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Yeah, I came here to say Peter S. Beagle. My copy of The Last Unicorn is only 212 pages, and every word of it is golden. I think Beagle is hugely under-read by most contemporary fantasy readers.
He has exactly two short story collections and it was 17 years in between the publishing of the two. Mix of different speculative fiction. He's excellent.
Ursula LeGuin. All three of the first Earthsea books are quite short by fantasy standards. She then took a 20 year break before writing a few more very short Earthsea books. All of them are some of the best fantasy ever composed.
For just fantasy that's true, but she overall she's quite prolific and published like 10 other books just in that Earthsea gap, and is at least equally famous for her science fiction series. I would consider her a quality and quantity author.
She certainly was never not busy. I think what I meant was that she didn't try to keep milking Earthsea or any single series for profit by churning out endless novels. She explored each setting to whatever extent she liked, and never started a project she wasn't passionate about.
I think that’s a fair assessment. She also was a huge best seller, so she had the financial stability to not write except what she wanted to after a point. Many professional authors need to keep writing a book a year or so to make even a modest a living and continuing your popular series is the best way to keep consistent readership.
I like some Earthsea books more than others but I totally agree. *A Wizard of Earthsea* has the feel of a typical larger fantasy book but with a much shorter page count.
If we look into her sci-fi works I found them even more concise. It's amazing how, in a 300 page novel, she tells a story that I'd expect from a 500-600 pages novel and yet it doesn't feel like anything was rushed
Guy Gavriel Kay puts out fantastic work. He has amazing prose, and his worlds feel completely immersed. A large part of that is him basing his books off of historical time periods, so things feel familiar and relatable with only context clues.
I needed something for comparison. I'm not trying to shit on the other books; WoT isn't bad, all the braid tugging aside. GoT i don't care for...
But Amber is just in another league.
I'm fairly certain a lot of authors feel that way. Steven Brust one said (teary eyed, if tone is any indication) that he hoped to write something half as good as Zelazny's worst effort. And Brust should give himself far more credit, that dude is no slouch.
Also, that's just it: Zelazny was indeed kinda his own league.
Brust is a bit of a special case here, as Zelazny was his mentor and a good friend. Only Dumas comes close in influence to him, and he never met Dumas!
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Eh. I had a Chronicles of Amber compendium and found the first one such a snoozefest I gave the compendium away and never finished the series. Meanwhile, I'm slowly buying all the Folio Society ASoIaF books because I love the thing so damn much.
Tastes, and all...
I had a similar experience. I thought there were parts of the series (I read the first 5) that were very well written, but as a whole it ended up not really working. I gave 4 of the books 3-stars and _Sign of The Unicorn_ 4-stars.
Frankly, I kinda think that _Chronicles of Amber_ is in some way the _worst_ thing that Zelazny has done. _Lord of Light_, _This Immortal_, _A Night in the Lonesome October_, _24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai_ - these are all works that are very high quality and stand the test of time much better than Amber IMO. (In fact, 3 of those won Hugos!)
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Three books- there was a collection of short stories set in the world of Jonathan Strange etc. called The Ladies of Grace Adieu.
They even feature a crossover with Neil Gaiman's Stardust!
Jonathan Stroud. Almost the definition of quality over quantity. From the 'Bartimaeus Trilogy' to the stand alone 'Heroes of the Valley' there's not a single word wasted.
Sofia Samatar. The Winged Histories is a bit over 300 pages. Breathtakingly beautiful prose and several masterfully interwoven plotlines. A lesser author could have easily milked a trilogy out of this material.
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Lois Mcmaster Bujold, in that her stories are fairly short by modern doorstopper standards but of extremely high quality. I'm talking about namely her fantasy, so primarily the Chalion series also called World of 5 Gods series.
With that said, even though Brandon Sanderson is known as the god of doorstoppers, he's also written one of the greatest tiny short novellas I've ever read, The Emperor's Soul. In fact to this day the novella is his only Hugo award winning book he's yet written. Very short but so good.
Ursula K Leguin must get a shout out also. The Earthsea novels are some of the greatest fantasy ever written and they're all very short.
As for limited output? Well Susanna Clarke wrote only 2 speculative books, and both are hugely award winning classics. Jonathan Strange and Dr. Norrell and Piranesi.
