The LL&L Rumpus Room

Orson Scott Card (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, historical, others?)
Steven Brust (fantasy, sci-fi-ish hints)
F. Paul Wilson (horror)
Stephen King (Dude, if you don't know, I ain't tellin')

Orson Scott Card. One of my most favorite characters ever in is the Ender and Bean sagas. Peter Wiggin. You start the series hating him, thinking him completely evil, but that's in Ender's POV. By the end of the series, you have some other people---and even Ender in a really weird way---rethinking Peter Wiggin. By the time you go through the Bean saga, you begin to see what I always hoped was true: Peter Wiggin's an awesome man. I fucking love characters like that.

The other thing about Orson Scott Card that gets me is his refusal to put in much in the way of character's physical descriptions. I get to know them based completely on what comes across about them. Then, at some point, he may throw in a hair color.

I don't recommend his horror, though. I didn't like the two books I read. His other science siction is good. The grand total of one fantasy I've read was also good and I've always wanted to read Seventh Son and get into that series, but that'll come someday.

Steven Brust is all about the Vlad Taltos series. Holy shit, that stuff's entertaining as all get-out. There' s no way I can sum it up here. But, he's got this smartastic style that really grabs me and really makes me grin. The only thing I've read outside of the Vlad series was To Reign in Hell and I found that highly entertaining as well.

F. Paul Wilson has a clean style that gives me just enough of a picture to get on with the damn story. One of the reasons I have a really hard time with fantasy is a lot of the authors' penchants for going off on descriptions. Holy shit, dude, I don't care if the grass is purple, I want to know what the characters are doing! Now, if they're twirling that purlpe grass between their fingers before they chew on it and poison themselves because it produces arsnic in its vascular system, that's cool. But so many want to make the surroundings into another character and I'm not big on characters that don't have dialogue. Now, sure. That's just my own personal preference, but that's what you asked for, right?

Anyway, Wilson's series that starts with The Keep and ends with Nightworld is awesome. I absolutely love the plot and the back story and the progression and the characters. It is impossible for me to choose a favorite character, and that's saying a lot on my part. That's what I'd really like to strive for in my own writing---writing a cast of characters in such a way that, as the reader reads, they know who they like. But as they go along, their preference shifts. And by the end of the series, they look back and can't give you a favorite character because they can't decide at that point.

So, while I enjoy everyone on my list up to this point and love to read their stuff, the only one I'd truly like to be like writing-wise is this guy. And I might have never known that if you hadn't asked, Raine. So thanks for that.

Stephen King I admire because of the pure volume of things he's put out. I think about all the ideas I have for novels and then I think it's totally possible to get to all of them because, well, look at him. He's done a lot of things I really hate, and not much I actually liked too much, but I still admire him. I really like the arc and some of the ideas in his Dark Tower series, but I think he rushed the last ones. It could have been so much better. Really, it's his short stories I love. And the ideas behind his novels. If I could get the "picture behind the picture" without having to actually read through his prose, I'd love him. Sure, that makes sense. But it's those ideas and his ability to get so many of them out there that inspires me.

Oh. Am I done? I'm done. Maybe. So. F. Paul Wilson's the only one that answers your second question and the others are just the beginning to the list of answers for the first question, but all others are dependent on either only one of their books, or the only book of theirs I've read. Like Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, and Richard Matheson's What Dreams May Come. More. But I promise to stop here.

~Chy