I was just over on Facebook checking my account while listening to Conway Twitty going on about his love life. I never seem to post status updates over on Facebook anyone cares about. Anyways, I've been adding/joining fan groups of some of my favorite authors, writers that have very definitely had an influence on my style, approach or thinking about writing. I've been wanting to make a list of names for a while. I suppose now's as good a time as any and a blog is as good a format as any.
Here ya go:
Dashiell Hammett (author of Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon)
Raymond Chandler (pioneer of pulp noir; author of The Big Sleep)
Allen Ginsberg (Beat poet extraorinaire; author of Cosmopolitan Greetings and Howl)
Jack Kerouac (author of Blues and Haikus; Beat poet)
Richard Matheson (author of smart science fiction that delves deep into philosophy and even spirtualism; author of What Dreams May Come, I Am Legend -- the Will Smith movie SUCKED SHIT!!! BOOOOO!!! -- and The Incredible Shrinking Man)
Ernest Hemingway (pioneer of contemporary American literature styles; author of The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms)
Albert Camus (existential philosopher; author of The Stranger and Exile and the Kingdom)
Ray Bradbury (author of Golden Age science fiction and fantasy; author of Zen in the Art of Writing, Dandelion Wine, The Halloween Tree and Fahrenheit 451)
Philip K Dick (where other authors write about science in science fiction, Dick has written about the soul of human expression through science - if that makes sense; author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- which was made into the movie Blade Runner -- A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report)
Henry Charles Bukowski (a guy that lived a rough life and simply wrote about it when he wasn't working or spending time at the tracks like Hollywood Park or Los Alamitos; author of Ham on Rye, Post Office and Tales of Ordinary Madness)
Robert E Howard (creator of Conan and pioneer of the Sword & Sorcery genre)
This is a short list, of course. But it hits all the biggies.
Read them!
Friday, November 28, 2008
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1 comment:
I like P.K. Dick's early novels more than his later stuff. He infused a lot of his gnostic Christian stuff in his later novels--things that he had absorbed from that famous Episcopal Priest, James Pike, who he had come to know. I think his early stuff was more tightly plotted and satirical.His later novels were more philosophical and allegorical for his newfound religious views.
-Pete
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