Authors whose work you read before they were famous...

[Tirellan]

Jim Butcher's work on the old Del Rey critique circle

 

[williamjm]

I read Charles Stross Accelerando back in the mid noughties. Absolutely loved it
He was kind of on the way up then so half a point on topic
( I was very disappointed with the Laundry Files and others, he was kind of a one hit wonder for me. )

I read his short story collection Toast and other stories which I think was the only book he had published at the time. I was living in Edinburgh at the time as was he and he often showed up at various SF book events around the city so I thought I'd pick up his book. I think I found it a bit hit-and-miss with some good and some very mediocre stories, which is a decent summary of my opinion of his later work as well.

I remember reading George RR Martin's Dying of the Light back when I were a lad. I recall I got it from the library (that used to be a building where you could go and they would loan out these things called books, kids!) - it was one of the old Gollancz series, anyone remember, with the yellow dust-jacket on a hard cover? Anyway this would have been long before anyone even began playing with thrones, so, yeah...

I picked up A Game of Thrones about the time it first came out in paperback because I saw it in Waterstones and it sounded interesting even though I'd never heard of the author. He perhaps wasn't unknown among SF fans at the times (having won several Hugos and other awards) but definitely nothing like his current level of fame.

Speaking of authors who would later have their books filmed - many years before The Expanse TV series began I read Daniel Abraham's work on Hunter's Run (a collaboration with Gardner Dozois and GRRM who had begun the story many years before but failed to finish it) which I think would have been his first novel.

Another one would be Richard Morgan, I was going to a book signing Ken MacLeod was doing in Edinburgh and Morgan was also appearing having just published his debut novel which I picked up before the signing. I remember him mentioning that he'd just sold the film rights to Altered Carbon, almost two decades before the adaptation showed up on Netflix.

 

[JunkMonkey]

I read a future Nebula winner and Hugo-nominated author's first unpublished novel - written in longhand. And a pile of her short stories. Most were meh but one was "Bang! That's the one! Don't change a word!" It was her first sale.

I've been reading Philip Reeve's books since Mortal Engines made me feel like a kid again. I bought first editions of most of his books as they came out.

 

[williamjm]

I could add another one now. The Shadow and Bone TV series seems to have been very successful on Netflix recently. I bought the first book just after it was launched after meeting Leigh Bardugo at TitanCon in Belfast in 2012 where she was one of the guests and I thought it sounded interesting.

 

[Bick]

Richard Russo; I first read him just after The Risk Pool came out (1989?). The adaptation of Nobody's Fool (Paul Newman) was in '94, and notably his Pulitzer Prize in 2002 made him famous.

 

[tinkerdan]

In 1967 I acquired and read Piers Anthony's Chithon
Then later his Omnivore and Orn and Macroscope.

In 1968 I read Dean R. Koontz's Star Quest.

Somewhere around 1978 I read CJ Cherryh's Moragain series and Faded Sun series.

Not to say they are famous, however they seem well known and read now more so than when I first read their work.

 

[BAYLOR]

Robert Jordan , we he started doing Conan novels.

 

[Saiyali]

I read The Player of Games when I was about 16 and it had not long been out, a friend got it basically on its release and raved about it so I got it too and yes, awesome. I read Consider Phlebas not long after, and after that I read each new Culture book as it came out, till IMB sadly died. I feel like I jumped on that train early!

 

[Danny McG]

I read a future Nebula winner and Hugo-nominated author's first unpublished novel - written in longhand. And a pile of her short stories. Most were meh but one was "Bang! That's the one! Don't change a word!" It was her first sale

What was it?

(Talk about leaving things hanging!)

 

[Richiehead]

Terry Pratchett. Remember reading Dark Side Of The Sun in about 1977...

 

[Pyan]

LotR in about 1967.
I was enthusing at school about Alan Garner’s Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Moon of Gomrath, when one of the god-like beings of the Lower Sixth overheard me, and recommended this author called JRR Tolkien. Never looked back, still regularly reading LotR 55 years on. At that time, though, Tolkien was still a word-of-mouth recommendation, well before the surge of popularity that happened later.

 

[JunkMonkey]

What was it?

(Talk about leaving things hanging!)

The short story was called Mirrors and Burnstone which she sold to Interzone in 1988

Title: Mirrors and Burnstone

www.isfdb.org

 

[Danny McG]

Terry Pratchett. Remember reading Dark Side Of The Sun in about 1977...

I agree with Terry Pratchett, I remember reading a used copy of The Carpet People on the bus in the mornings going to technical college. (I travelled back home daily by train but I was always in a crowd of teenage mates then)
This was as a first year mechanical craft apprentice so it was some time in late 1974

 

[J-Sun]

Apparently Martin was really famous before he was famous. I also encountered the (pretty well-known) SF Martin before the world-famous fantasy Martin. Similarly, I was a fan of the pretty well-known Timothy Zahn before the explosion of his Star Wars books. There are many authors I read in magazines before they got famous, of course - too many to mention, though John G. Hemry becoming Jack Campbell is a striking one.

Speaking of, I don't know that she's famous and I don't know her recent work, but I read Alix E. Harrow's second story on May 21, 2015 and went back to read her first the next day. I gave them critical but very favorable reviews saying that "this author can write" and "Harrow is definitely a writer to watch." While the awards are pretty much garbage these days, I was still pleased to find she won a short-fiction Hugo award and her first novel was double-nominated four years later.

 

[Vince W]

Robert Jordan , we he started doing Conan novels.

I read those. They weren't very good and I was surprised when I was given a copy of Eye of the World to read. Huge improvement.

 

[alexvss]

I read Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell when it came out on Diabolical Plots. Shortly after, it won the Nebula. Funny thing is I found it to be rather meh.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I read Neuromancer shortly after it came out. I would have given it an unenthusiastic 3 stars. Years later I kept hearing about William Gibson and tried reading it again. Didn't finish.

I built my first computer in 1978 and was a Customer Engineer for IBM. Never became a fan of cyberpunk. James P Hogan's Two Faces of Tomorrow is more my style.

 

[hitmouse]

Ha yes, William Gibson. I read Johnny Mnemonic when it was published in Omni.

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

It would be easy to cite a lot of people who started in the 70s, but who'd believe me? I'm a huge fan of this guy though, and I think most people don't consider him famous yet:

TJ Martinell

Author, Writer, Reporter

www.tjmartinell.com

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

I read Charles Stross Accelerando back in the mid noughties. Absolutely loved it
He was kind of on the way up then so half a point on topic
( I was very disappointed with the Laundry Files and others, he was kind of a one hit wonder for me. )

@Vince W I agree that Onmi was indeed brilliant, both in concept and editorial quality. I'd always pick up the new edition at Waterloo station. Best commute of the month. A sad loss when it shut down

Stross has done some very good stuff, Accelerando and Rapture Of The Nerds (with Cory Doctorow) for example... shame though that he keeps churning out blah, I suppose we all have to eat and Lovecraftania seems to be easy to sell in these times.