h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Philip K Dick? He certainly is good, but his ideas can be a little disorienting if you like your sci-fi simple.

Have you tried Iain M Banks? A Scottish science-fiction writer, he also writes what he calls "straight" fiction as Iain Banks. The best sci-fi stuff is "Consider Phlebas" and "The Player of Games". The best of his "straight" stuff would include "The Bridge" and "Walking on glass" (both of which are sort-of fantasy too.

Tom Robbins is wonderful! He's got an incredibly rowdy way of using language and his characters are well developed eccentrics who you can't help but fall in love with. There's nothing tedious about anything he's done, in my opinion. Every time I read one of his novels I come out of it feeling like I've been on a wonderful adventure with people I'd love to meet in real life.

Duff is good...right?

No, Redneck, "duff" is, well, er, bad.

Tom Robbins has a reputation which can mostly speak for itself so I won't push him down your throat. All I must say is that any writer with the balls to open a novel with the line "If this Typewriter can't do it then F**k it, it can't be done," has my full attention from the first line. (Stilllife With Woodpecker)

Bradly Denton is much newer and more deserving of my pitch. The most startly thing about Denton is his range. For a light read and a chuckle read Buddy Holly is Alive and living on Ganamede. The back of the dust jacket for Lunatics discribes it as the Big Chile meets ET and for the life of me I can't think of anouther way to put it. But his best known work Blackburn is a straight laced story of a seriel killer and he not only gets you in the guys head but each step of the way he makes his actions seem understandable so that the reader ends up thinking there but for the grace of god goes I. Its disturbing in a way I never felt before.

No, I don't know him aand I don't get a cut of his sales, I'm just in awe of his talent and frustrated by the fact that so many well read people have never heard of him.

I'll get down off my soap box now.

For the record...Flashman is starting to grow on me, the rascal.

I almost hesitate to say it, but... how about Ann McCaffery????
Alan Dean Foster, yes, the Spellsinger stories are verrrry nice (though I have only one *sob*), but the Church and Commonwealth (or humanx) series are great.

Have tried the fanfiction in the internet? I have found some stuff which seriously rivals printed books, there some very talented people out there. I can give you some addresses if you want.

Another great one - Guy Gavriel Kay. His "Fionavar Tapestry" triology is GRAND!

Mervyn peake's wonderful, and regrattably unfinished, Gorn,nghast trilogy, though beware, this is a rich dark plum pudding, not a souffle.

I seem to remember reading something by Denton many years ago, and not being impressed-maybe I'm thinking of another writer or he got better.

No one's mentioned the wonderful Gene Wo;fe, the best living fantasy author in the world. Regular winner of the Hugo and Nebula double -to be held is such esteem by fansd and peers alike is unusual, and he fully deserves it.

On the matter of Iain Banks, I'd recommend Whit and Song of the Stones along with Crow Road (second greatest opening line in a novel ever-'It all started the day my Granny exploded') and Complicity-now *that's* a scary book.

For something different and colourful, J. G. Ballard still takes a lot of beating.

I am , you must forgive typo's.
Please?

That should be 'Gormenghast' and 'Gene Wolfe'.

I looked into gormenghast, was simply not my case (shivers)

How about Ernest Brahma (???) with that chinese storyteller? nice piece of literature, and funny too.

I loved books 1 and 2 of the Gormenghast trilogy, but the last one, 'Titus Alone', left me rather cold. I haven't actually finished it. It was partly pieced together from Peake's notes after his death. The notes were written when he was in the grip of a terminal illness, and it's all bitty and symbolic. No fun.

If you want to try historical fiction, I'd recommend 'The Warlord Trilogy' by Bernard Cornwell, his take on the Arthur legend. And, to a lesser extent, his 'Sharpe' books. They can get a bit formulaic, though.

guy gavriel kay is a genius. every book he has written is great.