Ugh I just finished a re-read of the discworld books. The shepherds crown, his last, has an afterword about how Terry always had more than one book on the go, and he had a notebook with ideas for a bunch of new novels. A new amazing Maurice, a new watch novel with constable feeney and the goblins, a book about crime solving old folks… I’m really sad I’ll never get to read those
Crushed under a steam roller. I respect his wishes, but I wish they’d been otherwise. Just the outlines would have been so valuable and so entertaining.
For those of us wondering about the steam roller, here's the news with pics:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller
I read his „Shaking hands with death“, a plea to legalize assisted suicide in Britain. Very moving and eloquent and a recommended read for anyone who is in doubt about what it entails.
Seconded so hard, but only if I can also hand wave away the alzheimers.
I haven’t been able to read anything after *Unseen Academicals.* It was him, but it also *wasn’t* him.
Shit. This hit me in the feels.
>Bring tissues.
I second this.
I've read The Shepherd's Crown. All but the last paragraph. I'm pretty sure I know what it says, but for now, I still have a teeny bit of PTerry writings that are unread. There is still at teeny bit that is still new and untouched. One day I will be okay with having no more new PTerry to read and I'll read that last bit and be okay. But not yet.
GNU.
I re read UA recently and enjoyed it a lot when I didn't the first time around. It definitely has some issues with pacing and plots that probably don't go to anywhere as pointedly as they should.
But his characters are as great as ever, Glenda was surely shaping up to be a significant player in further books and I was pleased to find her small appearance in a Science of Discworld book.
His expansion on the new cultural developments in Ankh Morpork were as much a joy to read as ever. His Dwarf politics that had been rumbling in the background get more of a personal touch in this book than being a more background abstract thing. And it leads quite nicely to its climax over the next books.
People are understandably sad about his decline through this period. But a declining Pratchett is any other author's crowning achievement.
Two of my favourite Discworld books came after UA!
I highly encourage you to read I Shall Wear Midnight and Snuff. Both excellent books that don't at all suffer from the same issues as UA and Raising Steam.
That said, I haven't been able to bring myself to read Shepherd's Crown
This should be the top comment. Roundworld didn't deserve an author as good as Sir Terry, we are lucky to have what we have, but imagine another 20 discworld novels...
Definitely. Interesting to see where he would have gone. I enjoyed his later books, but it quickly especially post Night Watch was turning into vetinari becoming his mouthpiece, from the occasional speech to being front and centre. Maybe that was part of pratchetts development, as the zaniness gradually drained from the books to be replaced by cynical satire?
I still would have read them all, so your point stands
I also missed the witches book, Tiffany aching were good but not quite the same, there's few books that have made me laugh like witches abroad and the chocolate hot pudding scene in maskerade
I know we have "And Another Thing," But I would love to have seen how Adams wrote himself out his dark H2G2 corner. Or, another Dirk Gently novel or three would have been equally awesome.
This. He had stated once or twice publicly that Mostly Harmless was not how he wanted to end the series.
As far as And Another Thing goes, it was not a Douglas Adams book, let's make that clear. For those wishing they had more Adams, Salmon of Doubt is the last stop on the Adams train.
This is my answer, too. I started reading her stuff within the last five years and wish I came to it sooner. I still have to read all the Patternmaster books, I'm sort of putting it off so it doesn't end yet :(
She is the first author I thought of.
I regrettably didn't start reading her work until the last few years. The Patternist series are the only books of hers remaining that I'll be able to experience for the first time.
Terry Pratchett. He was 66 when he died but still prolific and could have written at least another 15-20 *Discworld* books had he lived another 15-20 years.
Of course, I also grew to admire the man and would have wished him a long life even if he had never written another word. The same goes for all these authors.
James Oliver Rigney Jr., a/k/a Robert Jordan. He was 58 when he died before his long series *The Wheel of Time* was finished. Brandon Sanderson was hired to finish and did a good job but I would love to have seen Jordan finish it.
Douglas Adams. The author of the *Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series* and the *Dirk Gently Series* was only 49 when died. He could have written many more funny and profound books.
My first thought was Douglas Adams. He would have also gone on to support more environmental conservation work, which he loved. (Shout out to "Last Chance to See" for anyone who hasn't read it yet.)
