Which fiction authors were you sorry to hear had died?

[bobbieinok]

The ones I thought of at once--

* Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels

* Dick Francis

* Diana Wynne Jones

* Dorothy Dunnett

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Ian Fleming

[ProudLib72]

2. From any time in my life?

Ray Bradbury (I grew up reading all his novels and short stories)

Arthur C Clarke (I remembered him most from his TV shows, but I like his writing too)

[Liberty Belle]

3. James Michener and Sue Grafton

are two that come to mind. I read many of their books.

[Lindsay]

4. Kurt Vonnegut.

That one still hurts.

[rzemanfl]

31. He broke his precious egg. n/t

[TexasBushwhacker]

35. He was the first to come to mind n/t

[solara]

77. Yep that was heartbreaking N/T

[Stargleamer]

5. Octavia Butler n/t

[hedda_foil]

18. Definitely!

[nolabear]

89. Truly. She was brilliant.

[Loki Liesmith]

6. Vonnegut

[Laurian]

7. Pat Conroy

[Kurt V.]

8. vonnegut

[Srkdqltr]

9. Robert B. Parker

I miss Spencer.

[Brother Buzz]

33. I miss Parker's Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch series

Fortunately Robert Knott got the green light to continue the series, and is doing a swell job.

I named my dog, 'Pearl the Wonder Dog' after all his Pearls in the Spencer series. I miss Spencer, too.

[Fla Dem]

61. Yes Robert Parker. Not only were the stories good, but they took place in the Boston area.

I could visualize the localities he was talking about and made it seem more real. Also enjoyed his descriptions of the meals he prepared. Shocked and saddened when he passed in January 2010.

[Ptah]

10. Ivan Doig Tony Hillerman

Ivan Doig
Ivan Doig was an American author and novelist, widely known for his sixteen fiction and non-fiction books set mostly in his native Montana, celebrating the landscape and people of the post-war American West.


Tony Hillerman
Anthony Grove "Tony" Hillerman was an American author of detective novels and non-fiction works best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels. Several of his works have been adapted as theatrical and television movies.

[doc03]

16. I was also a Tony Hillerman fan. nt

[jalan48]

19. This House of Sky is one of my favorites.

[bobbieinok]

21. Just recently learned Hillerman had died. A fascinating author.

[k8conant]

11. Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, C.S. Lewis

and more

[Harker]

12. Edward Abbey, Philip K. Dick...

and many others.

I was reading "One Life at a Time, Please", by Abbey at the time he died. I had noticed the L.O.C. entry (1927- ) after his name in the forematter, and wondered "how long we would have ol' Ed Abbey around" the day prior to his death.

Two other authors died while I was reading their books within a couple years of that, but I've forgotten who they were.

Very odd.

[jberryhill]

13. God

[PJMcK]

28. As always...

...you crack me up!

Have a good week, sir.

[jberryhill]

34. I liked a lot of his early stuff

[fNord]

43. Ah, yeah, Old Testament....

You should check out the sequel...there’s a twist...

Love thy neighbor


———Dr. Who

[FailureToCommunicate]

57. AND, I have NOT been impressed with the movie(s). The Book was better.

[Zoonart]

14. Elmore Leonard

[Brother Buzz]

36. I was sad he was only able to write two Chili Palmer books

They were both fantastic, but there was so much more could have done with Chili.

[Lars39]

15. Dick Francis has a son that also writes

books.

[Shrike47]

51. As does Tony Hillerman's daughter.

[blogslut]

17. Terry Pratchett

It still hurts

[fNord]

45. My partner feels your pain.....

But I’ve still never read anything from him......except “Good Omens.”
But that was only half him.....

[blogslut]

47. Read him

He was just such a joy

[fNord]

48. Well, I do have some free time coming up......n/t

[blogslut]

52. A good starter book is Night Watch

It's how I was introduced to Pratchett. It's a fairly stand-alone story but it gives you enough of an overview of the whole of Discworld so you won't feel lost.

[fNord]

49. Good omens was awesome

[yellowdogintexas]

72. absolutely

I have the luxury of not having read all of his books so I have much to look forward to!!!

My husband has read them all twice.

[hunter]

20. Orson Scott Card

You say he's not dead?

Well he is to me.

[fNord]

46. Harrison ford needed the paycheck.....

His son was about to kill him and that was his last solid meal ticket

[ms liberty]

22. My heart broke when Barbara Mertz (Elizabeth Peters) died

Also Douglas Adams, that one was really tough.

[pamela]

23. Pat Conroy. Kurt Vonnegut n/t

[The Blue Flower]

24. Harper Lee

nt

[brush]

25. Elmore Leonard, a big favorite of mine.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

26. Norah Lofts.

She was an English writer who wrote amazing historical novels. Her Town House Trilogy is fantastic. Often her novels were narrated by different people, with one person telling the story at one point in time, and another picking up some years later. As a consequence, you often get very different takes on the same character.

