Underappreciateds

A short list of Underappreciated Authors:*

• P. C. Hodgell: It’s amazing how little-known she is, how badly underpublished, and how wonderful a writer of high fantasy. Dark, funny high fantasy.
• Andreas Eschbach: Has not found the kind of English audience that he richly deserves. Okay, so he’s extremely strange. Even for those of you who don’t like strange (why are you here?), he’s worth it. For those of us who treasure strangeness, The Carpet Makers, for example, is…well, a treasure.
• Ray Vukcevich: Buy his short fiction collection. And don’t be nervous about being weirded out or crying or having your heart broken by a little boy who’s incredibly generous on a cruel Christmas.
• Keith Miller: A lovely, poetic story in a fairy tale stlye, The Book of Flying is a set of interconnected parts of the main character’s life, each a story of its own.
• Scarlett Thomas, The End of Mr. Y: This is a fast-paced thriller. It is also a literary work of incredible breadth of allusion. And it’s a philosophically thought-provoking “idea book.” She wraps these elements up so, so well. In fact, it was such a fantastic book that the slightly unfocused denouement (she tries to make it resonate with a certain myth that didn’t work for me, but may for other people), which would normally ruin a book for me, didn’t bother me at all. Read it now.

*Shortly to be longer, I’m sure.

Note: this is not meant to be a list of my favorite writers. This is a list of those of my favorite writers whom I feel are habitually ignored by the reading public/publishers/etc.