Rowling.
  
  And it pokes through in his books, along with this "I am very smart" attitude that a lot of his characters have.
- I have read Ender's Game something like twenty times now over the course of only a few years and the drop off in quality between this book and his others is severe.
- You detest Rowling's attitudes towards transwomen, but your only other suggested author is a huge anti-gay advocate? Riiiiight ...
  
  I am gay, so if you're trying to suggest something then you're barking up the wrong tree.

A few years off from your criteria, but Ursula K. Le Guin released A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968. However, she had been pretty prominent in science fiction for the decade.
Important enough to inspire Pratchett and Miyazaki (of Studio Ghibli).
She's a hugely influential writer.
- She used to teach writing courses at the university where I work. According to some of the old IT hands, whenever she came in with computer problems she was a delight to work with.
- Any source on her influence on Miyazaki? My searches only return articles about the Earthsea adaptation fiasco.

I just thought of another: Bernard Cornwell. His novel series (Sharpe, The Last Kingdom, etc) are phenomenal historical fiction.

Philip Pullman of his dark materials fame?

Margaret Atwood

So many good answers already that I agree with. So I'll add James Ellroy and Clive Barker
For Ellroy, the entire LA Quartet remains a pivotal sea change in "hard boiled" crime fiction; taking a lot of the conventions created by the likes of Hammett and Chandler and updating them for a modern audience.
Barker is a more personal choice. But his writing is just so evocative and descriptive that I couldn't NOT mention him. Imajica literally changed my literary life, with Weaveworld being (in my opinion) a less dense, more reader friendly version of Imajica.

Ted Chiang
Greg Egan
Peter Watts
Adrian Tchaikovsky

Gene Wolfe - the style of his sci-fi is mesmerizingly mysterious, even the mundane things described take on sinister tones

Roberto Bolaño
- 2666 is such a punch in the gut. I love it.
  
  Agreed. And I've never read anything quite like The Savage Detectives. His short stories are great too, and you can find a lot of them online published by the New Yorker.

Elmore Leonard. Dude was a massive influence on popular culture. He was instrumental in teaching Tarantino how to be Tarantino. He wrote the books that SO MANY great movies and television shows were based on.
Hunter Thompson. His gonzo style is often imitated but rarely duplicated. And it's such a goddamn simple concept, but no one else managed to do it with his flair.

Tom Robbins and Tim O'Brien

IMO Charles Stross should be up there with the masters with his Laundry Files.
From Wikipedia:
The Laundry Files is a series of novels by British writer Charles Stross. They mix the genres of Lovecraftian horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and workplace humour.
- That sounds utterly unique
  
  Well I think so too, and also, the "magicish" side of things works and isn't shoehorned into the story/background.

Henning Mankell for a bit of Scandi crime
And I don’t see anyone mentioning Doug Adams !?

Cixin Liu. Not only is the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy (Three Body Problem) epic, his short stories are really fun reads.

aside from some of the more obvious choices (rushdie, wallace, mccarthy, morrison):
don delillo, esp. underworld and white noise
ted chiang, esp. exhalation
marilyn robinson, esp. housekeeping
denis johnson, esp. jesus' son and tree of smoke
colson whitehead, esp. the intuitionist and the nickel boys
and while relatively new so maybe not at the same status as some other writers, jamil jan kochai and nana kwame adjei-brenyah will be making lists like these in the future if they keep writing the way they have.
- Add two line breaks to force a new line
  Like this, so your list is easier to parse
  
  sorry, ive never left a comment like that before and didnt realize it would look off. thanks!

Guy Gavriel Kay. First book published in 1984, part of a trilogy that was Tolkien-esque, quite decent, but not exactly ground-breaking. He's since gone on to something a little more unique, which he describes as "historical fiction with a quarter-turn to the fantastic." Impeccably researched but set an alternate world that's a close but not exact mirror of our own. This allows him to take a few small liberties with historical accuracy in service of telling a better story. Personally I think he really hit his stride in 1995 with The Lions of Al-Rassan, and almost everything he's written since then has been exceptional.
- I've only read The Fionovar Tapestry. Was a great read fwiw
- His stories are pretty conventional and honestly somewhat boring, but his pen is unique, not even Tolkien managed to make the story flow so smooth.

Octavia Butler and her likely prophetic Sower series on how US descent is gonna occur

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