Bonus points for any books you believe are classics from that time period. Any language, but only fiction please.
I’m really excited to see what Lemmy has.
Brandon Sanderson
The man is a top flight book generating machine. Where he’s taking the Cosmere, I don’t know, but I’m gladly awaiting for the novels he’ll write the in future to find out. Reading the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn is a joy.
I also really enjoyed how he wrapped up The Wheel of Time. He is much less reluctant to kill off characters than many other authors, and that series needed some serious character culling to bring closure.
I’ve got the hardcover for his new mystery novel ordered. Can’t wait for it to arrive and to read it.
Douglas Adams is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of the period.
He is known for light, surrealistic science fiction comedy, not a genre generally considered “high art” but his mastery of language is superb. He is a master of analogies in a way that is both funny but also makes the reader think about the roles and conventions of symbolism in language.
David Foster Wallace
Stephen King
Haruki Murakami
Kurt Vonnegut
Toni Morrison
Just a few names that popped into my head
Edit: some of these are based on popular opinions. For example, I never really got into Toni Morrison
Vonnegut is wonderful but his first book is 1950s and his greatest success is likely the 1960s. Question asked post 1970.
Yeah, I knew he started in the 50s. But you’re right, I looked it up and some of his notable stuff was earlier than I thought
Terry Pratchett (first book 1971 so barely counts haha)
Neal Stephenson
I had to scroll way too far for Stephenson. He has some ups and downs (as all creators do), but some of his novels are mind blowingly awesome.
Really love how nobody is hating on any of the replies here.
I’m going to repeat Ursula K Le Guin and Margaret Atwood because it’s hard to overstate how much of everything is in their works. Iain (M) Banks I’ll also echo, but will add China Miéville because there aren’t enough anarchists in this thread.
Cormac McCarthy, wrote some books you might have seen as movies such as The Road and No Country for Old Men.
Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is a crazy good book.
I would say Robin Hobb. She writes easy to read, character driven fantasy novels that gracefully deal with a gamut of difficult topics (e.g., orphanism, otherness, sexual violence, mortality, etc.). The books really helped me build empathy for people and concepts that were far afield of my own experience.
I did not enjoy that story. I kept waiting for Fitz’s mentor’s patience to result in a plan, but apparently their plan was to just let Royal do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, for as long as he wanted to do it. The story was compelling, but there was no pay off in the end. Other people I’ve talked to about the book have felt similar.
Cormac McCarthy
I like to think that if Cormac and Hemingway ever met in a bar, they’d take turns sliding a pistol at one another across the table, for entirely different reasons.
Considering how many of his stories have been adapted to tv and movies, in addition to being great on their own: Stephen King.
Ken Follet: Pillars of the Earth. Historical fiction. You’re transported back to the 1200s. Cathedral building with raunchy politics, a bit of HBO Game of Thrones mixed in. It was extremely visual… and fondly memorable for me.
Ones that many people have mentioned: Atwood, Wallace, Murakami
One I don’t think anyone has said yet - Paul Auster. I’ve only read New York Trilogy so far, but I thought it was superb.
Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time Saga.
The Amazon show does not do it justice on my opinion, but it has been explained with how it’s another turn of the wheel and a “what if”
And Brandon Sanderson, who wrapped the series after Jordan died and is an amazing author himself.
- Greg Egan
- Rudy Rucker
- Vernor Vinge
Hard, computational SF aren’t given nearly the respect they should, and these apply math, comp sci, and physics in a way nobody else does. If there’s any civilization in the future, they’ll be seen as visionary.
Runners-up are Robert L. Forward, Alastair Reynolds, but Forward has very little computation, and Reynolds doesn’t show his math too often.
Some of Rudy’s books are free, and they will blow your minds. Software, etc. and Postsingular as “what technology can do to us”, and White Light as “how does infinity work in a story context”; he also has a couple non-fiction books on infinity.
Reynolds sometimes lacks a touch on the human side of his work. That being said, I’ve not read much of his more recent novels so he might have matured since finishing his 10 year contract.