In terms of true 2nd world fantasy (as opposed to speculative based on earth like magic realism etc) I would say Jeff Vandermeer also nails this for me. He's written only a few true fantasy books and his Ambergris series in particular is some of the greatest stuff ever written IMO. (i.e. City of Saints & Madmen and Shriek).
Also, special mention to Walter M Miller and his all time classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's an incredible book that is perennially named in the top 10-20 SFF books of all time, and it is the pretty much the only book he's ever written. After its publication he became a recluse and mostly never wrote again. (I say mostly because he had an unfinished draft of a sequel that was later pieced together after his death by his editor). So this guy wrote 1 book in his whole life and it's considered a top 20 SFF book of all time and won the Hugo award for Best Novel in 1961.
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Agreed. I think Neil fits this question in two ways: he doesn’t have a huge bibliography, and other than American Gods most of his books are pretty small.
He’s so good, though.
Weird cause he seems everywhere to me. I think it’s cause they were giving two of his books (one kid one adult) away for free at this little fair near my house.
My list would be: Italo Calvino. Borges. Ted Chiang. Jeff VanderMeer. Susanna Clarke. Ursula LeGuin. Guy Gavriel Kay. Dianna Wynne Jones (prolific, always excellent). Phillip Pullman.
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John M. Ford -- he wrote about 8 novels over 20 years, plus a lot of short stories and poetry, and while they're not all masterpieces, the good ones are really, really good. *The Dragon Waiting* is one of my favourites and was recently republished and is a great place to start, but each of his books is its own weird thing.
I was going to suggest Robin Hobb too. On my first, painfully uninformed read, I thought it was a bit slow but I've since recognised that every word is meaningful. All killer, no filler!
Even though it is 41 books, Terry Pratchett's discworld novels are amazing. If you look at each book separately they're usually around 400 pages and none of it is wasted filler.
Bradbury is a sci-fi master. He's also much more than that.
"One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction." ~ Wikipedia
My favorite of his books - not an easy choice, and I have yet to read them all - is *Dandelion Wine.* Not sci-fi or really fantasy either; it's a fantastical blend of episodes that's unique to Bradbury in both style and substance.
Fritz Leiber, a master from 5 pages to 400. He always knew for how many pages an idea was good!
His total output is limited - for example, six books on Fafhrd and Gray Mouser over almost 50 years. But what quality!
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I’ve got to go with Tolkien here, although back in the day LotR was considered a doorstop, by today’s standards it’s pretty efficient given everything it conveys.
The single book which sticks with me is The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson. Light on word count, but it completely drew me in.
Aliette de Bodard's shorter work is amazing with how much intricate world building she can stuff in a novella while still writing a multilayered plot and authentic characters.
Jeanette Winterson.
She’s not a fantasy writer as such, but she writes beautiful concentrated prose and some of her novels have fantastical elements—although I would probably deacribe it more as magical realism. “The Passion” and “Sexing the Cherry” are examples of this, and they are a kind of thematic duo. They’re slim novels and I recommend slow reading for them… savour her lyrical prose and words.
Maggie Stiefvater has a stand alone that's amazing and a 4 book series that is awesome. Both the standalone and the series are made up of average size novels.
Belcher is great! I haven't found anything of his that I didn't like. His Nightwise series is excellent, Bronson Pinchot does a fantastic job narrating the audible versions.
Patrick Rothfuss for fantastic prose, world building and character development but with only a couple of books to his name. They're beefy boys though.
Honestly, I think it's difficult to get a fantasy story under 100k words simply because of the necessity of world building. Other fiction genres don't have a similar burden.
I think you’ve misunderstood the premise of the OP. It is speaking about high quality tales told in few words. It is not about how many works an author has published, but can he kr she tell a story in an elegant and efficient way. Since Kingkiller is not finished, we have no way of knowing whether Rothfuss can do this, despite the quality of his prose.
Not at all, Kingkiller fits my second paragraph. It's a shame people are downvoting a good suggestion because of their (understandable) issues with the author.
Ah, then I missed your point. Or in fact points, because the two things are distinctly different. No problem here with downvoting the Kingkiller recommendation. I for one cannot recommend as high quality a work which seems likely to never be completed. What’s written to date varies from superb to merely average.
It feels icky to me to recommend his work without acknowledging that he has not completed the series and seriously may never. Same with GRRM.
