What authors inspire you?

As writers we are often readers and someone made us want to write. I'm curious on what authors inspired you to write - or currently still inspire you - and why. What in their works made you want to write?

for me,

Stephen King

• the first stephen king novel i read was "the girl who loved tom gordon" and it was dark and chilling for the young child i was. it sparked my imagination and made me think about my own scenarios that i wanted to write out. as i continued reading his works, i fell more and more in love with his almost-reality stories that chill to the bone.

Robert R. McCammon

• easily my favorite author of all time, his novels have always struck me as extremely well-written and frankly life consuming at times. i can read his works over and over and still be amused with the story. his works have become a piece of me and if i hit a slump i find that reading his books often will help me get back into the writing mood.

J.K. Rowling

• i got most of my start with Harry Potter role-playing and met most of my friends through it, so it's no surprise that she still inspires me. it's not just her books that make me feel encouraged to write but her tenacity in which she tried and tried again to get her works published.

what about you?
what authors inspire you?
why?

I've read a lot of authors that I sincerely love but....and it might be cliche? I suppose to list him but Edgar Allen Poe is/was my biggest form of inspiration. He's the one who introduced me to the darker side of writing [when I was younger anyways] and is in part a big reason why I love a lot of the themes I do now. c=

I've got a pretty solid crew of authors to draw from, but hte big ones...

Guy Gavriel Kay
I found one o fhis books in the library, read a third of it, and left it there, planning t finish it the next day. Bok was gone, and I couldn't remember the name of it, or the author since I didn't need to know it! I spent years trying to find it, because I remembered the cover picture. Eventually did stumble onto it, bought it outright this time! Book was Last Light of the Sun, and Gods damn, it's a spectacular book.

He has a brilliant grasp of characters and perspective, making everything very distinct and memorable.

Neil Gaiman
Yeah, this guy falls inot the top three forme. He's got an excellent grasp of narrative and characters. He's not my favourite, and there are times he feels a bit meandering in his approach, but there's always so much world building done, and it's always enough to keep me drawn in, so he definitely ets the nod from me.

And finally, the top pick of mine, the bar by which I measure other writers...


Bought the first book of his Big Damn Series, Gardens of hte mon, books one of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, on a whim, looking to try out a new fantasy series. And Holy Fucking Gods was that a good call! Some of the deepest world building outside of Tolkien, tremendous effort to avoid tropes, trained as an anthropologist and archaeologist, he puts all of that effort into making his empires and people feel much more grounded. Specifically avoids the habit of simply basing places on real world locations, historical or otherwise. It is some of the densest reading I've ever encountered, with more story and detail in a hundred pages than some novels four times that count have in their entirety.

It's probably pretty obvious, but Anne Rice influenced and inspired me quite a bit as a teenager.

All of them, really. Well, at least all of the ones I’ve read. But here are a few specifics:

H. P. Lovecraft
I was an impressionable young teen when I first happened upon an Arkansas House hardback if his stories in the library, and they resulted in an irrational dread of going into the basement after laundry when I was fourteen (Puckman’s Model and At The Mountains Of Madness) really got under my skin). As an adult it’s hard to overlook the excesses of racism and xenophobia in his stories, not to mention the complete lack of characterization in his protagonists, but nobody layers on the atmosphere like the Old Man of Providence.

E. E. “Doc” Smith
Hands-down the master of gigantic scale space opera. You think the Dearh Star is impressive. Galactic Civilization and Boskone both fielded fleets of Death Stars in the Lensman series. Some of the gender politics and racial issues in his stories are terribly dated by today’s standards, but Doc Smith was fairly progressive for his day. Unlike HPL, above.

Ken Hite and Tim Powers
Ken Hite writes stories and game books with themes of hidden and occult history (The Nazi Occult, Day After Ragnarok, Nephilim, Trail of Cthulhu, and so on). Tim Powers is the novelist he wants to be when he grows up, and On Stranger Tides and Last Call messed me up in the best way possible.

Seanan McGuire
Every Heart A Doorway haunts me.

Oscar Wilde
I’m nowhere in his league, but Wilde left me with a love of witty repartee that has never died. Steven Brust’s The Phoenix Guard did the same.

