Who Do You Think Are The Most Neglected and Forgotten Writers?

[BAYLOR]

Nor, I personally assume, would I find Eddings or Pratchett to hold my interest.

Jordan did come up with interesting concept and world.

In the case of Eddings ,The Belgariad 5 book series is not bad, not exactly groundbreaking either. They are his best books. He's not better then Jordan


Pratchett , I enjoy. I love the Discworld novels

 

[J-Sun]

Um. I'm not an expert in fantasy and have only read Eddings' Belgariad once many many moons ago and have never read Jordan but anyone capable of putting together (if that's the right phrase) the sentences of Jordan I've seen floating around (such as in this hilarious post[1]), can't be read (at least not by me) and can't be compared to Eddings or any adequate writer. He's also a frequent star of the "Thog's Masterclass" section in Langford's Ansible.

[1] My stomach - it hurts. "The puppies of necessity" had me laughing so hard.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Margaret St. Clair (AKA "Idris Seabright") wrote many excellent short stories and a handful of novels.

I don't hear much about the unique fiction of R. A. Lafferty these days.

Do people still debate the merit of Barry Malzberg's controversial works?

 

[Bick]

Um. I'm not an expert in fantasy and have only read Eddings' Belgariad once many many moons ago and have never read Jordan but anyone capable of putting together (if that's the right phrase) the sentences of Jordan I've seen floating around (such as in this hilarious post[1]), can't be read (at least not by me) and can't be compared to Eddings or any adequate writer.

That was a fantastic link, J-Sun, thanks for making my day. I read the first two WoT books (years ago) and no further. It depressed me how derivative and badly paced and poorly plotted they were, and I couldn't conceive how they could go another 12 books or whatever it is. Its a source of annoyance to me that I know I like fantasy when its done very well, but too much of it is epic in a grand way (loads of books) and I get one book in only to find it doesn't tick the box marked 'well written', and I have to give up yet another series. My shelves are staked with shipwrecks under the heading 'Part 1 of the so-and-so series'.

There have been many good suggestions for neglected authors. For the SF authors mentioned, I concur wholeheartedly with Simak, Budrys, Kornbluth, Sladek, Matheson and van Vogt. These aren't forgotten to those on these boards (we're probably not very representative) but if the mark of being neglected is not being represented on bookshop shelves anymore, then these guys definitely count.

 

[BAYLOR]

Then there's A. M . Burrage and Gerald Kersh .

 

[clovis-man]

Murray Leinster seems not to get much notice now that he has been deceased for almost 40 years. But he wrote some intriguing and entertaining SF in his day. I still count his "Med Service" stories as among my favorites.

Daniel F. Galouye is even less well remembered than Leinster even though he was granted the 2007 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award. He also has been deceased almost four decades. His short stories have always been engrossing.

 

[j d worthington]

Re: A Voyage to Arcturus and Eddison. I think they are forgotten because they are bloody awful. Historically important maybe but dreadful writers.

Well, no, they're not. They may not be at all to your taste (which is certainly fine; it would be dull if everyone's taste were the same, or even approximately so) but "dreadful writers" simply doesn't fit. Lindsay has some awful flaws, true; but the book itself remains a magnificent bit of imaginative art which still continues to provoke a wide range of responses to this day, and continues to see periodic reprinting as a result. Eddison, on the other hand, had some odd quirks with his archaic style, but overall it was one of the most effective and often musical to be used in modern times, and its admirers include some of the most widely read and influential writers in fantasy. Nor, I think, would those books have worked at all well had they not been written in that style... one harking back to the days of Sir Thomas Browne (another writer still greatly admired by no few of the literary world's canonical writers), and done by someone who knew how to do it right.

Dale: A fair number of younger readers I'm aware of know Beagle, at least through The Last Unicorn; my daughter has always been a big fan of his. She was also, by the age of 12, familiar with Dunsany, MacDonald's fairy tales (which she quite liked), and absolutely loved White's Arthurian books... though (like her dad) she preferred the original version of The Sword in the Stone to that in The Once and Future King....

