Wisdom of the Internet, I ask for your help

[jamjar]

Throwing myself on the mercy of the internet: can you give me the names of any living and active writers you particularly like. The writers should be thinky people,* but their books don't have to be Deep Worthy Tomes- middlebrow is ideal, genre is fine. Also preferably female, but this isn't massively important.

*Thinky people is a bit vague, and is kind of "I know them when I meet them/read their work/listen to an interview.", but I mean the people that give the impression of liking to think, liking to know and learn and explore and analyse, whatever field they write in.

ETA sorry, should have mentioned that they should be fiction writers, rather than non-fiction.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/__marcelo/]

Terry Pratchett is the first that comes to mind; he never writes "didactically," but it's clear in what he writes that he understands very well a lot of different issues. An anti-example would be Michel Crichton, who doesn't know what he's talking about, but he talks about it anyway with disdainful authority.

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

Damn, you beat me to Pratchett!

However, I would also like to offer up Neil Gaiman and Lois McMaster Bujold. Possibly Elizabeth Moon?

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Lois McMaster Bujold's a good one, definitely, as well as one of my favourite authors.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Have you read Nation yet? Picked it, up, read it all in one sitting, staying up too late to finish it off.

(and, becasue it's one of my favourite quotes, Ken McLeod on the difference between technothrillers and science fiction: "I think there's a distinction between science fiction and techno-thriller. The sort of thing that Michael Crichton writes is different from the sort of thing that Paul McAuley writes. Even when what Paul McAuley writes looks like a techno-thriller, he's actually sneakily writing science fiction in disguise. I attempt now and again to do the same thing. The difference is that in the techno-thriller, the lab eventually gets burned down, the genie gets back in the bottle, the evil scientist is defeated and so on. That's not the spirit of science fiction at all.")

[http://users.livejournal.com/__marcelo/]

The difference is that in the techno-thriller, the lab eventually gets burned down, the genie gets back in the bottle, the evil scientist is defeated and so on. That's not the spirit of science fiction at all. I like that very much! Change (happening or already happened) is one of the defining characteristics of science fiction.

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

Ursula Le Guin? Thinky, genre and female. And brilliant. Is that the kind of writer you mean?

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good example! I was also thinking of Sarah Monette, who is terribly thinky in the best way. I kind of adore her reviews of due South as much as her books.

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

How about Margaret Atwood?

I'm now looking through my Library Thing for ideas, but I've only ever done the books from my office and most non-children's fiction is in the living room.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Huh, I think children's fiction would be good as well. Some terribly think people write children's books.

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely! But the kids books in my office are mainly by dead people.

Isabel Allende was the only other author on my Library Thing that might meet your criteria.

[sarahdotcom.livejournal.com]

True - try Margaret Mahy, a NZ young adult (and children's - but it's her YA books you should read) writer.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

I love Margaret Mahy. I think I've had this conversation with girl_starfish-- I didn't know she was from New Zealand until then.

[sarahdotcom.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I'm glad you know of her already! I haven't read her in so long, I really need to rediscover her I think!

[sarahdotcom.livejournal.com]

hmm I will try to think. I'm much better when it comes to dead writers.

oooh can you please bring me the next Temeraire book tomorrow? If you don't mind carrying it around that is.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Will do. Remind me what ones you need?

[sarahdotcom.livejournal.com]

I've only read the first!

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

girly, you know me. PRATCHETT.

Hmm. Warren Ellis thinks a lot. Diane Duane thinks a lot in her blog, but not so much in her fiction. :facepalm: Gail Simone. DUH.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Hmm, Diane Duane, I wouldn't have thought of her. Thanks!

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

Katherine Dunn (Geek Love, Truck), Russell Hoban (Riddley Walker), Elizabeth McCracken (The Giant's House, Niagara Falls All Over Again), Doris Lessing (though I don't always agree with her perspective), Edwidge Danticat (Krik? Krak!), Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children), Delia Turner (Nameless Magery, genre writer), Michael Chabon, Steven Hall (The Raw Shark Texts), Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)... that's all I can think of offhand. I've heard a lot about Elizabeth Hand? Um. Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell). Okay, that's all I've got for now.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Michal Chabon-- I should have thought of him right off. And Susanna Clarke, or-- hm, maybe the guy that did the Bartimaeus books?

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Ah, I think I could reel off a load of books to recommend, but I can't think of owt to cite in this case - by which I mean an author whose writing shows insight into their philosophies/beliefs.

And then reading the comments above, I see various names that could/should come to mind.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

It's funny the names that have come up that have me going "yes, that one."

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Indeed.
For interesting authors - Boris Akunin for his Erast Fandorin series (Holmes done by Dostoyevsky); Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir; oh so many others.

[saffronra.livejournal.com]

Hmmm Kazuo Ishiguro, Banana Yoshimoto (female, iirc), Dave Eggers (though he strikes me as more pretentious than thinky) and my best friend would prod me into saying Iain Banks (though I've not yet had the pleasure).

[sarahdotcom.livejournal.com]

oooh, good choices!

[lunar-scythe.livejournal.com]

Mercedes Lackey(her books have a kind of 'ideal world' undertone, but not everything's perfect in them)

and Tamora Pierce?

both write fantasy; Pierce's books are usually in the YA section; and please tell me you've of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books? Especially Magic's Pawn, lol; that book introduced me to both adult fantasy novels, and the concept of homosexual romance, back when I was 12 or so.(gee, is it any wonder I read so much slash?)

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd call Mercedes Lackey a thinky author. Her books aren't-- hm. They aren't convention-breaking and they don't feel like... oh, this is hard to put into words.