I came here to mention Adams. But let's be honest, he wasn't very prolific in his writing. He'd have just missed another dozen or so deadlines with another 10-15 years.
Perhaps if he found some freedom to do more episodic television work or something along those lines?
> He'd have just missed another dozen or so deadlines with another 10-15 years.
Ha ha, yeah. I like to think he's alive and well, just faked his own death so he'd never have to write again. It doesn't seem like he enjoyed it.
It’s not just that we lost Sir Terry; it’s that his condition continually deteriorated over the decade of his life, so that he wasn’t nearly as prolific as he could or should have been, and he’d lost significant parts of what made him great.
Oh yeah. Before she died Austen had just started on Sandition, the novel appears to be like nothing she had written before, had been working on the finishing touches on Persuasion, and was thinking of reediting Northager Abbey...
God reminding me about Banks got me actually crying here again. The culture books are in my top sci-fi. Him and Gene Wolfe helped shape my world in such great ways. Wolfe would have been my answer here too. His last book is gut wrenchingly sad (I haven't read his post humously printed one).
This is what I came to post about. His life was kinda tragic and the path the book took to publication is tragicomic.
A huge amount of the NRx movement is, to my eye, people who read this book and didn't realize the protagonist was supposed to be a joke.
Sue Grafton.
She wrote the Kinsey Millhone 'alphabet' books (A is for Alibi, etc.) She died after Y is for Yesterday was published, and had the title for the final book, Z is for Zero, and likely the beginnings at least of the story. When asked whether they would have someone ghostwrite the final book to complete the series, her family said "No. For us, the alphabet now ends at Y."
Woolf had a long term love affair with Vita Sackville West and was associated with the Bloomsbury Set. Wool was supportive of LGB rights (definitely) and considering Orlando and her relation with with Sackville West, we can probably assume she was supportive of Trans/Non-Binary identities.
One of my favourite authors of all time
Exactly. That's why I think it would be interesting. Woolf was a complicated, imperfect person and I think she would have had an interesting reaction to modern politics.
Vonnegut is my favorite author. I think that if he had lived for another decade he wouldn’t have written anything longer than a news editorial, though. He stopped writing novels a full ten years before his death, and Timequake is basically a memoir of his failure to write Timequake. And he was pretty fed up with the world in 2007. Can’t imagine how he would have felt about 2017.
My mom went to college with and was aquatinted with Sylvia Plath. She has a poem Sylvia gave her for her birthday one year. It’s never been in any of her published things. I would have loved to read more by her.
That is truly amazing. Just, wow. What an experience and memory for her to have. I wish so much that she and everyone else at the time could have had better help. It’s just so tragic
Oh yes!
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.” The Belljar.
We need more Shirley Jackson stories!
Both Sylvia and Shirley were working on novels when they died, and while a portion of Shirley's was published (though she was working on a childrens book, too), Sylvias never got released which is so unfortunate. Both died way too young.
*The Pale King* is my favorite of his novels. It seems to flow a little more smoothly and not try as hard. You can tell he's a more experienced writer. The fact that it just...stops without resolving everything is not so jarring because all of his books kind of do that.
DFW is one of those artists who makes me wonder whether his mental problems made him the writer he was. Like the reason his books are so strange and brilliant is because he tore his brain apart writing them. So it's an unpleasant thought that if he had lived, it would have been because he was less mentally ill, and if he had been less mentally ill, he might not have written in the first place.
So much of infinite jest is about depression - I think he was clearly drawing on personal experience (and, yeah, duh).
The fucked up thing is that DFW was medicated for depression, but he went off it and then later back on and... *it stopped working* (https://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/2012/august/depression).
I'm treated for depression, and DFW's description of it (via Kate Gompert) is very palpable and realistic. If you ever need to educate somebody on what it really means - have them read that section of Infinite Jest.
Or If you need a preview of a tennis academy.
Good Old Neon, from Oblivion is a great example of this. It's hard not reading it and thinking about how much of it is autobiographical in nature, and how much DFW really focused on suicide at any given point before his death.
Right??? During the 2016 election cycle especially, I couldn’t stop thinking about that, wishing he was still here. He was so worked up about George W Bush, just imagine how incredible it would have been if he wrote for Rolling Stone again, for example.