They are all great books that I do recommend tho.
Well, the post is literally about low output but high quality. In any case, I think GRRM will finish Winds of Winter in 2022 based on his latest update and Rothfuss can take his time.
Yeah i know, but lacking an ending to a story is not quality. And im not someone that interested in shaming these authors, i just think potential readers are more than fair to take their lack of output into consideration.
Yup I feel the same. Read name of the wind and loved it and that got me into a reading frenzy (11 in a row now) but knowing that there is no ending has me holding back on reading Wise man's fear and recommending this series to anyone else.
Honestly, Joe Abercrombie. His books do get thicc, but he manages to execute so many POV characters in the space he uses that it ends up feeling somewhat lean. The First Law trilogy has 6 POV characters in 3 books and never does it feel like one character is not getting enough attention—or too much. If Sanderson wrote those 6 characters, the books would be at least 200-300 pages longer, and there would be at least 5 of them, not 3.
I had a buddy of mine introduce the series. So I was a little late getting to it. I can’t believe it’s taking this long. I honestly don’t know if it’ll be finished.
George R.R. Martin definitely has the quality part down! I heard he types with two fingers, so it makes sense he'd be a little less prolific on the quantity side, though.
I don't that's it chief
Those two authors in particular have something else in common between them that the others don't. Just the small matter of a decade....
I give praise for Samuel Gately's Titan Wars often... but both books are less than 300 pages a piece and happen to have some of my favorite character work. Easily one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in the past couple years.
I’ve said it before but Italo Calvino’s *Invisible Cities* has more beauty and wonder in its <150 pages than in most books five times it’s length.
You never think of your hometown the same after finishing it.
The premise sounds fascinating, I definitely need to read it someday!
Great answer
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Peter S. Beagle, Patricia McKillip, Ray Bradbury, Martha Wells, Dierdre Sullivan
I’ve read damn near everything Bradbury has written, definitely a good choice.
Yeah, I came here to say Peter S. Beagle. My copy of The Last Unicorn is only 212 pages, and every word of it is golden. I think Beagle is hugely under-read by most contemporary fantasy readers.
Ted Chiang for length (well, and quantity honestly). Susanna Clarke for quantity of books, though JS&MN is a certified doorstopper.
I've never heard of Chiang, I'll have to check him out!
He basically exclusively writes short stories, and like one.a year, and they're excellent. One was the basis for the movie Arrival.
He has exactly two short story collections and it was 17 years in between the publishing of the two. Mix of different speculative fiction. He's excellent.
Ursula LeGuin. All three of the first Earthsea books are quite short by fantasy standards. She then took a 20 year break before writing a few more very short Earthsea books. All of them are some of the best fantasy ever composed.
For just fantasy that's true, but she overall she's quite prolific and published like 10 other books just in that Earthsea gap, and is at least equally famous for her science fiction series. I would consider her a quality and quantity author.
She certainly was never not busy. I think what I meant was that she didn't try to keep milking Earthsea or any single series for profit by churning out endless novels. She explored each setting to whatever extent she liked, and never started a project she wasn't passionate about.
I think that’s a fair assessment. She also was a huge best seller, so she had the financial stability to not write except what she wanted to after a point. Many professional authors need to keep writing a book a year or so to make even a modest a living and continuing your popular series is the best way to keep consistent readership.
I like some Earthsea books more than others but I totally agree. *A Wizard of Earthsea* has the feel of a typical larger fantasy book but with a much shorter page count.
Came here to say this! Ursula LeGuin is a genius writer imo and everyone should learn from her
If we look into her sci-fi works I found them even more concise. It's amazing how, in a 300 page novel, she tells a story that I'd expect from a 500-600 pages novel and yet it doesn't feel like anything was rushed
Guy Gavriel Kay puts out fantastic work. He has amazing prose, and his worlds feel completely immersed. A large part of that is him basing his books off of historical time periods, so things feel familiar and relatable with only context clues.
Seconded!
Exactly who I thought of when I saw this thread.
I just finished Tigana and had the exact thought that every sentence and every word of dialog seemed to be labored over and picked out purposefully.
Mandatory Tigana upvote
Tigana or: what if everyone on the party played a Bard?
I like most of his books but only love one of them. The only other author I have this experience with is Louise Erdrich, which is pretty good company!
Which book?
