Wow... you guys have been having too much fun! <g>
Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in the camp gym, watching all the kids run around, when all of a sudden I was thinking "west... west... Westing Game!" <g> And I'm honestly stunned to see that anyone else recognized it!
Maybe I need to take a little trip over to amazon...
re: JAK -- for the most part, she writes contemporary stuff as JAK, futuristic/sci-fi stuff as JC, and Regency romance as Amanda Quick. Some of the older sci-fi stuff was published in her name, though. As for good... well, I'm hesitant to say she's a great writer -- she is *definitely* formulaic, and I know that's a serious flaw in some eyes. But as I said, I like the formula
Still, there are some of her books that leave me cold. <shrug> She's certainly got tons of books to choose from!
And since some others have mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold, I'll expand on that a little bit... that woman is an *amazing* writer. Intricate plots, subtle characterization, layers of meaning all over the place, and some great phrasing... There was one chapter in
A Civil Campaign that started out hilarious, got very dark and serious in the middle, and had me laughing through tears at the end...
"My dinner party. It's just breaking up." And sinking. All souls feared lost.
You can read ACC all by itself, I suppose, but there are so many layers of history there, which make it a much richer experience if you've read some of the earlier Vorkosigan books.
And she just keeps getting better! The most recent is
The Curse of Chalion which has a fantasy/historical setting, a great adventure plot, vivid characters, and some very deep thoughts about the nature of faith. She's created an entirely new belief system, and it took me a bit to catch on, but it's really fascinating, and deeply cool. I have re-read that one about a million times.
PJ
who actually met LMB in person last fall!
and she's a really fabulous lady. Oh, and she started out writing fanfic