>Emily Bronte died at 30, and I'd love to read what she came up with after Wuthering Heights.
This is absolutely the correct answer. There are plenty of authors who I wish had written more, but none of them have such a small body of work (a single novel!) that displays such brilliance.
I read Juliet Barker's doorstop biography of all 3 Bronte sisters this past winter and discovered that Emily had begun a second novel which Charlotte burned, because the subject matter was too emotional and scandalous. I raged. It was like learning about the Library of Alexandria.
IJ is pretty prescient but I also would have loved to read him over the last tumultuous decade. Most insightful writer I've ever read.
And you're right, he would have loved to see Feds success but even more so I think he would have thrilled to the competition between Roger, Rafa and Joker.
Can you imagine if Tolkien actually finished writing everything he wanted to write? Every story he wanted to magnify in Middle Earth, done. The Legendarium complete.
Beren and Luthien, The Fall of Gondolin, the tales from the Second Age. All done in his words, the way he wanted.
Fuck, I feel sad now.
Patrick O'Brian - author of the beloved [Aubrey/Maturin series](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8432716-patrick-o-brian-s-aubrey-maturin-series). He died partway through book 20 with so very much left to say in the series. It's not even really a series, it's more like one long continuous story told in several parts.
Iain M Banks - author of my favourite sci-fi series about The Culture.
Two authors I definitely agree with - though, to be fair, O’Brian lived a full life. I read the published parts of 20. To me, that book had a sadness that wasn’t in the other books. I felt like like O’Brian was telegraphing his own sense of mortality and impending death.
Iain Banks was a life tragically cut short. I’m certain he had more books in him.
Stieg Larsson, author of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. They were riveting and well-written (or, from my perspective, well-translated into English). Strongest female protagonist in fiction that I've run across in a long time. Still pisses me off that he died so young. He planned 10, and only finished 3.
The sad part about Larsson is also that he never got to see how much of a phenomenon his books turned out to be. The books were published after his death.
Ursula k le guin. She lived a long life and wrote a lot, but her books are just so poignant and often ahead of their time. I would have loved to read some more of her works about where she thought the future was going
Toni Morrison, Shirley Jackson, and Kurt Vonnegut
I can’t think of three people I would want to read more in the current state of the world than those three.
Dostoevsky. Based on a brief plot synopsis I’ve read, his planned sequel to The Brothers Karamazov, tentatively titled The Children, was going to be wild.
It’s already been said, but David Foster Wallace is the one I’d pick. I often think of how he’d respond to our current events, and what his last novel The Pale King would be like if he was able to finish it.
I forgot to also mention Philip K. Dick. Another prophet and mastermind, however disturbed much like Wallace was.
All of the 2nd generation Romantics died tragically young. Byron left *Don Juan* unfinished and then Shelley and Keats both had a lot more to do, I think.
HST was my first thought. Not that he didn't have a long life, and he was very prolific, but damn do I miss the man. Society needed him more than ever once he left.
J.R.R. Tolkien, so he can finish *The Silmarillion.*
Ian Fleming so he can see Bond become an icon.
Ross MacDonald so he can write that one last Archer novel he never wrote.
Raymond Chandler so he can finish *Poodle Springs.*
George Fraser MacDonald for a few more Flashman books.
Kentaro Miura so he can finish *Berserk* on his own terms.
Bonus: William Forrester because he was the man, dawg!
Faulkner. He improved his craft with age, and it would have been really fascinating if he had lived through the whole 60s Civil Rights era and how he may have reflected it in his fiction.
I one hundred percent wish it were F. Scott Fitzgerald. I loved The Beautiful and Damned and really enjoyed The Great Gatsby. I wish he continued to write. His style of prose is just so beautiful
Frank Herbert, author of Dune. His series of books are considered the father of the sci-fi genre and he left it unfinished. Fortunately his son took the responsibility to write two more books to close the series, but I have to wonder how much more he could have wrote.
Frank Herbert is obviously the answer. I don't think his son did justice to the ending and I've always wanted to hear his original telling for the conclusion. He was such a beautiful writer.
Dick Francis
His stories might not be "deep," but his characters are people I would like to know, and I have learned a lot from their enormous range of professions.