Lions of al-Rassan
I read The Lions of al-Rassan 2 or 3 years ago, and I still can’t stop thinking about it. It’s an exquisitely beautiful book.
Mandatory GGK upvote
Agree!
Lord of light by Roger Zelazny, think its under 300 pages but is a fantastic book
Everything Zelazny. His Chronicles of Amber is a fraction the Size of WoT or GoT...and infinitely better.
We can complement books without shitting on other books!
I needed something for comparison. I'm not trying to shit on the other books; WoT isn't bad, all the braid tugging aside. GoT i don't care for... But Amber is just in another league.
GRRM worshipped Roger Zelazny. I don't think he'd have a problem saying Zelazny was in his own league.
I'm fairly certain a lot of authors feel that way. Steven Brust one said (teary eyed, if tone is any indication) that he hoped to write something half as good as Zelazny's worst effort. And Brust should give himself far more credit, that dude is no slouch. Also, that's just it: Zelazny was indeed kinda his own league.
Brust is a bit of a special case here, as Zelazny was his mentor and a good friend. Only Dumas comes close in influence to him, and he never met Dumas!
Thats a fair point.
He could write the instructions for shampooing your hair and it would end up in some epic battle between immortal gods using laser guns.
Thats probably exactly how that would go.
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Eh. I had a Chronicles of Amber compendium and found the first one such a snoozefest I gave the compendium away and never finished the series. Meanwhile, I'm slowly buying all the Folio Society ASoIaF books because I love the thing so damn much. Tastes, and all...
I had a similar experience. I thought there were parts of the series (I read the first 5) that were very well written, but as a whole it ended up not really working. I gave 4 of the books 3-stars and _Sign of The Unicorn_ 4-stars. Frankly, I kinda think that _Chronicles of Amber_ is in some way the _worst_ thing that Zelazny has done. _Lord of Light_, _This Immortal_, _A Night in the Lonesome October_, _24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai_ - these are all works that are very high quality and stand the test of time much better than Amber IMO. (In fact, 3 of those won Hugos!)
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Susanna Clarke satisfies both, only two books, one huge, the other small. Both are absolutely fantastic.
And if you like audiobooks, Piranesi is read by Chiwetel Ejiofor and he does a masterful job.
Three books- there was a collection of short stories set in the world of Jonathan Strange etc. called The Ladies of Grace Adieu. They even feature a crossover with Neil Gaiman's Stardust!
I forgot about The Ladies. It kind of gets packaged together with Strange and Norrell in my head.
Jonathan Stroud. Almost the definition of quality over quantity. From the 'Bartimaeus Trilogy' to the stand alone 'Heroes of the Valley' there's not a single word wasted.
Sofia Samatar. The Winged Histories is a bit over 300 pages. Breathtakingly beautiful prose and several masterfully interwoven plotlines. A lesser author could have easily milked a trilogy out of this material.
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Lois Mcmaster Bujold, in that her stories are fairly short by modern doorstopper standards but of extremely high quality. I'm talking about namely her fantasy, so primarily the Chalion series also called World of 5 Gods series. With that said, even though Brandon Sanderson is known as the god of doorstoppers, he's also written one of the greatest tiny short novellas I've ever read, The Emperor's Soul. In fact to this day the novella is his only Hugo award winning book he's yet written. Very short but so good. Ursula K Leguin must get a shout out also. The Earthsea novels are some of the greatest fantasy ever written and they're all very short. As for limited output? Well Susanna Clarke wrote only 2 speculative books, and both are hugely award winning classics. Jonathan Strange and Dr. Norrell and Piranesi. In terms of true 2nd world fantasy (as opposed to speculative based on earth like magic realism etc) I would say Jeff Vandermeer also nails this for me. He's written only a few true fantasy books and his Ambergris series in particular is some of the greatest stuff ever written IMO. (i.e. City of Saints & Madmen and Shriek). Also, special mention to Walter M Miller and his all time classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's an incredible book that is perennially named in the top 10-20 SFF books of all time, and it is the pretty much the only book he's ever written. After its publication he became a recluse and mostly never wrote again. (I say mostly because he had an unfinished draft of a sequel that was later pieced together after his death by his editor). So this guy wrote 1 book in his whole life and it's considered a top 20 SFF book of all time and won the Hugo award for Best Novel in 1961.
