#33 Your recommendation > Likes and Comments

For this week's question, have you read an author whom you really enjoy but most of us have probably not read or heard of? Which author or book should we try?

I am a fan of Kage Baker (1952-2010). Her time travel series is wonderful.

Thomas wrote: "I am a fan of Kage Baker (1952-2010). Her time travel series is wonderful."

https://www.worldswithoutend.com/auth...

I suggest Chris Dietzel and his Great De-Evolution seriesThe Great De-evolution: The Complete Collection is both realistic and poignant on the end of the world.

R.A. Lafferty may not be much read nowadays. The Best of R. A. Lafferty has some great stories.

Thomas wrote: "I am a fan of Kage Baker (1952-2010). Her time travel series is wonderful."

I got a collection of her time travel stories, with an intro specifically written for the series and that intro jarred me a bit, because there a man gets access to a strange database about people from different times and they are depicted as "Joe from Spain" even if it is said that the Joe is from 500 BC and the reader in 25th century - in the former case there was no Spain and in the latter it can be that there will be no Spain. Moreover, another dossier was about someone from NY I guess, and next to him it was NY not the US, so this means the author cares enough top distinguish within the USA but doesn't care much for such detailization for the rest of the globe

Kage Baker’s immortal cyborg operatives in The Company series are privileged elitists who sometimes pretend to be gods to impress the locals. Here’s a passage from Mendoza in Hollywood as they sit down to watch McTeague, an early film by Eric Von Stroheim:
I should warn the more sensitive in our audience that some of the material is really, really racially offensive, okay? So I apologize to our Hispanic audience members in advance, and also to anybody who might have been Jewish when they were mortal—?” He looked inquiringly at Imarte.
“I was Chaldean,” she corrected him.
I put up my hand. “I was arrested by the Inquisition. Does that count?”
“I think that makes you an honorary Jew,” Porfirio said.

Thomas wrote: "Kage Baker’s immortal cyborg operatives in The Company series are privileged elitists who sometimes pretend to be gods to impress the locals. ..."

I'll try her story one day I hope, I just shared my impression about her intro and what triggered me there

Kage Baker is a name I’ve encountered but never actually read. For someone coming to the Company series fresh, would you start with In the Garden of Iden, or is one of the short-story collections a better introduction to what makes the series distinctive?

Martin wrote: “Would you start with The Garden of Eden?” I think so. It gives you Mendoza’s origin story.

I recoomend Karel Čapek. While many know that R.U.R. introduced the term "Robot" for a non-human worker, not many read it because most people don't read plays.

In addition to that play, which is worth reading, the novels "The Absolute at Large" and "War with the Newts" are quite interesting and fun to read. I've not yet read "Krakatit", but have it on my shelf.

Sadly, editions of his novels in English are not well edited. (Probably not much money to be made on expensive editions of obscure works already in the public domain.) But you can see the worth of the stories if you look past that.

Stephen wrote: "R.A. Lafferty may not be much read nowadays. The Best of R. A. Lafferty has some great stories."

His short stories certainly are often great. But quite odd!

I have a PDF of The Devil Is Dead which I hope to get to someday.

I'll have to look into Baker and Capek!

An author I have enjoyed is Scott Westerfeld. Not his Uglies & Pretties series but his Leviathan series and Succession duology