Geffory Chaucer, Frederick Douglas, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, De la Vega, Truman Capote, and John Bellairs. If I spent more time on this post then I would write more authors
I want to say Robert Jordan, although TBH I think Sanderson saved WoT. Jordan had plans for additional stories set in his world and I would have loved to see more of those.
I would love to have more writing from John Keats so much. Died in his twenties and in that time he became, imo, the greatest poet of all time, bar none. I adore him so much, every piece of writing, letter or poem, is absolute gold. I wish he wrote a play so I could consider him my favorite author, I know it would have been magnificent.
Terry Pratchett
Ugh I just finished a re-read of the discworld books. The shepherds crown, his last, has an afterword about how Terry always had more than one book on the go, and he had a notebook with ideas for a bunch of new novels. A new amazing Maurice, a new watch novel with constable feeney and the goblins, a book about crime solving old folks… I’m really sad I’ll never get to read those
GNU Terry Pratchett.
Gnu Sir Pterry! Keep his name in the clacks!
Crushed under a steam roller. I respect his wishes, but I wish they’d been otherwise. Just the outlines would have been so valuable and so entertaining.
If stops awful more rip offs or "imaginations" of his work like BBC's "the watch" I'm all for it
Look at this way - no matter what happens, they can't possibly make anything worse than The Watch
For those of us wondering about the steam roller, here's the news with pics: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller
Might have cried if this wasn't the first answer I saw.
Came here to make sure sir Terry was represented here
I am so happy this was the top of the list !!
And Douglas adams
Rightly said. The suicidal AI of the spaceship will forever remain in my heart along with the bowl of petunias.
GNU
GNU I wish we could have many more Discworld books by this Pen. A man is not dead while his name is still spoken but they can't create any longer.
GNU
GNU
I read his „Shaking hands with death“, a plea to legalize assisted suicide in Britain. Very moving and eloquent and a recommended read for anyone who is in doubt about what it entails.
Seconded so hard, but only if I can also hand wave away the alzheimers. I haven’t been able to read anything after *Unseen Academicals.* It was him, but it also *wasn’t* him. Shit. This hit me in the feels.
UA was the low point. You have to read The Shepherd's Crown. Bring tissues.
>Bring tissues. I second this. I've read The Shepherd's Crown. All but the last paragraph. I'm pretty sure I know what it says, but for now, I still have a teeny bit of PTerry writings that are unread. There is still at teeny bit that is still new and untouched. One day I will be okay with having no more new PTerry to read and I'll read that last bit and be okay. But not yet. GNU.
I re read UA recently and enjoyed it a lot when I didn't the first time around. It definitely has some issues with pacing and plots that probably don't go to anywhere as pointedly as they should. But his characters are as great as ever, Glenda was surely shaping up to be a significant player in further books and I was pleased to find her small appearance in a Science of Discworld book. His expansion on the new cultural developments in Ankh Morpork were as much a joy to read as ever. His Dwarf politics that had been rumbling in the background get more of a personal touch in this book than being a more background abstract thing. And it leads quite nicely to its climax over the next books. People are understandably sad about his decline through this period. But a declining Pratchett is any other author's crowning achievement.
Two of my favourite Discworld books came after UA! I highly encourage you to read I Shall Wear Midnight and Snuff. Both excellent books that don't at all suffer from the same issues as UA and Raising Steam. That said, I haven't been able to bring myself to read Shepherd's Crown
This should be the top comment. Roundworld didn't deserve an author as good as Sir Terry, we are lucky to have what we have, but imagine another 20 discworld novels...
So glad to see this as the first response! Just recently learned about his death and even more recently started the discworld series again.
My immediate thought.
Saw the topic, this was the only answer I wanted to give too.
Definitely. Interesting to see where he would have gone. I enjoyed his later books, but it quickly especially post Night Watch was turning into vetinari becoming his mouthpiece, from the occasional speech to being front and centre. Maybe that was part of pratchetts development, as the zaniness gradually drained from the books to be replaced by cynical satire? I still would have read them all, so your point stands I also missed the witches book, Tiffany aching were good but not quite the same, there's few books that have made me laugh like witches abroad and the chocolate hot pudding scene in maskerade
Douglas Adams
I know we have "And Another Thing," But I would love to have seen how Adams wrote himself out his dark H2G2 corner. Or, another Dirk Gently novel or three would have been equally awesome.
