Tags
30 days of books, Barbara Kingsolver, books, C.J. Cherryh, Clive Barker, favorite writers, Guy Gavriel Kay, Madeline L'engle, reading
Day 06 – Your favorite writer.
Oh, hell. All this narrowing down and singling out. 🙂
I am definitely not going to be able to pick just one writer, any more than I was able to pick just one book. I’m going to break it out again, this time into two parts, because I know of no other way I can possibly answer this without my head exploding.
Current Favorites (as in, this year so far, I guess is the best way to put it.)
Guy Gavriel Kay. He writes historical fantasy –meticulously researched, amazingly detailed, lyrical, epic, heartrending historical fantasy. I don’t know how to say it any better than that.
Barbara Kingsolver. She writes literary mainstream, I guess you’d call it — but it feels anything but “mainstream”. It’s full of intense imagery and gorgeous prose, it’s brilliant, concise and pointed and with a clear moral path but utterly non-preachy. She’s just… badass.
C. J. Cherryh. She writes sci-fi and fantasy, equally well: her ability to plan out a series is nothing short of amazing, her characters (human and otherwise) are completely rounded and utterly believable, and her engineering and anthropology background make for some truly inspired worldbuilding.
Okay, one more. Just one. Seriously, I could do this all day.
Clive Barker. He writes — well. Horror, dark fantasy, YA fantasy, and I guess anything else he wants to, because I doubt he’d have a problem skipping over to — historical, or sci-fi, or whatever else he wanted to do. He has an amazing imagination. His writing is detailed, vivid, deeply mystical, image-heavy, and unflinchingly, brutally honest at times.
….Aaaaand part 2! Because I liked going back to childhood influences in my last messing-up-the-intent-of-the-question post. So I’m going to add the author that I think had the most influence on me.
This is one I actually don’t have to waffle on. It’s definitely Madeline L’Engle. (I doubt I’m alone in this.) Her gentle, naïve and all-around-basically-good-human-being characters and coming of age plots had a huge impact on the way I saw the world. Her books all have similar themes running through them: living in harmony, the creative self, forgiveness and taking responsibility and choosing a more difficult path because you know it’s right for you — these things are in every story of hers that I’ve ever read, and I can’t think of a better author to have alongside you when you’re growing up.