Top 100
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- J.R.R. Tolkien
- C.S. Lewis
- George R.R. Martin
- Ray Bradbury
- Isaac Asimov
- Neil Gaiman
- Stephen King
- Terry Pratchett
- Philip K Dick
- Douglas Adams
- Orson Scott Card
- George Orwell
- H.G. Wells
- Michael Crichton
- Dan Simmons
- Arthur C Clarke
- Jules Verne
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Frank Herbert
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Neal Stephenson
- J.K. Rowling
- Robert Heinlein
- Madeline L’Engle
- Lewis Carroll
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Ted Decker
- Edgar Allen Poe
- Roger Zelazny
- Patrick Rothfuss
- Timothy Zahn
- Peter F. Hamilton
- Andre Norton
- Anne McCaffrey
- Walter M. Miller Jr
- Amie Kaufman
- Gene Wolfe
- G.K. Chesterton
- K.J. Parker
- Margaret Peterson Hadix
- Phil Elmore
- Ted Chiang
- George MacDonald
- J.D. Robb
- Franz Kafka
- Tamora Pierce
- Connie Willis
- Taylor Anderson
- Ernest Cline
- Stephen Baxter
- Scott Roche
- Garth Nix
- Alton Gansky
- Philip Jose Farmer
- Louis Cha
- John Crowley
- Ally Condie
- Shirley Jackson
- Mary Shelley
- Naomi Novak
- Peter David
- Joel Parisi
- William Goldman
- Italo Calvino
- Greg Taylor
- Susanna Clarke
- Thomas Malory
- Diane Carey
- Ben Jeapes
- Lois McMaster Bujold
- A.E. Van Vogt
- Jim Butcher
- Arhur Conan Doyle
- Scott Sigler
- Antoine St. Exupery
- Terry Goodkind
- Katie Lynn Daniels
- Stephen Lawhead
- Alan Dean Foster
- Max Brooks
- Glen Hirshberg
- Harry Harrison
- Anne Rice
- A Lee Martinez
- Andrew Robinson
- Tad Williams
- Allan and Aaron Reini
- Henry James
- Alfred Bester
- David Weber
- Susan Cooper
- Diana Wynn Jones
- Octavia Butler
- Brandon Mull
- Kevin J. Anderson
- Megan Spooner
- Thomas Ligotti
- Mickey Zucker Reichert
- Andrew Mayne
- Lemony Snickett
Runner’s Up (unranked)
James Swallow
China Mieville
Eoin Colfer
John Scalzi
L Frank Baum
Christopher Paolini
Megan Whalen Turner
Dean Koontz
Gregory J Keyes
Conn Igulden
AA Milne
J.C. Hutchins
Christopher Priest
Andy Weir
Lois Lowry
Terry Brooks
Jane Austen
Norton Juster
HM Hoover
Wu Cheng’En
Cormac McCarthy
Gail Carriger
Chris Walley
Raymond F Jones
Shane Johnson
Tim Powers
Warren Hammond
Jake Bible
Ken Grimwood
Charles Dickens
Frank Peretti
Richard Matheson
Bram Stoker
Clive Barker
Robert Jordan
Suzanne Collins
Kevin Hearne
Patricia C Wrede
Ursala K. LeGuin
Michael Stackpole
Mercedes Lackey
Rick Riordan
Niven and Pournelle
Brian Aldiss
Bryan Litfin
Nathanial Hawthorne
Roald Dahl
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ian Banks
Lloyd Alexander
Aldous Huxley
Poppy Z Brite
Harry Turtledove
Hans Christan Anderson
P.D. James
Diane Duane
Felix Palma
Lucius Shepard
Robert C. O’Brien
Gene Roddenberry
David Brin
Brandon Sanderson
David Levithan
John Flanagan
Natalie Babbitt
Jean D’Arras
Ken Liu
Brian Jaques
Robert Silverberg
William Gibson
Spider Robinson
Sarah J Maas
John Ajvide Lindqvist
Jasper Fforde
Richard Adams
Peter Straub
J.L. Bourne
Jake Yolen
Jack Vance
J Grace Pennington
Daniel H Wilson
Michael J. Sullivan
Sherry Thomas
Jeff Vandermeer
Marie Lu
Vonda McItyre
Nancy Kress
Maggie Shayne
Apostle John
SM Stirling
T.H. White
Charles Williams
Lynn Reid Banks
Raymond E. Feist
Nathan Lowell
Joe Haldeman
Jonathan Swift
Stephen Donaldson
Robert Aikman
Laini Taylor
John Mandeville
Mikhail Bulgakov
Harlan Ellison
Mark Twain
Seth Graham-Smith
Washington Irving
Philip Pullman
Ken Scholes
Charles De Lint
Monica Hughes
Cj Cherryh
Robert Aspirin
Cindy Dees
Tom Clancy
Robert Howard
Jaqueline Moriarty
J Sheridan La Fanu
Brothers Grimm
Kristine Cashore
Patrick W. Carr
Bruce Coville
Ben, I liked your description that some authors have great ideas but are not great writers, and others are great writers but do not have great ideas. Who from the top 100 list would you say are the top 5 authors who both have great ideas and are also great writers?
Good question. 5 is too hard, so I’m going to give you a top 10. These are in a rough order, meaning that while I’d definitely put Tolkien at the top the rest of the order is more or less arbitrary. I’m also including some from the runners up list
1. J.R.R. Tolkien
2. George R.R. Martin
3. Neil Gaiman
4. Roger Zelazny
5. Shirley Jackson
6. Christopher Priest
7. Dan Simmons
8. Richard Matheson
9.Ursula K. LeGuin
10. Madeline L’Engle
Just for fun, here are a few that I consider to be great writers but not great idea people (for the record, I still consider them very much worth reading)
1. C.S. Lewis
2. Ray Bradbury
3. Douglas Adams
And some who are great at ideas but not so great at prose
1. Isaac Asimov
2. Arthur C. Clarke
3. Philip K. Dick (though you could argue his manic, unskilled prose is on some level brilliant)
4. China Mieville
5. H.G. Wells
6. Michael Crichton
7. H.P. Lovecrat
Great list, Ben! Thanks for sharing that!
Thanks so much for the list. I have read some of the authors on the lower lists (Asimov, Clarke, Lewis, Bradbury, and Adams), but only Tolkien from the primary list. I am looking forward to discovering these other authors in 2015. I think I will start with “The ocean at the end of the lane” since it had such a great review from you.
You’re welcome! I would recommend all of the authors on all the lists – or at least I’d recommend some of their works. Some from the lower lists I even personally prefer to those in the top list. But the ability to have great ideas and great pose is a rarity and they deserve to be recognized for possessing it