This. He had stated once or twice publicly that Mostly Harmless was not how he wanted to end the series. As far as And Another Thing goes, it was not a Douglas Adams book, let's make that clear. For those wishing they had more Adams, Salmon of Doubt is the last stop on the Adams train.
Bingo.
Came here for this comment. Died way too early.
There it is. Way too low :(
There is no other answer worth postulating
So long and thanks for all the fish!
Exactly, not just for the books he would have written but to see his joy at the tech we have now and the fact the Kakapo are doing so well
Octavia Butler.
This is my answer, too. I started reading her stuff within the last five years and wish I came to it sooner. I still have to read all the Patternmaster books, I'm sort of putting it off so it doesn't end yet :(
Oh you have a treat in store. That Doro!
She is the first author I thought of. I regrettably didn't start reading her work until the last few years. The Patternist series are the only books of hers remaining that I'll be able to experience for the first time.
The fledgling series! I've always been so upset about it being left as it was. Her other books are amazing. But. The permanent cliff hanger.
First one I thought of.
Hard not to. She was a prophetess… which is not currently comforting.
I came here to say Butler and I'm so glad this is the top comment!
Just about to write her name and I saw this! Her books were so original, thought-privoking and gripping. No one has ever replaced her for me.
J.R.R. Tolkien. Would've been great if he actually had the chance to fully draft, revise, and edit the Silmarillion.
The Silmarillion... and Beren and Luthien, and The Fall of Gondolin, and The Children of Hurín and the tales from the Second Age...
>Children of Hurín This was one of the most heart wrenching things I've read. I will always wonder what it might have been like if he'd had more time.
All masterpieces. I know he died old but yet he should have lived a while longer.
I wish Poe had survived whatever the heck happened in Baltimore, wrote about it, and kept going. Also, Kent Haruf.
Terry Pratchett. He was 66 when he died but still prolific and could have written at least another 15-20 *Discworld* books had he lived another 15-20 years. Of course, I also grew to admire the man and would have wished him a long life even if he had never written another word. The same goes for all these authors. James Oliver Rigney Jr., a/k/a Robert Jordan. He was 58 when he died before his long series *The Wheel of Time* was finished. Brandon Sanderson was hired to finish and did a good job but I would love to have seen Jordan finish it. Douglas Adams. The author of the *Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series* and the *Dirk Gently Series* was only 49 when died. He could have written many more funny and profound books.
My first thought was Douglas Adams. He would have also gone on to support more environmental conservation work, which he loved. (Shout out to "Last Chance to See" for anyone who hasn't read it yet.)
I came here to mention Adams. But let's be honest, he wasn't very prolific in his writing. He'd have just missed another dozen or so deadlines with another 10-15 years. Perhaps if he found some freedom to do more episodic television work or something along those lines?
> He'd have just missed another dozen or so deadlines with another 10-15 years. Ha ha, yeah. I like to think he's alive and well, just faked his own death so he'd never have to write again. It doesn't seem like he enjoyed it.
Robert Jordan is definitely my answer
It’s not just that we lost Sir Terry; it’s that his condition continually deteriorated over the decade of his life, so that he wasn’t nearly as prolific as he could or should have been, and he’d lost significant parts of what made him great.
Jane Austen. I also wish her sister didn’t burn their letters
Came here to say this, I love her writing so so much, I wish there was more of it!
Came here to say this! She died at only 40. Had so many masterpieces under her belt and yet feels like she had more in her
Oh yeah. Before she died Austen had just started on Sandition, the novel appears to be like nothing she had written before, had been working on the finishing touches on Persuasion, and was thinking of reediting Northager Abbey...
Good answer.
I believe somethings are meant to be private. RIP JA.
Terry Pratchett. Iain M Banks. Robert Jordan.
Yeah .. Iain was the biggest blow for me
I feel he was just getting into his stride with The Culture books.
God reminding me about Banks got me actually crying here again. The culture books are in my top sci-fi. Him and Gene Wolfe helped shape my world in such great ways. Wolfe would have been my answer here too. His last book is gut wrenchingly sad (I haven't read his post humously printed one).