With some authors, their work shows a depth of creation. The world is clearly realised, the structure of it internally coherent and consistent, it's new and says things about humanity/sentience/whatever. Things are different and there's a reason for those differences, outcomes that all fit in with the logic and rules of that world.

Some authors, they show a depth of research. It feels Norse or Roman or 1960s Minneapolis, not just in decorations but in tiny details and big mindsets. Or it's a completely new world, fantasy or sci-fi, but it's perfectly realised.

I like Tamora Pierce-- one of the first books I ever ordered (back when amazon was still only a dream and you went into a bookshop and filled out a form and gave a £0.20 deposit) was the last one in the Lionness series and Amazon. The thing is, I like her, but I feel like Diana Wynne Jones (another children's/YA book writer that I still love) comes across as more thinky.

[slob-child.livejournal.com]

I actually have a lot of issues with Diana Wynne Jones. I feel that she does a stellar job with her STORY-TELLING, but that she drops the ball a lot with her female characters. I blanked most of Howl's Moving Castle out of my head, but I remember being so very outraged for the majority of her Chrestomanci series. I think the worst of the lot was in Conrad's Fate, with the mother who was villainized and ridiculed for producing works of feminist theory/criticism which never sold (I think she literally was a madwoman in the attic?) to the older sister who, I don't remember the specific detail here, but I think was a walking set of reproductive organs? And then the bad guy was a bad girl? I can't read her work anymore; it hurts me too much inside.

For kidlit, I do like Tamora Pierce, mostly in her "Protector of the Small" series and a little in her "Circle of Magic" series, because she does deal with and address issues of sex, gender, orientation, race, and class; and she does so in a way that doesn't make the issues hard to access or parody/mock them. She's honest but not obvious about the ideas she tries to get across, ie. Kel's mentioning that in the Yamani Isles, to be homosexual isn't considered wrong; Daja realizing she's gay; Daine turning from condemning Immortals to advocating for them; etc. Pierce doesn't have a thinky writing style, but she does present ideologies and deconstructs them through her narratives in a way that her YA readers can easily understand and identify with. (haha, sorry, this turned into a raaaaant)

Also, Philip Pullman wrote His Dark Materials trilogy, which was kind of ridiculously amazing, though it had its own share of problems.

/two cents

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

I think I read the first of Circle Of Magic, but never picked up the rest. I liked Protector of the Small and Wild Magic a lot, partly because I really liked the characters, but also because they dealt with things -like being openly female- that Alanna didn't have to. She had different challenges to overcome.

[slob-child.livejournal.com]

What I really, truly adore about Pierce's Tortall series is - not just that there are these female characters who are confronting societal issues and pressures surrounding their femaleness - but that they help each other out. In both the Immortals and Protector series, Alanna acts as a mentor and guide to Daine and Kel. This goes against the grain of most girl-centred children's lit, in which the strongest female presence is set in place to dominate the developing female presence, most often in a malicious sort of way. I'm thinking historically of texts such as "A Little Princess" where Sara Crewe is very much enslaved to what's her face, Miss Minchin I think - and also the contemporary Gaiman's "Coraline", where the Other Mother is inherently threatening and stifling. They present this dialectical argument that girls can only be heroines if they can struggle with and defeat villainnesses, which of course means that there is a dearth of fore-mothers because all the preceding generations to this one are obvs. so very evil omg. (Of course the inescapable irony is that the girl heroes grow into the women villains.)

Pierce disrupts that process and establishes a continuum of support, whereby Alanna acts as older sister to Daine and benefactor to Kel, and Daine acts as older sister to Kel, and Kel in turn in one scene in, I think it was Squire, provides a mentoring role to two hero-struck young girls.

Ahahaha, sorry again. It seems I have my English-major brain turned on tonight. *facepalm*

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

You make interesting points, actually. It does make me want to go back and reread a lot of my old books. There is a role in a lot of... hm. Traditional or traditionally styled children's stories for a younger sister figure, but not so much for equals giving support.

The friend or little sister is usually sweet and docile, they may be prettier than the heroine (often are, I think-- Katie Crackerjacks' sister is an example that springs to mind), but they're not as intelligent or as active. They're there to be protected or sheltered or -with The Little Princess- brought out of her shell, but they don't give peer support or support from above.

Out of curiosity, have you ever read Spell Me A Witch by Barbara Willard?

[navisx.livejournal.com]

Well for female authors who I'd call 'thinky' people, the only one that immediately springs to mind is Isobelle Carmody

But for generally thinky books Stephen Baxter's books are neat

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

All these names are making me nostalgic. I haven't read Isobelle Carmody in ages.

[navisx.livejournal.com]

Then you must read her latest book... the series is ALMOST concluded! After the latest one there's only one more to go :D

[slob-child.livejournal.com]

I second the Ursula LeGuin and Isobelle Carmody recs; also Nicola Griffith wrote this book called "Ammonite" that had a few problems, but which had an interesting presentation of contact and anthropology and gender construction in a world where there are no men. I've enjoyed Louise Erdrich as well; Haruki Murakami has some freakishly interesting prose, as does Yukio Mishima ("No longer human" will scar you for life). Ruth Ozeki wrote this book called "My Year of Meats" which is by turns heart breaking and hilarious, and has a very strong female authorial voice and deals extensively with female issues. You might also like Dionne Brand - I just read her text "What We All Long For", and it was amazing. If you feel like reading any kind of theory, Trinh T. Minh-ha is amazing and current.

Haha, I can babble books all day long if you let me.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

*brain goes blank* - I need to have you over sometime for dinner and bookshelf raiding.