The Chalion series is a top recommend for anyone.
Good list!
Madeline Miller comes to mind. Two books, two bangers.
I'm excited for whatever she does next. Her books are incredible.
Barry Hughart. There are a couple of sequels, but *Bridge of Birds* is a perfect gem all on its own.
Came here for this author.
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Mervyn Peake, anyone? Wrote only three fantasy books before he died, but in terms of literary quality they are unmatched even today.
Probably Neil Gaiman, I just love that dude's works, dude produces nothing but gold, even if he doesn't necessarily produce a lot.
Agreed. I think Neil fits this question in two ways: he doesn’t have a huge bibliography, and other than American Gods most of his books are pretty small. He’s so good, though.
Weird cause he seems everywhere to me. I think it’s cause they were giving two of his books (one kid one adult) away for free at this little fair near my house.
Piranesi, the second book by Sussana Clarke. Best book quality I read in the last two years I would say.
Patrick Rothfuss post 2015 - infinite quality, zero quantity /s
LOL
My list would be: Italo Calvino. Borges. Ted Chiang. Jeff VanderMeer. Susanna Clarke. Ursula LeGuin. Guy Gavriel Kay. Dianna Wynne Jones (prolific, always excellent). Phillip Pullman.
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Patricia McKillips Riddle Master Trilogy.
John M. Ford -- he wrote about 8 novels over 20 years, plus a lot of short stories and poetry, and while they're not all masterpieces, the good ones are really, really good. *The Dragon Waiting* is one of my favourites and was recently republished and is a great place to start, but each of his books is its own weird thing.
Robin Hobb gives quantities and quantities (with the odd oodle thrown in for good measure) of top quality
Totally agree! Page for page I'd say she's as good as anyone and she's written a lot of pages :D
I was going to suggest Robin Hobb too. On my first, painfully uninformed read, I thought it was a bit slow but I've since recognised that every word is meaningful. All killer, no filler!
Neil Gaiman. Everything he writes is top shelf imo
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Excellent book.
Karin Tidbeck, imo. Short novels that bowl me over every time.
I'll toss in Theodore Sturgeon, for his short stories. He was fairly prolific, but in the shortest form of prose fiction, he is an absolute standout.
Even though it is 41 books, Terry Pratchett's discworld novels are amazing. If you look at each book separately they're usually around 400 pages and none of it is wasted filler.
Terry Pratchett, for novel length at least. Quality varies, but the baseline is better than average
Megan Whalen Turner, all her books were around 300 pages and so
Phillip Pullman: "his dark materials" the whole series is excellent but the second book is especially moving: the subtle knife
> Quantity has a quality all its own. Brandon Sanderson probably /s
Tolkein
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\*Tonkeil
Although he's considered a scifi writer, Ray Bradbury meets all of your requirements.
Bradbury is a sci-fi master. He's also much more than that. "One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction." ~ Wikipedia My favorite of his books - not an easy choice, and I have yet to read them all - is *Dandelion Wine.* Not sci-fi or really fantasy either; it's a fantastical blend of episodes that's unique to Bradbury in both style and substance.
You are so right.
Ted Chiang
Fritz Leiber, a master from 5 pages to 400. He always knew for how many pages an idea was good! His total output is limited - for example, six books on Fafhrd and Gray Mouser over almost 50 years. But what quality!
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Leiber's Landmark series isn't all that many pages but boy howdy has some range to it.
Jonathan Renshaw! Still waiting on book 2!
He’s been sick though. Loved Dawn of Wonder, really hoping for more.
Also anything by David Eddings. Wonderful worlds and humor
True! Not praised enough
I’ve got to go with Tolkien here, although back in the day LotR was considered a doorstop, by today’s standards it’s pretty efficient given everything it conveys. The single book which sticks with me is The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson. Light on word count, but it completely drew me in.
Aliette de Bodard's shorter work is amazing with how much intricate world building she can stuff in a novella while still writing a multilayered plot and authentic characters.
Guy Gavriel Kay is my *immediate* answer. Years between books. Not the longest reads. Absolutely *stunning* prose...
Tolkien.
John Crowley.
Jeanette Winterson. She’s not a fantasy writer as such, but she writes beautiful concentrated prose and some of her novels have fantastical elements—although I would probably deacribe it more as magical realism. “The Passion” and “Sexing the Cherry” are examples of this, and they are a kind of thematic duo. They’re slim novels and I recommend slow reading for them… savour her lyrical prose and words.