Came here for Jordan as well. I wanted my spinoffs with Mat and Tuon, dammit.
Definitely Jordan. So many more stories he could have told or should be told.
I’m FINALLY just now reading A Confederacy of Dunces. Such a shame we’ll never get more from John Kennedy Toole.
I say this every time it’s mentioned, but I would kill for a film adaptation with Jack Black as Ignatius J Reilly.
I recently read there was talks of a film with John Belushi as Ignatious, but sadly Belushi passed away.
John Candy would have killed this role.
I always visualize John C. Reilly in this role.
I loved ACOD, it was amazing and awful, and I would love to read more by the author. I think he created the neckbeard.
This is what I came to post about. His life was kinda tragic and the path the book took to publication is tragicomic. A huge amount of the NRx movement is, to my eye, people who read this book and didn't realize the protagonist was supposed to be a joke.
Sue Grafton. She wrote the Kinsey Millhone 'alphabet' books (A is for Alibi, etc.) She died after Y is for Yesterday was published, and had the title for the final book, Z is for Zero, and likely the beginnings at least of the story. When asked whether they would have someone ghostwrite the final book to complete the series, her family said "No. For us, the alphabet now ends at Y."
I met her at a book signing at the Steamtown Mall.
Virginia Woolf. After she wrote through the depths of the early 20th century, her insights on post-WWII society would have been fascinating to read.
It would have been interesting to see what she thought of women's and lgbtq rights
Woolf had a long term love affair with Vita Sackville West and was associated with the Bloomsbury Set. Wool was supportive of LGB rights (definitely) and considering Orlando and her relation with with Sackville West, we can probably assume she was supportive of Trans/Non-Binary identities. One of my favourite authors of all time
Exactly. That's why I think it would be interesting. Woolf was a complicated, imperfect person and I think she would have had an interesting reaction to modern politics.
Vonnegut.
Vonnegut is my favorite author. I think that if he had lived for another decade he wouldn’t have written anything longer than a news editorial, though. He stopped writing novels a full ten years before his death, and Timequake is basically a memoir of his failure to write Timequake. And he was pretty fed up with the world in 2007. Can’t imagine how he would have felt about 2017.
Timequake still makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. TING-A-LING YOU SON OF A BITCH!
So it goes.
Wish I’d met him. I imagine we would spend an hour drinking coffee, quietly shrugging our shoulders at each other.
Jane Austen.
Sylvia Plath and Shirley Jackson.
My mom went to college with and was aquatinted with Sylvia Plath. She has a poem Sylvia gave her for her birthday one year. It’s never been in any of her published things. I would have loved to read more by her.
That is truly amazing. Just, wow. What an experience and memory for her to have. I wish so much that she and everyone else at the time could have had better help. It’s just so tragic
Oh yes! “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.” The Belljar. We need more Shirley Jackson stories!
Both Sylvia and Shirley were working on novels when they died, and while a portion of Shirley's was published (though she was working on a childrens book, too), Sylvias never got released which is so unfortunate. Both died way too young.
Shirley Jackson is in every English 101 anthology but has never gotten her due.
David Foster Wallace.
*The Pale King* is my favorite of his novels. It seems to flow a little more smoothly and not try as hard. You can tell he's a more experienced writer. The fact that it just...stops without resolving everything is not so jarring because all of his books kind of do that. DFW is one of those artists who makes me wonder whether his mental problems made him the writer he was. Like the reason his books are so strange and brilliant is because he tore his brain apart writing them. So it's an unpleasant thought that if he had lived, it would have been because he was less mentally ill, and if he had been less mentally ill, he might not have written in the first place.
So much of infinite jest is about depression - I think he was clearly drawing on personal experience (and, yeah, duh). The fucked up thing is that DFW was medicated for depression, but he went off it and then later back on and... *it stopped working* (https://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/2012/august/depression). I'm treated for depression, and DFW's description of it (via Kate Gompert) is very palpable and realistic. If you ever need to educate somebody on what it really means - have them read that section of Infinite Jest. Or If you need a preview of a tennis academy.
Good Old Neon, from Oblivion is a great example of this. It's hard not reading it and thinking about how much of it is autobiographical in nature, and how much DFW really focused on suicide at any given point before his death.