Victoria: Malzberg should definitely be in there, yes; and Lafferty (though I still run into people who read his works, or are only recently discovering them).

BAYLOR: Burrage and Kersh -- definitely!

I would also like to add James Branch Cabell to the list. While his work is still read to some extent, it is not nearly as well known as it should be; and even those who do know of him and his work generally only know Jurgen, or perhaps Figures of Earth or The Silver Stallion... all well worth reading (though Jurgen is less to my taste than several others), but hardly representative of either the depth or the range of the man's work, save by a very close reading. Even within the limits of the long Biography of the Life of Manuel, the works range from farce to tragedy to the type of Romantic literature which made that term an honorable one (e.g., Domnei, or several of the short works in The Line of Love, etc.). Plus, the man simply had one of the most exquisite styles in modern literature, and his work can be revisited again and again without diminishment....

 

[j d worthington]

On Cabell... I had posted this link elsewhere, but for those who may not have seen it and may be interested:

Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works: James Branch Cabell

A rather good piece with intelligent commentary on both the pros and cons....

 

[Randy M.]

Then there's A. M . Burrage and Gerald Kersh .

Good call, as was someone else's (J.D.?) mention of John Collier. These prompt me to add Saki and E.F. Benson, at least their ghost/horror stories. But in each case I know there have been some editions of their work relatively recently: Benson, Burrage and Kersh had volumes from Ash-Tree Press; Collier's Fancies and Goodnights was reissued within the last 2-3 years by NYRB; Barnes & Noble's press put out a complete (?) Saki; and I think some of Benson's non-ghost work has been reissued, though the collection of his complete ghost stories is no longer in print, as far as I can tell. Ebook editions of most of these writers seem available, though.


Randy M.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Well, no, they're not. They may not be at all to your taste (which is certainly fine; it would be dull if everyone's taste were the same, or even approximately so) but "dreadful writers" simply doesn't fit. Lindsay has some awful flaws, true; but the book itself remains a magnificent bit of imaginative art which still continues to provoke a wide range of responses to this day, and continues to see periodic reprinting as a result.

WE are going to have agree to differ. I thought both writers styles - admittedly on small samples (about half of Arcturus and about a third of Ouroboros) - were juvenile and self-indulgent. The sort of thing a precocious adolescent striving for poetic depth would produce.

Cabell on the other hand I had a lot of time for. (And, let us agree to differ again, Jurgen was my favourite - though it's too long since I read them.)

Where we can agree is that the first version of The Sword in the Stone was by far the best. (I still have my childhood copy.)

 

[paranoid marvin]

Of course we're not actually going to know who the most forgotten authors are...

 

[Extollager]

Of course we're not actually going to know who the most forgotten authors are...

I take your point. However, until recently I'd have thought that sf and fantasy authors and their works that were worth remembering had a pretty good chance, since the fans are so zealous, with their complete files of magazines, their small press reprints, etc.

However, I suppose a lot of sff is now published electronically and some of it never comes to the attention of the "curators" (in the old sense of the word). Of the material that is published in paper form, much of that will be publish on demand, meaning fewer copies will be printed. It is easy to imagine material of worth being "published" but overlooked and forgotten. Also, some of the small press print runs are really small; I think a publisher has to sell fewer copies now, to break even or make a small profit, than was formerly the case (?), when typesetting would have been a cost, etc. I don't really know much about the economics.

I've written some stories that have been published by Tartarus Press, Ash-tree Press, and the 'zine Fungi, and I wonder how many people have seen them. For all I can tell, they have virtually sunk without trace!!

 

[BAYLOR]

Norman Douglass

Jo Clayton

 

[J-Sun]

That was a fantastic link, J-Sun, thanks for making my day.

Glad you enjoyed it. I've read a story or two by that guy but don't really know anything about him but I really enjoyed those myself.

Murray Leinster seems not to get much notice now that he has been deceased for almost 40 years. But he wrote some intriguing and entertaining SF in his day. I still count his "Med Service" stories as among my favorites.