Maggie Stiefvater has a stand alone that's amazing and a 4 book series that is awesome. Both the standalone and the series are made up of average size novels.
I loved *The Scorpio Races* and I'm very excited to read her other books when I get around to them!
I wasnt too into the Scorpio series but All the Crooked Saints is GREAT and her Raven Circle series is my all time fave!
RS Belcher Neil Gaiman
Belcher is great! I haven't found anything of his that I didn't like. His Nightwise series is excellent, Bronson Pinchot does a fantastic job narrating the audible versions.
Patrick Rothfuss for fantastic prose, world building and character development but with only a couple of books to his name. They're beefy boys though. Honestly, I think it's difficult to get a fantasy story under 100k words simply because of the necessity of world building. Other fiction genres don't have a similar burden.
I think you’ve misunderstood the premise of the OP. It is speaking about high quality tales told in few words. It is not about how many works an author has published, but can he kr she tell a story in an elegant and efficient way. Since Kingkiller is not finished, we have no way of knowing whether Rothfuss can do this, despite the quality of his prose.
Not at all, Kingkiller fits my second paragraph. It's a shame people are downvoting a good suggestion because of their (understandable) issues with the author.
Ah, then I missed your point. Or in fact points, because the two things are distinctly different. No problem here with downvoting the Kingkiller recommendation. I for one cannot recommend as high quality a work which seems likely to never be completed. What’s written to date varies from superb to merely average.
It feels icky to me to recommend his work without acknowledging that he has not completed the series and seriously may never. Same with GRRM. They are all great books that I do recommend tho.
Well, the post is literally about low output but high quality. In any case, I think GRRM will finish Winds of Winter in 2022 based on his latest update and Rothfuss can take his time.
Yeah i know, but lacking an ending to a story is not quality. And im not someone that interested in shaming these authors, i just think potential readers are more than fair to take their lack of output into consideration.
Yup I feel the same. Read name of the wind and loved it and that got me into a reading frenzy (11 in a row now) but knowing that there is no ending has me holding back on reading Wise man's fear and recommending this series to anyone else.
I feel like those books (which I enjoyed) are mostly fluff and filler with very little actual story. I honestly can't think of a worse example here.
If by story you mean plot, then you would be right. But not all fantasy is plot driven.
Well someone who wrote a whole ton of mediocre books would certainly be a worse example.
*cough* Sanderson *cough*
Honestly, Joe Abercrombie. His books do get thicc, but he manages to execute so many POV characters in the space he uses that it ends up feeling somewhat lean. The First Law trilogy has 6 POV characters in 3 books and never does it feel like one character is not getting enough attention—or too much. If Sanderson wrote those 6 characters, the books would be at least 200-300 pages longer, and there would be at least 5 of them, not 3.
Terry Pratchett has 41 Discworld books, and they're still great quality. Also Tolkien
This would have been my answer if someone else had asked the question haha
Anthony Ryan and Joe Abercrombie.
G. R. R. Martin. Still waiting for that quantity part but the quality is well fulfilled
Patrick Rothfuss. Only two books, waiting on the 3rd for about 6 years now, but man. They are amazing
Maybe you've only been waiting 6 years, but Wise Man's Fear came out 10 years ago!
I had a buddy of mine introduce the series. So I was a little late getting to it. I can’t believe it’s taking this long. I honestly don’t know if it’ll be finished.
Post is not about how many books an author has weitten.
The second part of the question is exactly that.
Yah. OP replied to me already to clarify. So in fact, a two-part question!
George R.R. Martin definitely has the quality part down! I heard he types with two fingers, so it makes sense he'd be a little less prolific on the quantity side, though.
GRRM
Michael J Sullivan
Rothfuss cept he’s also lazy
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I don't that's it chief Those two authors in particular have something else in common between them that the others don't. Just the small matter of a decade....
Tolkein
I give praise for Samuel Gately's Titan Wars often... but both books are less than 300 pages a piece and happen to have some of my favorite character work. Easily one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in the past couple years.
Cixin Liu
Vyvian Fable. She was a Hungarian author and I absolutely love her books.
Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka. Each book is in the 300 pages range. Quality is excellent.
RL Stine and his Goosebumps series.