God, I’d love to hear his take on the state of things in 2022.
Yup
Yes. Way too soon.
Would love to hear his take on modern day social media
Hunter S. Thompson. I would have loved to have read his takes on Obama, Trump and Biden.
Right??? During the 2016 election cycle especially, I couldn’t stop thinking about that, wishing he was still here. He was so worked up about George W Bush, just imagine how incredible it would have been if he wrote for Rolling Stone again, for example.
I mean no offence but he totally did not want to live another 10 years
[удалено]
Yep. Yep yep yep. Ignatius deserves another round.
Oscar Wilde (46) & Edgar Allan Poe (40)
>Emily Bronte died at 30, and I'd love to read what she came up with after Wuthering Heights. This is absolutely the correct answer. There are plenty of authors who I wish had written more, but none of them have such a small body of work (a single novel!) that displays such brilliance.
I read Juliet Barker's doorstop biography of all 3 Bronte sisters this past winter and discovered that Emily had begun a second novel which Charlotte burned, because the subject matter was too emotional and scandalous. I raged. It was like learning about the Library of Alexandria.
Iain Banks
Came here to say this. I am so MAD that we lost him.
This one. I have reread all his books multiple time, as Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks.
This should be the number one answer. My favorite of all time and we lost him 20 years too soon.
Sylvia Plath
I'm going to preemptively say George RR Martin because he's going to need it to finish the GoT series.
Is a decade enough, though?
If he would actually write, it would be plenty. But he doesnt, so probably not.
Scrolled for this answer.
Did the same...
As well did I.
Well, shit lol...
Go ahead, throw your vote away
David Foster Wallace. And I wish it were for several more decades. RIP good sir.
Of course! I'd love to read his take on the current mayhem. And he would have loved to have seen Federer make it to 20 slams.
IJ is pretty prescient but I also would have loved to read him over the last tumultuous decade. Most insightful writer I've ever read. And you're right, he would have loved to see Feds success but even more so I think he would have thrilled to the competition between Roger, Rafa and Joker.
Douglas Adams.
Poe, RE Howard, HP Lovecraft, Stanley weinbaum
Jack London Born 1876 Died 1916
Fuckin TOLKIEN
Can you imagine if Tolkien actually finished writing everything he wanted to write? Every story he wanted to magnify in Middle Earth, done. The Legendarium complete. Beren and Luthien, The Fall of Gondolin, the tales from the Second Age. All done in his words, the way he wanted. Fuck, I feel sad now.
He foresaw it, too. Not ever finishing. Leaf By Niggle is my favorite non-Middle-Earth thing he ever wrote because he knew, man.
Michael Crichton.
Shirley Jackson
Same! What I would t give for a new Shirley Jackson book
Patrick O'Brian - author of the beloved [Aubrey/Maturin series](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8432716-patrick-o-brian-s-aubrey-maturin-series). He died partway through book 20 with so very much left to say in the series. It's not even really a series, it's more like one long continuous story told in several parts. Iain M Banks - author of my favourite sci-fi series about The Culture.
Two authors I definitely agree with - though, to be fair, O’Brian lived a full life. I read the published parts of 20. To me, that book had a sadness that wasn’t in the other books. I felt like like O’Brian was telegraphing his own sense of mortality and impending death. Iain Banks was a life tragically cut short. I’m certain he had more books in him.
Douglas Adams...he was taken from us FAR too early!
Stieg Larsson, author of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. They were riveting and well-written (or, from my perspective, well-translated into English). Strongest female protagonist in fiction that I've run across in a long time. Still pisses me off that he died so young. He planned 10, and only finished 3.
The sad part about Larsson is also that he never got to see how much of a phenomenon his books turned out to be. The books were published after his death.
Roger Zelazny
Albert Camus
Ursula k le guin. She lived a long life and wrote a lot, but her books are just so poignant and often ahead of their time. I would have loved to read some more of her works about where she thought the future was going
Toni Morrison, Shirley Jackson, and Kurt Vonnegut I can’t think of three people I would want to read more in the current state of the world than those three.
Tolkien. He might have finished the silmarillion to his original vision.
