Favorite Non-Horror Authors

[jester05jk]

Robert Jordan
Tanith Lee
Robert E Howard
Henry Rollins

[srboone]

Michael Moorcock, Umberto Eco, and Mark Helprin are my favorites outside the horror field. There are plenty of others, but those three top my list.

[Lucian Poll]

Crumbs! Here goes, in no particular order, and forgetting loads:

Raymond Chandler (the earlier novels, anyway)
Dashiel Hammett (I'll always try a Hammett after having read The Maltese Falcon)
Mickey Spillane (yeah, you could say I had a classic crime phase!)
PG Wodehouse (perfect sentences, perfectly constructed plots, and still very funny books)
Evelyn Waugh (for those who like their humour laced with battery acid)
Roald Dahl (I am a sucker for a twist-in-the-tail ending, and, come on, he did a Bond movie!)
Wu Ming (a collective formerly known as Luther Blissett. Check out Q - it's incredibly good)
Chuck Palahniuk (often bugs me, but his stories are never, ever less than interesting)
Neil Gaiman (1.8 quadrillion Twitter followers can't be wrong. Or spambots.)
Terry Pratchett (I spent way too much of my teens reading Discworld novels. I need to catch up.)
Nick Harkaway (an acquired taste, very tangential, but give The Gone-Away World a whirl)
Mark Hodder (I swear this guy has a Bat Utility Belt of plotlines. Incredible invention.)
James Clavell (I had an EPIC NOVEL phase too and his novels fitted the bill nicely. Shogun and Taipan are great reads.)
Christopher Fowler (yes he does horror, but he's more of a crime writer these days, plus his Bryant & May series is good fun)

[Tommy]

James Joyce
William Faulkner
F Scot Fitzgerald
Vladimir Nabokov
Truman Capote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Albert Camus
Cormac McCarthy (though his work can be quite horrifying, it isn't necessarily horror)
Chuck Palahniuk (he straddles that horror line quite a bit in some instances)
Thomas Pynchon
Philip Roth
Toni Morrison
Michael Chabon
George R R Martin
Hugh Howey
JK Rowling
Bret Easton Ellis (other than American Psycho of course)
EM Forster
Oscar Wilde
George Orwell
Dashiel Hammett

[divemaster]

I'm a big fan of P.J. O'Roarke. Very funny and very insightful into politics and the world around us. He can really turn a phrase. His book All the Trouble in the World had me in stitches all the while I was saying "good point!"

[Menace]

Orson Scott Card
David Gerrold
David Eddings
James rollins

[Theli]

My all time favourite writers are; Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, J.R.R. Tolkien, none of which are horror. If you count comics then Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman (haven't read his novels yet), Ed Brubaker, and Len Wein need to be added as well. I also really liked James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, but I'd have to read more from them for them to become some of my favourite authors.

[Sock Monkey]

My all time favourite writers are; Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, J.R.R. Tolkien, none of which are horror. If you count comics then Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman (haven't read his novels yet), Ed Brubaker, and Len Wein need to be added as well. I also really liked James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, but I'd have to read more from them for them to become some of my favourite authors.

I really enjoy Ed Brubaker's non-superhero comics. If I throw in comic writers then I would have to add Brian Azzarello, J.M. DeMatteis, Keith Giffen, and Christopher Priest (or just Priest is what I think he goes by now).

[Theli]

I like all those guys too (except Priest, don't think I know him). I love Brubaker's Criminal comics.

[Sock Monkey]

I like all those guys too (except Priest, don't think I know him). I love Brubaker's Criminal comics.

Priest wrote The Black Panther when it was relaunched under Marvel Knights. He also wrote one of my personal favorites, Quantum and Woody. Both of those books are incredibly smart and funny and worth digging in the back issue bins for.

[TerryE]

I really enjoy Ed Brubaker's non-superhero comics. If I throw in comic writers then I would have to add Brian Azzarello, J.M. DeMatteis, Keith Giffen, and Christopher Priest (or just Priest is what I think he goes by now).

Gotta agree with the choices of DeMatteis and Giffen. Although Giffen is a much better plotter than writer. And both are really nice guys. Saw them at Baltimore Comic Con a few weeks ago. Giffen is so funny. I asked why he had to cancel out last year, and he asked me if being dead was a good reason. Ends up he'd had a heart attack while at his cardiologist for an appointment and was clinically dead for a short time. He was recuperating last fall.

[RJK1981]

Ends up he'd had a heart attack while at his cardiologist for an appointment and was clinically dead for a short time. He was recuperating last fall.

Well, if you're gonna have a heart attack that is the best place to have it!

[Theli]

Gotta agree with the choices of DeMatteis and Giffen. Although Giffen is a much better plotter than writer. And both are really nice guys. Saw them at Baltimore Comic Con a few weeks ago. Giffen is so funny. I asked why he had to cancel out last year, and he asked me if being dead was a good reason. Ends up he'd had a heart attack while at his cardiologist for an appointment and was clinically dead for a short time. He was recuperating last fall.

Ouch! Hope he's healthy now.

[TerryE]

He seemed great. I've got to get the pictures from my neighbor. He got shots of me with both guys.

[Mike88]

I know i'm really late to this but I just joined a month ago and I am trying to catch up. My favorite Non-Horror writers are in no particular order are:
Clive Cussler
Tom Clancy
Stephen Coonts
Jack Fredrickson
Lincoln Child
Robert Preston
Richard Preston
Thomas Harris
John Sandford
Dick Francis
Michael Koryta
Mark Frost