Most of her novels are set in England. One notable exception is a fictionalized version of the Donner Party, called "Winter Harvest".

She was publishing just about a book a year starting in 1936, until she died in 1982. I wish she had lived to be 100 and had been able to keep writing the entire time.

[tymorial]

27. If scifi is included, Jack Chalker

[Ferrets are Cool]

29. Robert Jordan before he finished his

masterpiece The Wheel of Time.

[kimbutgar]

30. Jackie Collins, Lawrence Sanders

[rzemanfl]

32. DU's own Annette Apollo.

Known here as Old Leftie Lawyer and Tangerine LaBamba. December 2009, by her own hand. Miss her.

[Leith]

37. Isaac Asimov

I was more familiar with his factual essays and books (I grew up reading them), but I really liked The Caves of Steel, The Robot Series, and his short stories.

[bobbieinok]

59. Foundation series is one of my favorites

[eppur_se_muova]

38. Iain Banks. Loved his "Culture" novels. nt

[shenmue]

39. Frank Herbert and Colin Dexter

[petronius]

40. Patrick O'Brian, Iain M. Banks are the first to come to mind... (nt)

[Aristus]

41. Harlan Ellison.

I'm a huge fan, and I got to have dinner with him once about thirteen years ago.

[Dave Starsky]

64. I am jealous of you.

I have always loved his work, too.

I have a copy of "The Essential Ellison" that I used to take with me when I traveled on business, on the off-chance that I might run into him at the airport. We apparently used to fly in and out of the same place.

[Aristus]

65. It was one of the most extraoirinary events of my life.

I'll never forget it.

[Dave Starsky]

66. He could be an enormous asshole.

But he could also be a super great guy, too, by all accounts. I think the bottom line is that he didn't suffer fools gladly. I was always afraid that if I ever got to meet him, he would think me a fool. Even if I was carrying a copy of "The Essential Ellison" in the airport. Maybe because I was carrying a copy of "The Essential Ellison" in the airport.

Anyway, he has always been one of my favorite writers for short form science fiction, either television or written. He and Ray Bradbury reign supreme in that era.

[Aristus]

68. Saying he doesn't suffer fools gladly is just a way of saying he doesn't suffer fools at all.

But to his fans, he was enormously friendly and gracious. He was always abrasive, but to his fans, it was affectionate. I brought my books to be signed at a Fantasy Lit convention, where we all wore name tags. When I got up to his table with my books, he looked at my name tag and immediately gave me a fun nickname based on my real name.

By pure accident, I ended up having dinner with him, his wife, and his small literary entourage. It's been said that you can discern a person's true nature by how they treat service workers. Well, our waiter had a thick Hispanic accent, and Harlan asked him: "Where are you from?"

I thought: "Oh God, NO; don't be rude to the guy!..."

"Mexico City, sir."

"Oh, I LOVE Mexico City!..." and proceeded to tell us some anecdotes of his visits there. He could not have been more gracious and charming to the waiter. It was wonderful to watch.

[Dave Starsky]

69. Exactly. I never wanted to be thought by him--my hero--to be a fool.

And so I eventually packed my "The Essential Ellison" away when I traveled. It's still a great book. It's still at the top of my bookshelf.

[ChazInAz]

74. The world is smaller without him!

I had the honor of knowing Harlan. He was one of our tutors, inspirations and whip-crackers at workshops for science fiction (Er...Speculative Fiction! Sorry, Harlan.) writers. I admired him hugely.
Oddly, the other author I miss was another instructor: Fritz Leiber. Harlan was my teacher, but Fritz became my friend. We corresponded, called one another often, visited him once in his Geary Street apartment in San Francisco. Whatever modest success I had as a writer I owe especially to Fritz. Then, in the early Nineties, the letters and phone calls stopped. I called him, and his phone was disconnected. Eventually, I got hold of his son Justin and found out he'd left us.
Mithras, but I still miss him!

[fNord]

42. Long list to be sure.....

But these Katz come to mind immediately.....

Kurt Vonnegut

Stan Lee

Gene Roddenberry

Robert Antwon Wilson

Jim Henson



Honorable mention, since he did pen a fiction novel......
The Good Doctor......Hunter S. Thompson
That one actually floored me....was inconsolable for days

[ChubbyStar]

44. Raymond Carver

Brilliant man.

[Lucid Dreamer]

50. John Steinbeck...

I was alive when Steinbeck died.
The first book I read of his was Of Mice and Men.
That was an assignment in school. But then I couldn't stop.

Vonnegut was another one like that, and I still pick his books at random at the library to read or re-read.




Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God -- Bokonon

[fierywoman]

53. Heinrich Boll ("o" with umlaut but it won't stick here)

Last edited Mon Feb 25, 2019, 09:24 PM - Edit history (2)

He was an uncle by marriage and I wanted to meet him but didn't get to.

