R.A. Salvatore, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Terry Brooks, and Erin Hunter are a few of my favorite authors.
Richard Russo, Wally Lamb, John Irving, Billie Letts, James Lee Burke, Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve, Lorna Landvik, Alice Hoffman,
My stories are influenced by Anne Rice, Bram Stoker and Agatha Christe. While I always have supernatural elements, I also tend to have detective elements as well. And I must give some credit to Stephenie Meyer, as Twilight inspired me to write a parody of the vampire romance genre, that eventually turned into the biggest and greatest story I have ever written. However, I do not know where my current writing style came from. Most of the authors I enjoy reading are very artistic in the way they write. Anne Rice for instance is widely known for her ability to use sixteen words to describe a rock (but at least you're left with a good image of what that rock looked like). Yet my writing style is very simplistic and to the point. When I started writing seriously at eleven, my writing style was also simplistic, and then as I read more and wrote more, my style became more advanced and I described more and experimented with words and sentences. Then gradually, I started to tone it down again more and more, until it reverted back 'til my eleven year old style. Well, the writing is tons better, but the style is the same.
Niel Gaiman is my favorite author. You could tell when I started reading his books as my writing style immediately gravitated towards his. I love his prose, description and narrative. I try to balance out the number of books I read by him though, don't want to become a Niel Gaiman clone
No Clive Barker fans??? As far as imaginiers of the macabre and fantastique, he is the top of my list. Of course Lovecraft is one of my old heroes, he is the one that made much of the horror genre possible, in an age where publishers wanted corny, pulpy, happy fiction And Robert Howard gave birth to sword anf fantasy, Conan has become a timeless icon for the muscled barbarian Edgar Rice Burroughs is the master of romantic epic adventure, The Princess of Mars is one of the best novels I eve read Neil Gaiman is amazing, he has an incredible imagination and is descriptive, everything he makes is a page-turning, dark fairy tale Some of my favs...:redface:
I love to read and write fantasy, so some of my literary heroes include: Brian Jacques (RIP ), the Redwall series never fails to amaze and inspire me. Robin McKinley - I adore her style, and I wish I could write so beautifully... I especially love her book "Beauty". Gail Carson Levine - Especially "The Two Princesses of Bamarre" and "Fairest". Both have excellent world building, characterization, and romances. Plus, one of them has dragons. Jessica Day George - I have only read one of her novels, "Dragon Slippers", which was AMAZING! Very inspiring. It was very original, very well written, and just inspiring!
Green Eggs and Ham, I loved that when I was younger. I have many authors who I like however my stand alone favourite is George Orwell.
The authors that inspire me are the ones who's (whose?) technical excellence staggers me. Annie Proulx, Colin Thubron, James Joyce, Ian McEwan, Umberto Eco, Thomas Pynchon, Samuel Beckett, DH Lawrence, TS Eliot to name a few.
I'm writing a novel which basically focuses around the dissaperance of everone over a certain age, and the people who inspire me for this are: Dan Abnett - Action scenes James Patterson - Humour (Maximum Ride) Michael Grant - Well, this is the person that basically gave me the idea from his Gone novels.
There are too many authors that have inspired me to list all of them, so I'll just name the main two that influenced me with my latest project (a dramatic monologue from the perspective of the devil). They were: Will Self -- for his satire and extreme "wordiness" C.S. Lewis -- The Screwtape Letters is not only one of my favourite books but the format was particularly helpful in relation to my book
I had to teach 1984 for the first time this year, and my 10th graders really ate up the whole propaganda, manipulation of the masses, psychological effects from totalitarian societies stuff. I actually really enjoyed it! I had the students make their own propaganda posters, and they wrote research papers on it. It was a little difficult to get research materials in our international school however. We end up having to rely on a database of full-texts that isn't really very complete.
When I was younger I read the "Deltora Quest" series by Emily Rodda and I absolutely loved them. I think those are what really got me into fantasy type stuff. Most of the other things that inspired me were video games though.
Tolkien, I love his epic LOTR and The Silmarillion, those novels truly have changed my view upon life, upon art itself. I really am fascinated by his colorful langue and description of the world that he had created for all of his beautiful characters, evil and good alike.
George Orwell's a favorite of mine too -- his writing is still completely amazing to me even after I read it more than once.
Tolkien is probably the only author I've come across who has poured so much into his work Brian Jacques does something so different so well Robert Muchamore, I don't know what peoples' views on the Cherub series are but you can't deny that he knows exactly what his audience wants and he's inspired loads of teenage boys to read Andy McNab writes with such realism and depth of knowledge about his subject
I loved 1984 and Animal Farm when I read them, they're just astounding in their writing and how accurate it is even today.
Hell yeah. House of Leaves was a great book. What amazes me the most about 1984 is how much impact it can still have. I first read it 6 years ago, and to this day it still scares me.
I've always loved David eddigns. i always felt he gave a since balance to his work. magic was never the cure for everything because after you used it you where left vulnerable. and each time you use it took a toll on your body and other wizards and mages can hear you suing magic. the stronger magic you use the more noise it makes. Really big feats could be heard from around the world ( only to wizards and such). So i felt things had ore balance to them.
David and Leigh Eddings seriously take the cake for me with the Belgariad. Belgarath the sorcerer and Polgara seriously hooked me in for the longest time! I rarely enjoy series books (i.e. gave up on Robert Jordan after a few), but that series really got me reading everything I could get my hands on. Also, to add in general to the lists here on the post, Has anyone read A Prayer for Owen Meany? Most people I know were not huge fans of his other books, but this particular one blows me away.
I didn't read all the responses, but have any of you read any of Robin Hobb's books? She's an amazing fantasy writer. Best books I have ever read were the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies.
It terrifies me too. What's amazing is that the world the book describes feels like it could happen to us, no matter what year we're living in.
What are you talking about? We are already there! We already have artificial sugar, meat, milk, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But don't worry. Big brother is keeping a good eye on you.
