Wed 14 Jun 2006

Books From A Single Author

Science fiction author John Scalzi posted a blog entry today about how some writers approach each new novel they write -- Writing Novels One Novel at a Time. This started me thinking about authors who I like enough that I have multiple (let's say, more than three) books of theirs. Why do I like them? Who would I recommend? Here is a briefly annotated list of authors I would recommend in general...

By and large, I think Scalzi is thinking along sound lines: an author who tries out different things remains interesting. Most of the time when I like multiple products from a single author, it is because they have avoided repetition.

I have a lot of books. Like many people, I have more books than shelves to fit them on. I have pretty varied interests, varying from light, fluffy action novels, to biographies to historical analyses to heavy science fiction. Most of my "repeat authors" are in the science fiction area, possibly because that is where I am more likely to actually think about my purchases. However, I do have the standard large collection of Tom Clancy, Dan Brown, Vince Flynn and even Patrick Robinson (I told you I liked light action stuff; resemblence to reality is optional) books. We'll omit those from the current discussion.

• Greg Bear

  I don't like everything ever written by Greg Bear. However, the books I do like are some of my all-time favourites. Moving Mars, Darwin's Radio and Eon are books that I have read again and again. Anvil of Stars is not too bad, either. But Eon's sequel, Eternity, and prequel, Legacy do nothing for me. Neither does Queen of Angels. The common thread here is that the super-futuristic books have less attraction to me and in some cases (the Eon bookends), the characters don't quite live up to expectations.

  Songs of Earth and Power was probably one of the first fantasy books, along with Dune, that I really enjoyed as a young reader.

• Traci Harding

  I'm not sure how well Traci Harding is known outside of Australia. But she has written some of the few fantasy book series to really grab my interest. Her Ancient Futures trilogy was one I devoured when each novel came out and then waited impatiently for the next one in the series. The followup Celestial Triad series was not quite as good, but still interesting in places (another case of things set in very non-Earthlike settings not being to my liking?).

  The Alchemist's Key is a standalone novel by Harding that is a real fantasy / ghost story trip and is real escapism. Recommended.

• Peter F. Hamilton

  I loved his Greg Mandel series (three books featuring the same lead character). And the first two-thirds of the Night's Dawn Trilogy was interesting. It ran out of steam in the third book somewhere and was a bit of a chore to finish. I have re-read the first two books a few times, but never always balked at going through the third one again. I think the "universe" for those books ran out of ideas at some point and the story-telling followed it, but A Second Chance At Eden, set in the same universe was entertaining, so I might just be unqualified to analyse why I like things.

• Tad Williams

  Here we have a bit of a love/hate relationship, purely from my side of the fence. I really want to like the Otherworld trilogy. There are some fantastic big world scenarios in here; but it's just too much like hard work at times! Keeping track of the plots and locations makes this a very hard series to read unless I am fully concentrating. His later War of the Flowers is a nice fantasy novel that I have read a couple of times. Not necessarily a "must have" book for me, but I'm not looking to give away my current copy either. Still, there must be something I like about this guy: I keep buying his books and reading them.

• Katherine Neville

  This is where I give up all pretense at understanding my own mind. Her lead characters are kind of the same in each novel: a powerful, succesful career woman who takes on impossible tasks with mysterious strangers and finds love, riches and happiness in the process. But each book -- The Eight, A Calculated Risk, Magic Circle -- is entertaining enough to keep my interest and get a new reading every couple of years. And if she ever releases her next novel, I will probably buy it without hesitation. Go figure. I'm going to have to think about this; it's going to worry me now.

• Other authors:

  I like almost everything I've read from Gregory Benford and Ben Bova. I seem to have a lot of books by those guys. Arthur C Clarke has written so much that anybody is going to find something they like. In my case, the four Rama books (for different reasons -- here is an author who changes his writing style over the years) and The Fountains Of Paradise stand out as memorable. Never been a huge Robert A. Heinleing fan, although I have read enough of his books to feel I can have an opinion. However, Tunnel In The Sky was one I read as a young teenager that still stays with me today (maybe you have to read that at the right age and experience level for it to be "good"; these days I tend to find the main character annoying more than entertaining, but it still brings back memories of when I first read it). Some Jerry Pournelle books interest me, others, not so much; again, you write as much as he does, you're going to please everybody somewhere along the line, I suspect.

These are the ones that really stand out as repeat authors I like. I'll try to remember to post another list of individual books I read again and again. Particularly in the non-fiction area, there are some that even a stranger could tell I must like simply by the way the covers are slightly damaged from regular use and carrying around.

Topics: books