W£ell he’s made a sale to me, even though its a kids book. seriously considering buying Tuesday-Thursday en bloc.

I thought the Harry Potter books were pretty entertaining. I’ll even admit to reading more than one of them more than once, but Rowling is no Tolkien. Or C.S. Lewis, or Piers Anthony (esp Incarnations of Immortality) either. But she got a good read. Roger Zelazney (Zelazny?) of the Cronicles of Amber is really good, too. Of course you have the immortal Robert Howard.

There’s a newer auther I’ve recently read, David Brinn I think his name was. Kiln people. Excellent book. I read it straight through.

I’m not a big fan of Rowling, but you’ve actually managed to pick three authors that I think she actually is better than.

Tolkien bores me to tears, his books are ten part description to one part action, a formula that makes even Stephen King’s prose look bare bone.

C.S. Lewis is more Christian allegory than entertainment and he has a habit of hitting you over the head with his “message”.

As for Piers Anthony, the man writes like William Shatner acts. You’d think he bought his exclamation points wholesale.

Personally the only writer that anyone’s mentioned that I’ve enjoyed is CS Lewis. Pratchett and Piers Anthony both seem like wannabe failed stand up comedians without the keen sense of timing to me. I admit, I liked Gaiman’s comic books a bit - but having read his unillustrated fiction I’m not convinced that it wasn’t more of a “I like this art” thing. Rowling’s Harry Potter books aren’t terrible, and neither is Tolkien, but I wouldn’t place them high on my fiction list. William Gibson is one of those writers I consider incredibly over-hyped and overrated. CS Lewis though? If you push past The Chronicles of Narnia and what I consider to be a truly awful series of science fiction, you get eventually get to Till We Have Faces, which I consider to be sufficiently provocative and beautifully written to stand up to the works of just about anyone.

On the other hand, my atheism isn’t something I automatically consider as a primary influence on my reading list either. I’ve got a beautifully bound and antique version of Paradise Lost that I love and have enjoyed, and thanks to the unending attempts at conversions I have more Bibles than I know what to do with. I mean, I see the Christian themes in some author’s work but it doesn’t bother me an awful lot. Certainly not in fiction as much as it does in the news and politics.

Anyways, it’s been interesting comparing people’s tastes in books. I keep telling myself that eventually I’m going to start hauling boxes back down from the attic and review the thousands of books I’ve got more thoroughly, but realistically I probably won’t ever have the time. If everyone read the same things then we’d undoubtedly be victims of censorship anyways. :D

The list of sf or fantasy writers that I read is very short. Too many writers who slide through on concepts and ideas without the skill to tell a good story.

There are a few, however, that are exceptional. Harlan Ellsion, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Neil Gaimen, the guy who wrote the Thomas Covenant books whose name I’m too lazy to look up. All great storytellers.

My main interest has always been detective fiction and my list of exceptional authors there is much longer. The highlights would by Raymond Chandler, Robert Parker, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Robert MacDonald, John MacDonald, Gregory MacDonald, James Lee Burke, and John Sanford.

Since I’m listing away, in horror fiction I’m fond of Stephen King, James Herbert, Ramsey Campbell, August Derleth and Robert Bloch.

Favorite author of all time would be Charles Dickens, the king of popular fiction.

I couldn’t possibly nail it down to one all time favorite. But yes, Lewis would be one of the top 10. I bawled over A Grief Observed. If we are opening it up to other genres…

Right on to Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury. Stephen King I have a love/hate relationship with and would rather read Dean Koontz.

But favorite books of all time? Here’s a few off the top o’ me head, anyway.

Not in order.

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenaince by Robert Pirzig

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

the robot series by Isaac Asimov

Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee

Book of Five Rings by Miamoto Mushashi

Zen Training by Katsuki Sekida

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Myers

Megabrain by Michael Huchinson

Little House on the Praire (the whole series) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Great Brain (the whole series) by John Fitzgerald

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (yep) by Douglas Adams

ok, never mind, this has gone far enough…

ah, favorite books…

Following your example of no paticular order

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson

An Edge In My Voice by Harlan Ellison

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Robert Heinlein

Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInnerry

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

American Gods by Neil Gaimen

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Confess, Fletch by Gregory MacDonald

Looking For Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker

A Ticket To The Boneyard by Lawrence Block

All Heads Turn As The Hunt Goes By by Ramsey Campbell

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Wolfen by Whitley Streiber (yes, that Whitley Streiber, before he went insane)

Bank Shot by Donald Westlake

Phantoms by Dean Koontz

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

hmmm, I could probably do this all night. Guess I’ll stop here.

RE Garth Nix
(restarting the post from the 13/2)
I HAVE bought all the way to Friday (Lady Friday only published this month). All I can say is

GO AND READ THEM NOW.

If you read fantasy you should try them.  They have a breadth of imagination I haven’t seen in many other childrens writers. Some of you may baulk at the quasi-religeous undertones, but I like the idea of a civil service to run the workings of the universe. Personal favourite at the moment is Dr. Scamandros’ tattoo, which are animated, and perform little vignettes depending on his mood and emotions- at one point they are of ships hitting rocks, but the crew manages to launch life boats and get away- this while he is thinking about a tricky task, that might just work.

I was pleasantly surprised that Amazon shipped book 7 to me today even though I had used super saver shipping.  The last email I got was Thursday night saying it was being prepped for shipping, and I figured I’d get it sometime during the next week.  What SUCKS is that this is my finals week and all I want to do is read book 7 before somebody spoils the ending.  I may have to stay offline until I finish reading it. Hell, I probably won’t even read any responses to this thread until I do!

I’m with Les on the purpose of reading Rowling - it’s a relaxing thing.  During the semester, I read Star Wars, H. Potter, LoTR, StarFIST, etc, to de-stress.  I like to read physics books by S. Hawking and Brian Greene, but since I tend to think through the concepts, I find I can’t read them while I’m taking upper level Engineering courses.  There’s only so much my brain can take before needing to relax.  Same as when I was working 12-16 hours a day in software development - I would not get on my home system for days at a time because I was tired of sitting at a keyboard.