Who do you consider a Great Author of the last 50 years or so (first well-known work after 1970)? I'd like to get a feel for who's who in modern literature. Any language/culture. Fiction only.
Bonus points for any books you believe are classics from that time period. Any language, but only fiction please.
Jim Butcher. He sits firmly and unapologetically in his fantasy niche, so if that’s not your thing you may be disappointed, but the man writes good dialogue and he can turn a phrase.
A few years off from your criteria, but Ursula K. Le Guin released A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968. However, she had been pretty prominent in science fiction for the decade.
Important enough to inspire Pratchett and Miyazaki (of Studio Ghibli).
She used to teach writing courses at the university where I work. According to some of the old IT hands, whenever she came in with computer problems she was a delight to work with.
He has written hundreds if not thousands of stories over the last half century. So many of those have turned into Blockbuster movie, lame TV movies, Indie films, and TV shows. We can argue later about how “literary” many of those stories are, but his impact on popular culture today is undeniable.
Although he has occasionally written or said some cringey things out of touch with the current zeitgeist (who hasn’t?) and has struggled with his own demons, from what I’ve seen he has always demonstrated that at his core he’s a decent human being struggling, like we all do, in a scary world.
No love for Dave Eggers? A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was so so excellent, and there were sentences in You Shall Know Our Velocity! that made me weep with joy.
My nominations will be limited in scope to fantasy and sci-fi, but there are a few stand outs. Now, on to my nominations.
There are so many amazing authors in our era, but I’ll stick to a few only.
Brandon Sanderson - he writes like a machine, churning out books in-between other books. He’s unstoppable. I haven’t enjoyed his latest stuff, but his early stuff is outstanding high fantasy. Way of Kings blew my mind when I read it, and Mistborn was so original and awesome.
Joe Ambercrombie - The Blade Itself is a wonderful book, as are all the follow-up novels
Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos is the most complex, outstanding, high-minded, thought provoking science fiction I’ve ever read.
N. K. Jemisin - The Fifth Season and it’s sequels are some of the most unique ideas I’ve ever read. It’s incomparable to anything else. It stands alone in creativity.
Honorable mentions: William Gibson, Dennis E. Taylor,
Sigh. As a fan of Sanderson, Abercrombie, and Gibson, I am now compelled to check out your other recommendations. As if I haven’t already had an overly long queue of things to read…
If you like sci-fi and want a really fun and easy read, that is also thought provoking, check out We Are Legion (We Are Bob). I enjoyed those books so much that I read them twice. The 5th book is supposed to be out this year in September, and I’m stoked.
The Hyperion Cantos is not an easy read, but it is wild. By the end of the series it covers AI, poetry, religion, consciousness, existence, and so many other philosophical categories that it left me somewhat in awe. I still think about it often and I finished it like 5 years ago.
The 5th Season is like a mix between science fiction and fantasy, and is completely unique. It’s like no sci-fi or fantasy you’ve ever read before. I’m near the end of the series right now, so I haven’t fully formed my opinion, but I find myself considering going to bed early, just so I have more time to read it.
That’s great! I love that series, and so do all of my friends who have read it. My wife didn’t like the audiobook though. I haven’t heard it myself, since I just read the book. I think she was having a difficult time following some of the tech stuff that she probably would have figured out if she were reading it. If you’re familiar with technology then you will probably have no issues. It’s not a super sophisticated story or anything, it’s just a lot of fun and a little thought provoking. Enjoy!
Just a small call-out. It’s actually called We Are Legion (We Are Bob). If you have something called I am Bob, then it’s not the same story. I figure that you probably just typed it wrong, but I wanted to point that out in case there’s somehow a different book out there with a similar title.
Hahahah. I don’t know how my sleep-deprived brain got to “I am Bob”.
Yeah, audio isn’t my preferred medium, but since I now commute by car instead of public transport, it’s the only viable means of book consumption for me. It’s unfortunate because a bad narrator can turn me off of an otherwise good book.
Sanderson’s Skyward series have different narrators on Spotify and Audible. One of them I could not stand for more than 5 minutes. The other, Sophie Aldred, is a real pleasure to listen to.
Right on. I think you’ll love that series, as long as the narrator is good. I finished the Fifth Season series last night. Wooo doggie! What a ride! I definitely recommend that series without reservations.
I haven’t seen Chuck Palahniuk mentioned, and he was very influential to a bunch of us millenials, I imagine. He is very good at writing about the nihilism of modern times.
Fight Club is the most popular example of his novels, and its a great read. I am also really particular to, Rant:The Oral Biography of Buster. Its such a weird story, and was one of the first books to really spark my interest in reading fiction. He has a bunch of other good novels I would recommend, like Snuff, Choke, and Lullaby.
Jesus, that dude shaped a lot of peoples worlds. I honestly don’t know if I was scared of the drain at the bottom of the public pool because of him, because I know that I didn’t read his short story until I was in college, but I wonder if it had already started spreading around in the secret and sly ways of the school hallways, before text messages were ever imagined.
Lots of great sf/fantasy authors mentioned already, including some I’d argue for as great writers regardless of genre (Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, N. K. Jemisin).
I have three more to suggest in this genre and from this period:
C. J. Cherryh (Cyteen, Foreigner series, lots more) uses the lens of alien societies – just different enough from ours – to make us look critically at the structure of our own;
Sheri S. Tepper (Grass, Raising the Stones, The Gate to Women’s Country) carries one or another of the dark currents underlying our culture to its horrifying conclusion, and shows us what we get;
Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan saga) gives us a hilarious and improbable hero who utterly transcends his disabilities, in the end perfectly embodying what it seems he could never hope to be.
I upvoted because Vonnegut is the GOAT and most definitely wrote some bangers after 1970, but his first well known books were published in the 1960s. So, he is pretty close to OPs cutoff for modern writers, I guess.
Haruki Murakami is probably the best fit for the time limit you’ve requested as his first book was published in 1979, he’s considered to be one of greatest living authors, and Kafka on the Shore is a classic.
That said my nomination would be Brian Jacques. His children’s series Redwall is a long running classic on par with Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland.
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