I could keep going here, but I’ll end with Edgar Rice Burroughs and Charles Stross - two masters of world building - and give honorable mentions to Terry Pritchett, Neil Gaiman, Anne Rice, Loren Coleman, John Keel, and all the people who wrote all the mythology books I’ve devoured in my life.

C. J. Cherryh. Her particular flavor of science fiction had more influence on me than anything else. Wave Without a Shore and Serpents Kiss were beloved parts of my childhood

For as much of a curmudgeon as he is, I do have a strong liking for the works of Alan Moore. The grit to his tone, the way he can take tropes/characters and expertly twist them into new frameworks (e.g Watchmen being superheroes told through the lens of a gritty noir story, or Miracleman being Superman retold as a horror story, or anything he's done with the League of Extraordinary Gentleman) has really fueled my interest for some time now.

TheCorsair said:

E. E. “Doc” Smith
Hands-down the master of gigantic scale space opera. You think the Dearh Star is impressive. Galactic Civilization and Boskone both fielded fleets of Death Stars in the Lensman series. Some of the gender politics and racial issues in his stories are terribly dated by today’s standards, but Doc Smith was fairly progressive for his day. Unlike HPL, above.

Click to expand...

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBOdAthOo88[/video]

I goddamn love Skylark of Space.

Stephen King

i got into Stephen King as a teen. One of the things I appreciated and made him unlike any other author I'd ever read was that he wasn't scared to kill of his major characters, or to write unhappy endings. The major difference between him and Dean Koontz, I thought, the latter who I also read a lot of at the same time.

Thomas Harris

Hannibal Lecter, one of most memorable characters in all of fiction.

Dennis Lehane

Specifically, Mystic River with its emotionally charged story, morally ambiguous characters and an ending in which lack of resolution was resolution in itself. He used ambiguity again to great effect again in Shutter Island.

Roald Dahl

Not his children's works, but the adult ones and collection of short-stories, a dark, messed-up twist in every tale.

Richard Laymon

The author who inspired me to want to write a pure, splatterpunk story. If only I could partners for them!

Michael Robotham

By far, my favourite current author. Blends psychological suspense crime-fiction with brilliant characterisation, and a writing style I can't get enough of.

My favoeite authors are not necessarily the same ones that inspire me, but the ones that I get inspiration from include:

J.R.R. Tolkien:
It's no secret that I have a deep love of fantasy stories and Tolkien is arguably the father of modern High Fantasy.

I finally got around to reading the Hobbit last year and have recently taken up the Fellowship of the Ring.

Tolkien has this way of making even the worst of situations seems so whimsical, yet he can still create a powerful moment when need be and it's absolutely phenomenal.

Kind of a cliche choice, but J.K Rowling:
I only read the Harry Potter series all the way through for the first time less than six months ago, since then I read it two more times.

I love the subtle details she adds in that you notice on the second reading and I especially like how real the world she created feels. It adds so much depth and interest to the scenery.

Douglas Adams:
The Hitchhiker's Trilogy (yes, I know there are five books, the series is called a trilogy and it frustrates me so much) is a Science Fiction masterpiece.

It perfectly encapsulates the things many people don't enjoy about science fiction and exploit those things for jokes.

The absurdity or the humor and the mock scientific jargon never ceased to amaze me while I read it and it still makes me smile whenever I think about that series.

Michael Chabon

Ursula K Le Guin

David Foster Wallace

F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm really inspired by Terry Pratchett. I love how effortlessly clever he is, I'd love to be able to develop my writing skills like that someday. I also like Arthur Conan Doyle, his depiction of Holmes makes the character come to life. I can see why so many people thought he was real. He "feels" more real to me than any other fictional character.

kurt vonnegut - writing philosophies, prose, absurdity.

Do comic writers and mangaka count?
Since most of my inspiration kinda comes from Shounen anime and manga and fighting games... with my ADHD and aspergers it's kinda hard to sit down and read several pages of texts.

One massive inspiration to me has always been Hirohiko Araki. Mostly for how cerebral the fights become from Part 3 of JoJo's onwards.
Also I love how intricate and pretty esoteric the powers he creates for Stands (for the unaware, Stands are the power system in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure from Part 3 onward: Wikilink).
Man just... anytime anything JoJo related comes out I get mad inspired and it's awesome.