[Rhiannon12866]

54. Oh, Dick Francis was my all time favorite!

After his wife/researcher passed on, he was going to retire, but then his son took over. I also got a kick out of the "Cat Who" books, Lilian Jackson Braun, and my mother read both authors, too.

[Totally Tunsie]

55. J. D. Salinger and Tom Wolfe

[catrose]

56. Sarah Cadogan

[FailureToCommunicate]

58. Gene Roddenberry for sure, and Tony Hillerman. I got to hang with Roddenberry one

time...as he allowed me to screen a Star Trek bloopers reel at a conference. (He wanted to stay close and make sure I didn't "wander off" with it.)

And I just always love rereading Hillerman's Southwest mysteries. His daughter has written several, but, good as they are, they're not quite 'Hillerman level'.

-FTC

[MH1]

60. Ursula Le Guin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed

[hunter]

70. Yep.

Always Coming Home is one of my favorite books.

[Fla Dem]

62. Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series

She was not able to finish the series. Her last book was Y is for Yesterday. I've read both that she never intended on finishing the alphabet, or that she became so ill after completing Y she was unable to even start Z is for..... These certainly weren't deep, conflicted, complex stories. They were perfect for a summer read on a chaise lounge or curled up on a sofa in front of a fire on a cold winter afternoon, or on a long flight or sitting in a terminal waiting for that flight. They certainly were my go to books.

Sue Grafton obituary
Trailblazing author of an alphabetical female detective series set in fictional Santa Teresa

Sue Grafton, who has died aged 77, was a trailblazing writer of American detective stories. Her 25 novels featuring the private eye Kinsey Millhone, which began with A is for Alibi in 1982 and extended through the alphabet to Y is for Yesterday (2016), established the hard-boiled female detective as a viable alternative to the males who had dominated the genre.

Millhone, an ex-cop and twice divorced, was a tough character, but in Grafton’s hands she also had a deep understanding of the effects on people of the crimes she investigated. This reflected Grafton’s major influence, Ross MacDonald, whose Lew Archer novels were marked by their relative lack of violence and their sharp perceptions of life in southern California. Grafton set her books in a Californian city called Santa Teresa, a fictionalised version of Santa Barbara, whose name she borrowed in homage to MacDonald.

More>>>
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/03/sue-grafton-obituary

[solara]

78. So sad... N/T

[Mme. Defarge]

83. Yes, and

Phillip Kerr. Very impressive research in his Bernie Gunther series.

[Dave Starsky]

63. John D. MacDonald

I devoured ALL of his Travis McGee books when I was a young man. I read some of his works in other genres (e.g., The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything) and they were all just as well-written, cerebral (yet relatable), and exciting as the "hard-boiled-detective-beach-bum-salvage-expert " series he was famous for. John D. MacDonald was a master of his craft.

He died not long after he published his last Travis McGee book. I have heard that he intended that last book to be a farewell to the character, and it ultimately was.

I have waited my whole life for there to be a good adaptation of any of MacDonald's Travis McGee novels to be delivered to the large or small screen. Hollywood had a couple weak tries back in the 1970s, with Sam Elliott and Rod Taylor in the lead role. But now they have Matthew McConnaughey to work with, and he is perfect. So get some good writers on the project, and let's get to work.

[Zorro]

75. I second that emotion

John D. MacDonald was one of my favorite authors, too.

I agree that Matthew McConnaughey would be well suited for the role of Travis McGee. It would be a hit franchise series for him.

[solara]

81. Travis Magee was one of my all time favorites.. sad day when McDonald left us N/T

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

67. Richard Matheson and Jerome Bixby

I love their work.

[Liberal Veteran]

71. Robert Jordan.

He died before finishing his book series. The last three volumes of the Wheel of Time ended up being written by another author who did a very good job of wrapping things up with the copious notes Jordan left, but didn't always capture Jordan's magic or handle on characters. Still, at least it got completed.

[yellowdogintexas]

73. Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy - I love suspense/thrillers

I also was sad that Dorothy Dunnett had died I loved her books

[MLAA]

76. Manuel Vzquez Montalbn and Reginald Hill (of Dalziel and Pascoe fame)

[yonder]

79. Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey

[Triloon]

80. Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan

[Onyrleft]

82. Douglas Adams

[Mme. Defarge]

84. Phillip Kerr.

I wrote to him and he wrote back!

[MaryMagdaline]

85. Elizabeth Enright

My sister and I wrote her a letter and her assistant wrote to us that she had died.

[Hassler]

86. Ken Kesey and Ed Abbey.

[solara]

87. There are more than I realized......

Maya Angelou
Kurt Vonnegut
Frank Herbert
Sue Grafton
John D. McDonald
Anne McCaffrey
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Sam Shepherd
Nora Ephron
Tony Hillerman
Robert Jordan
Raymond Carver
Douglas Adams
Jack Kerouac
Harper Lee

[TlalocW]

88. Also Douglas Adams

He was a hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was.

TlalocW