Thread 24499873

Who are the absolute best genre fiction writers when it comes to prose and style? For me hands down it's gotta be William Gibson, Raymond Chandler, and Thomas Pynchon.

I don't think anyone else comes close to these three, though I've heard Gene Wolfe has good prose (BotNS is on my tbr list).

Chandler is so good it makes my brain go silly. Just read "The Long Good-bye." It is such a rousing dreamscape of bygone days. Philip Marlow is my hero.

>>24499885
*Marlowe, sorry.

>>24499873 (OP)
All Americans?

>>24499873 (OP)
Calling Pynchon genre fiction and comparing him to Chandler and Gibson is a stretch, especially for GR. You can make an argument for e.g. Inherent Vice as a detective novel but despite Pynchon's pulp influences and blurring of the boundaries between literary and genre fiction, to which genre does GR supposedly conform?

Gibson is garbage. Pynchon isn't genre fiction.

>>24499873 (OP)
I don't know about the other 2 but Neuromancer read like an action movie which doesn't translate well to book form. He should've sent it to Hollywood as a script

>Gibson
Sometimes he's really good, like the Japan section of Neuromancer. And a lot of times he's pretty cringe. Reading "googled" and "hotmail" in Pattern Recogntion was odd.

>Chandler
Probably the best of the bunch. But sometimes he gets too into his style and you can see why he was so easily parodied.

>Pynchon
Sometimes great, sometimes reddit.

>Wolfe
Not good, unless using archaic words for parts of castles is good.

I personally think Tolkien has the best prose of genre fiction writers. Sometime Lovecraft as well.

James Ellroy. Like a more contemporary Chandler.

>>24499873 (OP)
>gibson

What “genre” is pynchon?

>>24500723
shit

>>24500723
Detective fiction

>>24500750
deals with it but not a part of it
>>24500767
maybe gives homage to it but still stands outside it

>>24500723
reddit

>>24500796
homages aren't real.

Everyone is mogged by Neal Stephenson.

>>24500937
Yeah, he gets my vote too. I think people dismiss him because they miss that Snow Crash was satirical.

>>24500937
I only read Anathem, basically a 3/5 for me. Not sure how this prose is superior to the US major names listed here over and over again (Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc.). Beats most hard scifi prose, but that is not an actual accomplishment.

NS nerds, what is his best book for prose?

GR was a finalist for nebula prize

>>24500750
Capeshit

Raymond Chandler is one of the greatest writers of all times.
I don't care about the other two

>>24501185
based take

>>24499873 (OP)
>Pynchon
>Genre
But Chandler I agree

Donald Westlake. His writing in Parker is very crisp

>>24499873 (OP)
Will Christopher Baer

>>24499873 (OP)
Andrew Vachss

>>24499873 (OP)
Craig Clevenger

>>24499885
>>24499873 (OP)
>>24499886
i listened to the audiobook of the big sleep and it was even better than reading because it had a great old style detective narrator doing "that" voice

>>24499896
>which genre does GR supposedly conform?
Wouldn't satire be a good place to put it in? Unironically curious. Haven't read GR fully, only excerpts

>>24503551
>people actually watch and post and repost this brainrot garbage

>>24501020
>and it lost
>and sci-fi fantasy never grew up

>>24503561
>t.

>>24499873 (OP)
Robert E. Howard
Harlan Ellison
Jack Vance

It's so cool that there is a Japanese edition of a Chandler novel translated by Murakami himself

Mickey Spillane

>>24504203
>Creator of Mike Hammer turns into a Jehova Witness in his late years
He was quite the character himself

>>24500723
Adventure

Peake is the best. Wolfe, Dunsany, Howard and Clark Ashton Smith are up there.

>>24504635
>Peake
>Dunsany
Should’ve been two of the first names brought up

Why no love for Elmore Leonard?

>>24499873 (OP)
Robert Silverberg
M. John Harrison
Stanisław Lem
Christopher Priest

Fritz Leiber
Evangeline Walton
George MacDonald
T.H. White

Tolkien

>>24503551
Nice of Garfield to blow up that gay ass Aston Martin

>>24503474
Will he what? Become a good writer?

>>24504790
Sci-fi and fantasy seem to dwarf any other genre fiction on here. But I love EL ever since I discovered him through Tarantino.

Ross Macdonald is a better prose stylist than Chandler.

>>24499896
I've seen his books described as "highbrow conspiracy thrillers," for what that's worth.

>ctrl + f
>"dashiell hammett"
>0 results
everyone hyping up chandler needs to check out hammett, the og hardboiled detective writer

>>24499873 (OP)
>>24499896
>>24506503
People are kind of missing the point of "genre fiction" when they call Pynchon that. Genre fiction isn't just about having certain common elements like spies, detectives and political conspiracies. It's about being primarily motivated by plot, usually a set stock of plots, and less so by things like character, atmosphere, or ideas. Pynchon's books do have complex plots but digressions and transgressions (on the typical expectations of plot) are the backbone of his books. He can spend a significant amount of time on a character's backstory only for them to play a very minor role in the overall narrative, or he can cut plots short before they amount to anything like a traditional climax. Genre fiction is much more strict about how you can tell a story.

>>24499873 (OP)
Fritz Leiber

>>24500977
What was the giant essay about Babylonian mythology supposed to satirize? It's a silly novel but not satire of anything in particular.

Pynchon has the best prose of any genre fiction writer and it’s not even close.

Alfred Bester

>>24506622
I tried reading The Maltese Falcon but couldn't get past his autistic descriptions of everything, including what type of pyjamas Sam Spade wore.

>>24500723
More like a melange, and even that in typically more postmodern, experimental, pastiche or highbrow ways — historical fiction, detective fiction, war fiction, political thriller, and sometimes even elements of science fiction.

>>24506622
Red Harvest is one of the coolest novels i have ever read.

>>24503551
lmao how have i never seen this webm till now