Your favorite authors

Nobody that matters wrote: Tolkien, by far. One of the most committed and thorough fantasy writers.

I also like McCaffrey and her Dragon riders of Pern series.

McCaffrey's my all-time fave sci-fi writer! Her son's done a decent job of carrying on the Dragonriders of Pern legacy, but her other books are equally good, the ones I liked especially were The Talent series, The Tower and Hive series, The Crystal Singer series, the Brain and Brawn series, and her stand-alone romances Restoree and Ring of Fear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_McCaffrey#Romances I never could seem to stick with Tolkien - haven't tried in a long while so it would be worth a go again.

I grew up on SciFi - Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov are all the pinnacle to me, but Frank Herbert's Dune is epic, and HG Wells and Jules Verne may be old but never discounted. Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat series was good for a several books, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series rocked (have a ways to go in it though), Alan Dean Foster with his Flinx series and Spellsinger (among other random good ones like Slipt, Cat-A-Lyst, and Quozl), Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy and follow-up Dragon Star trilogy, Andre Norton, Barbara Hambly, and Leo Frankowski's Conrad Stargard (Cross Time Engineer) series (1st three books only, and be prepared for much self-aggrandizing and arrogance. It was fun to imagine if I would interfere as much as the lead character when transported back in time). Of course, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek episodes (my Dad had 3 volumes with each season's episode in additional detail) and the myriad of writers who have added to the copious Star Trek novels over the years (Shatner's, while self-centered and egotistical, were at least entertaining, but Michael Jan Friedman, Peter David, and Diane Duane wrote the best ones, IMO)

Fantasy:
The Red Sonja series by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney
Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy (it will downright depress you, especially how it ends, it's not a feel-good, happy, all's-well-that-ends-well, but it sticks with ya emotionally forever. I haven't been able to bring myself to read another trilogy I own of hers for that reason.)
JK Rowling

Horror:
Stephen King - It and The Dark Tower series

Romance:
Angela Knight
Kresley Cole
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Emma Holly
Larissa Ione

Opus - No, I myself haven't read The Civil War. Maybe when I retire!

For those whose favorites include sci-fi/fantasy books - you can vote in this NPR poll!

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/137249678 ... c=fb&cc=fp
Best Science Fiction, Fantasy Books? You Tell Us
June 20, 2011

And so, to help you chart any fantastic voyages you might like to take this vacation season, NPR Books is focusing our annual summer readers' poll on science fiction and fantasy (SF/F to insiders). During the coming weeks, your votes will decide the titles that make our top-100 list of the best SF/F novels ever written.

The first step in the process is to assemble nominees from you, the audience. To nominate your favorite SF/F books, log in below and write the titles and authors into the Comments field. Here are a few guidelines:

1. Limit yourself to five titles per post. Don't hesitate to nominate a book that someone else has already listed; your entry will count as a vote in favor of that title progressing to the next round.

2. No young-adult or children's titles, please. We plan to devote a poll to YA next summer. (It's also no fun if Harry Potter wins every year.)

3. Horror and paranormal romance are also out, which disqualifies most of Stephen King (also a big winner in previous polls), Charlaine Harris and Stephenie Meyer. Once again, we'll cover horror in a future poll.

4. Feel free to nominate a series — such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Asimov's Foundation — as a single, collective work rather than listing individual books.

5. That said, there are series and series: To qualify as a collective work, the books in a series must be written consistently by the same originating author or authors. For example, you can't nominate the whole Star Wars franchise, though you can nominate individual Star Wars novels.

They have posted the results of the nominations and posted a final list for voting - rather interesting! If you'd like to vote, go to the story and select your 10, then hit submit at the bottom! Tell us who you picked and why!


http://www.npr.org/2011/08/02/138894873 ... c=fb&cc=fp
Vote For Top-100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Titles
August 2, 2011

Last month we asked you, our audience, to nominate titles for a top-100 list of the best science fiction and fantasy ever written. The response was overwhelming — almost 5,000 of you posted to the NPR site alone, and many thousands more offered suggestions on Facebook.

We've tabulated those suggestions and, with the help of an expert panel, narrowed the list to a manageable field of a few hundred titles.

Scrolling through the list of great science fiction and fantasy reads below will feel like a journey back in time for some of us, a voyage of discovery for others. But novice or veteran, everyone loves a contest. So, let the voting begin!