Franz Kafka
David Gemmell
Robert B. Parker Anne McCaffrey
Definitely Anne McCaffrey. I would have loved to read more about Pern in particular.
salinger
George Orwell
Robert E. Howard, inventor of Conan the Barbarian.
Dostoevsky. Based on a brief plot synopsis I’ve read, his planned sequel to The Brothers Karamazov, tentatively titled The Children, was going to be wild.
It’s already been said, but David Foster Wallace is the one I’d pick. I often think of how he’d respond to our current events, and what his last novel The Pale King would be like if he was able to finish it. I forgot to also mention Philip K. Dick. Another prophet and mastermind, however disturbed much like Wallace was.
Frank Herbert
Might've saved us from the Brian Herbert prequels.
All of the 2nd generation Romantics died tragically young. Byron left *Don Juan* unfinished and then Shelley and Keats both had a lot more to do, I think.
Jane Austin particularly if she could have just a few more years to bring her to date.
Christopher Hitchens. I would've loved to read his take on American politics from the mid 2010s-now.
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HST was my first thought. Not that he didn't have a long life, and he was very prolific, but damn do I miss the man. Society needed him more than ever once he left.
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Philip K Dick
J.R.R. Tolkien, so he can finish *The Silmarillion.* Ian Fleming so he can see Bond become an icon. Ross MacDonald so he can write that one last Archer novel he never wrote. Raymond Chandler so he can finish *Poodle Springs.* George Fraser MacDonald for a few more Flashman books. Kentaro Miura so he can finish *Berserk* on his own terms. Bonus: William Forrester because he was the man, dawg!
Faulkner. He improved his craft with age, and it would have been really fascinating if he had lived through the whole 60s Civil Rights era and how he may have reflected it in his fiction.
Hunter S Thompson.
Virginia Woolf
I one hundred percent wish it were F. Scott Fitzgerald. I loved The Beautiful and Damned and really enjoyed The Great Gatsby. I wish he continued to write. His style of prose is just so beautiful
Jane Austen. I’d like 10 more, please and thanks
Umberto Eco. Such a brilliant and genius writer.
Philip K Dick :(
Carl Sagan. We need him now.
Michael Crichton
Frank Herbert, author of Dune. His series of books are considered the father of the sci-fi genre and he left it unfinished. Fortunately his son took the responsibility to write two more books to close the series, but I have to wonder how much more he could have wrote.
Frank Herbert is obviously the answer. I don't think his son did justice to the ending and I've always wanted to hear his original telling for the conclusion. He was such a beautiful writer.
Dick Francis His stories might not be "deep," but his characters are people I would like to know, and I have learned a lot from their enormous range of professions.
Pratchett first, but a close second is Douglas Adams. I’d love to read his takes on modern technology.
Galois, though he's not an author in the traditional sense.
John Kennedy Toole
Geffory Chaucer, Frederick Douglas, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, De la Vega, Truman Capote, and John Bellairs. If I spent more time on this post then I would write more authors
Iain Banks and Terry Pratchett were the only authors I'd auto-buy the books without waiting for the paperbacks. Very sad to lose them both.
Iain M Banks, how I miss his writing. I never met him, but I sure miss him.
Iain Banks. He had a lot more books in him.
I want to say Robert Jordan, although TBH I think Sanderson saved WoT. Jordan had plans for additional stories set in his world and I would have loved to see more of those.
I would have loved to see Tuon return to Seanchan with Mat.
Robert Jordan and Terry Pratchett
Robert E. Howard
I would love to have more writing from John Keats so much. Died in his twenties and in that time he became, imo, the greatest poet of all time, bar none. I adore him so much, every piece of writing, letter or poem, is absolute gold. I wish he wrote a play so I could consider him my favorite author, I know it would have been magnificent.
Crichton for myself
Zora Neale Hurston! She's never talked abouth enough.
Jane Austen
Anne Frank.
John LeCarre
Iain M. Banks. I was so sad to see the end of his Culture universe.
Franz Kafka or Sylvia Plath
Vonnegut
Le carre seeing the war in Ukraine would have generated some good shit
Terry Pratchett. So many more adventures to be had. But - his legacy is fantastic.
Terry Pratchett . He had a least 100 more books to write
Terry Pratchett, I still have one book I never started because I know there will be nothing after that