Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Writers who should write more books

While driving home late last night, I conceived of today's blog topic.  Not too long ago, I wrote about sequels I could have done without.  This week, it's a trio of writers who I wish would write more books.

  • K.J. Bishop - As far as I know, Bishop has only written a handful of short stories.  That is, other than the work I know her most for, The Etched City.  Amazon recommended The Etched City to me sometime after reading Perdido Street Station in the dark years between The Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla.  A mercenary named Gwynn and a doctor named Raule flee the Copper County and arrive in the city of Ashmoil. Gwynn falls in love with a psychotic artist and gets a job working for a slave trader while Raule ministers to the poor.  It's firmly in the new weird genre but also feels like a western at time.  It's a damn fine book.  I just wish Bishop would write another one. 
  • John Moore - When the humor writers of the late 20th and early 21st century are tallied up, John Moore should be close to the top.  While he's more prolific than Bishop, he could definitely stand to write another thirty or forty novels.  Slay and Rescue, Heroics for Beginners, Unhandsome Prince, Bad Prince Charlie, and A Fate Worse Than Dragons are all hilarious fantasy spoofs.  I'll never forget when the Middle Aged Man of the Mountain tried to poison someone with Iocaine powder but wound up using iodine because he stubbornly refused to wear his glasses.
  • Barry Hughart - Hughart lept on the scene with Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was.  Two more books starring his hilarious duo, Master Li and Number Ten Ox, adventuring through ancient China.  From what I've heard, Hughart's horrid experiences with the publishing world made him quite in the middle of writing the fourth Master Li book.  It's a shame because Hughart was a breath of fresh air in the somewhat stagnant fantasy genre.  I read it twelve years ago and still remember lines from it from time to time.  "Nothing wrong with wet dreams.  A man meets a higher class of women that way."  Classic.

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