Absolutely agreed (especially love the Colonial Survey stories and he wrote some really amazing mid-30s stuff before that). And that reminds me why I didn't mention Simak specifically because I know I'd have mentioned Leinster but they were just part of the general "Golden Age authors" I mentioned - too many for me to enumerate.

Of course we're not actually going to know who the most forgotten authors are...

And that made my day. Irrefutable.

 

[BAYLOR]

H. Warner Munn

Manley Wade Wellman

Chales Burnett Swann

 

[j d worthington]

WE are going to have agree to differ. I thought both writers styles - admittedly on small samples (about half of Arcturus and about a third of Ouroboros) - were juvenile and self-indulgent. The sort of thing a precocious adolescent striving for poetic depth would produce.

On the whole... agreeing to differ suits. However, I will admit to a wish that you could make it at least through Ouroboros, and perhaps Mistress of Mistresses, and see just how much of a difference that makes. As you have the response you do, however, it would be ridiculous to ask, just as it would be were someone to expect me to make it through the first three books of The Wheel of Time......

Cabell on the other hand I had a lot of time for. (And, let us agree to differ again, Jurgen was my favourite - though it's too long since I read them.)

Just to be clear: I do not dislike Jurgen -- on the whole, I think it's a fine novel with a tremendous amount to recommend it; but I think that, in comparison with various other works, it is just a leetle bit lower on the scale. In any event, I would certainly suggest it be read and given a good chance, as there is much of beauty and wisdom packed into that little book....

Where we can agree is that the first version of The Sword in the Stone was by far the best. (I still have my childhood copy.)

Sadly, I've never owned a copy of the original; my reading was of a copy through the interlibrary loan service. (One of these days, I really do need to land a copy of that one, as well as the second in the set....)

 

[BAYLOR]

Katherine Kurtz. In the 70's and 80's The Deryni series was popular and on the book series now you don't see it it all.

 

[JoanDrake]

Pierre Barbet, aka Claude Avice. Maybe he's popular in his native France, I dunno. Wrote the first alternate history I'd ever seen (1972) called Baphomet's Meteor. (I know the subgenre goes back to the 1800's, but I'd never seen anything like it in 1972)


Daniel P. Mannix. Wrote The History of Torture, which is something of a classic among a certain group I want nothing to with, a history of the gladiatorial games which looks on them like Monday night football and The Wolves of Paris, one of the most intriguing animal stories I know of, about a pack of wolves who besieged Paris during the Hundred Years War. The protagonist is the wolf Courtaud, who is portrayed very sympathetically, a noble and almost heroic creature, but also a totally realistic and murderous beast.

 

[BAYLOR]

Pierre Barbet, aka Claude Avice. Maybe he's popular in his native France, I dunno. Wrote the first alternate history I'd ever seen (1972) called Baphomet's Meteor. (I know the subgenre goes back to the 1800's, but I'd never seen anything like it in 1972)


Daniel P. Mannix. Wrote The History of Torture, which is something of a classic among a certain group I want nothing to with, a history of the gladiatorial games which looks on them like Monday night football and The Wolves of Paris, one of the most intriguing animal stories I know of, about a pack of wolves who besieged Paris during the Hundred Years War. The protagonist is the wolf Courtaud, who is portrayed very sympathetically, a noble and almost heroic creature, but also a totally realistic and murderous beast.

Piere Barbet , read one book by him The Napoleons of Erridanus. I loved that book , it was a fun read.

 

[Extollager]

Writers that were celebrated and or popular but faded away in their own lifetime and after they died. And why do you suppose they fell into neglect and obscurity? What factors made them become so unmemorable ? This topic covers all the genres.

Since you invite discussion of authors in all genres, I will propose Madison Jones as my choice of an author who received some recognition in his lifetime but who has become unjustly obscure.

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/538937-madison-jones-1-an-exile-i-walk-the.html

I'm going to start today a rereading of novel A Cry of Absence, which, a few years ago, was the first novel by him that I read.