Top 5 novelists of all-time

[Batman1980]

1. J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Anne Rice
3. Michael Crichton
4. John Grisham
5. Nicholas Sparks
What do the rest of you think?

[Elandyll]

You might have wanted to specify "in English literature" I guess?

And the "of all time" seems a tad far fetched, but I guess you mean to call for people's opinion on the books they have actually read

[JJ]

I'd have to put Jules Verne in there somewhere.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I'm a little confused by your title. Do you mean the most talented novelists of all time? The most influential? Or is it the most successful?

From the choices you listed I'd say more than a few are very successful, but mediocre, writers. They are all modern writers, too. What about the authors of classic literature like Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, or Mark Twain? It's almost unconceivable that they would be left off the list, or rated behind Anne Rice and John Grisham.

[toef]

Dostoyevsky is the best.

[Jellybeans]

Charles Dickens,CS Lewis and J.K. Rowlings have to be way up there

[assydingo]

R.L. Stine

[GLaDOS]

1. Charles Dickens
2. J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jules Verne
4. C.S. Lewis
5. Ayn Rand

Honorable Mentions:

J.K. Rowling
Alan Moore
John Grisham
Stephen King
Tom Clancy

[gvortex7]

Some that weren't mentioned yet:

Isaac Asimov
Dean Koontz
Stephen King
John Milton
Herman Melville
Leo Tolstoy
Mark Twain
Virginia Woolf
Franz Kafka
T.S Eliot
D.H. Lawrence
George Orwell
Rudyard Kipling
Milan Kundera
Bram Stoker
Arthur C. Clarke
Edgar Rice Burroughs


Just to name a few.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by gvortex7

Some that weren't mentioned yet:

Isaac Asimov
Dean Koontz
Stephen King
John Milton
Herman Melville
Leo Tolstoy
Mark Twain
Virginia Woolf
Franz Kafka
T.S Eliot
D.H. Lawrence
George Orwell
Rudyard Kipling
Milan Kundera
Bram Stoker
Arthur C. Clarke
Edgar Rice Burroughs


Just to name a few.

I already mentioned Stephen King as an honorable mention.....

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by toefer

Dostoyevsky is the best.

That is my choice also for greatest novelist of all-time. Dickens would come in second. This will sound inflammatory, but Tolkien was little more than a hack who got very lucky that Dungeons and Dragons became such a predominant cultural touchstone late in the 20th century. A vastly overrated writer in modern times.

[Secretagentnumber6]

I gotta throw Faulkner in here.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

This will sound inflammatory, but Tolkien was little more than a hack who got very lucky that Dungeons and Dragons became such a predominant cultural touchstone late in the 20th century. A vastly overrated writer in modern times.

You mean like how Lord of the Rings was published 20 years before D&D was made?

One just doesn't become one of the most influential pieces of literary works in the 20th Century on luck.

Also, seeing as how you allude that people wouldn't have read Lord of the Rings without first getting into D&D you'd have to not include the 20 year gap between the two, and the fact that many people who like Lord of the Rings have never played D&D.

It doesn't sound inflammatory, it makes you sound {and rightly so} that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Logan

[cajmoyper]

Actually, Jade, it's your reading comprehension that makes you sound like maybe you don't know what you're talking about. He never said that D&D was solely responsible for LOTR's popularity. Besides, those books are probably as bored as I've ever been while reading.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by cajmoyper

Actually, Jade, it's your reading comprehension that makes you sound like maybe you don't know what you're talking about. He never said that D&D was solely responsible for LOTR's popularity. Besides, those books are probably as bored as I've ever been while reading.

Actually, you're wrong.

Saying that someone {a} is lucky because something happened {b}, means that the popularity of what they have done {c}is lucky that said something {b}happened otherwise it wouldn't be as popular as it was.

What he was saying was that if it weren't for D&D Lord of the Rings wouldn't be as popular as it was, seeing as how it was in print for 20 years before D&D showed it's face on the scene {and even then during the first years of D&D it wasn't even remotely THAT popular} is flat out wrong, and just a little bit on the asinine side of the equation. The books wouldn't have been in print for 20 years if they were written by a hack who got lucky.

Please, read his post, then read mine, and absorb what is being said before chewing on your foot.

Logan

[cajmoyper]

Listen, I'm not entirely sure you understood what either of us said and telling me to reread isn't going to change that. And to tell you the truth, I should know better than this to get into it with you because everyone around here is on to your MO. Instead of engaging in discussion with your peers, you would rather alienate, instigate, and talk down to every one around here.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by gvortex7

Some that weren't mentioned yet:

Isaac Asimov
Dean Koontz
Stephen King
John Milton
Herman Melville
Leo Tolstoy
Mark Twain
Virginia Woolf
Franz Kafka
T.S Eliot
D.H. Lawrence
George Orwell
Rudyard Kipling
Milan Kundera
Bram Stoker
Arthur C. Clarke
Edgar Rice Burroughs


Just to name a few.

Nice list despite the fact that several are not novelists.

[jhiggy23]

I really don't think there is any debate that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are the two greatest novelists of all time.

[assydingo]

Originally Posted by cajmoyper

Listen, I'm not entirely sure you understood what either of us said and telling me to reread isn't going to change that. And to tell you the truth, I should know better than this to get into it with you because everyone around here is on to your MO. Instead of engaging in discussion with your peers, you would rather alienate, instigate, and talk down to every one around here.

Weird. I never get that feeling from him at all.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

1. Charles Dickens
2. J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jules Verne
4. C.S. Lewis
5. Ayn Rand

Honorable Mentions:

J.K. Rowling
Alan Moore
John Grisham
Stephen King
Tom Clancy