# Unappreciated/ Overlooked Authors or Novels?



## Snapcat (Nov 3, 2008)

In another thread I've been discussing the commercial success of authors such as J.K. Rowling. But this thread isn't about that- why don't we list novels that haven't been successful, but are worth reading? Maybe books that are out of print or overlooked. Any such suggestions of authors I never would have thought to look at simply because they are unknown? Or favorite books no one would have heard of?


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

I mentioned her in another thread but Penelope Evans is a great mystery writer with a very unique voice. I have read most of her books, esp liked The Last Girl and First Fruits. She is english and unfortunately her stuff is not in Kindle version but she is worth reading, I promise. I loaded two of her books to my neighbor and she devoured them.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

One of my favorite books of all time is Five Smooth Stones, long out of print....I think my copy is missing the last couple of pages, and copies are hard to come by...

Betsy


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Everyone's heard of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, but not as many have heard of his space trilogy. The first book is called _Out of the Silent Planet_. It is about a man who is kidnapped and taken to Mars and meets the creatures there and has all kinds of adventures. In _Perelandra_, he is taken to Venus to save that planet from falling into sin Garden-of-Eden style, and _That Hideous Strength_ is weaker on the time travel and such, but involves a creepy Institute that wants to deceive the world. Unfortunately, they are not available on Kindle yet, but, since the Narnia books have recently all been published for Kindle, I'm hopeful that they'll show up soon.









Click to request on Kindle!

Along those same lines, many of us probably read _A Wrinkle in Time_, but Madeleine L'Engle's subsequent books about the Murray-O'Keefe family are also quite good. All involve one or more members of the family being pulled into some kind of adventure that culminates in confronting evil across space and time, or just in more ordinary ways. I think the next one chronologically would be _A Wind in the Door_, in which Charles Wallace has contracted a mysterious illness and Meg and company must save him at the sub-cellular level.

















Click to request on Kindle!


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

Marriner reminded me of another favorite... Walter Tevis. Many know the movies _based_ on his books, The Hustler, The Color of Money (book is completely different and amazing) and The Man Who Fell to Earth. He also wrote one of my all time favorites, The Queen's Gambit about a female chess prodigy. It is incredible, seriously, you do not have to be into chess (I'm not) it is great.

Sadly, none that I can find are in Kindle versions. I am plan to do some clicking right now!


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Octochick said:


> Marriner reminded me of another favorite... Walter Tevis. Many know the movies _based_ on his books, The Hustler, The Color of Money (book is completely different and amazing) and The Man Who Fell to Earth. He also wrote one of my all time favorites, The Queen's Gambit about a female chess prodigy. It is incredible, seriously, you do not have to be into chess (I'm not) it is great.
> 
> Sadly, none that I can find are in Kindle versions. I am plan to do some clicking right now!


I read *The Queen's Gambit* last winter (in paper). Heath Ledger was going to direct the movie version of this and was hard at work on developing it when he died.  They were in discussion with the young woman who played the lead in Juno to be the lead character (the chess prodigy). Supposedly there is a finished 126 page screenplay out there somewhere in the world. I would love to read it.

There have been several unsuccessful attempts to get this on the screen and this time it looked like it really was going to happen, when Heath died. So sad...

L


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## Snapcat (Nov 3, 2008)

A lot of people have mentioned on these boards (including myself) how much they love Watership Down.

I just wanted to mention two novels that remind me of Watership Down in both style and suhstance and aren't nearly as well known.











Tad William's 'Tailchaser's Song' which is about cats and I don't think it is on kindle.











Also there is Mary Shanton's 'The Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West' which is about horses, and has been out of print for a while.











I prefer 'Tailchaser's Song' out of the two books, and I think 'Watership Down' has a bigger place in my heart, but these two books are worth checking out if you enjoyed 'Watership Down'.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

By all means, post some of these covers in our Birthday Celebration topic
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,644.0/topicseen.html

(Tip: Since I've added covers to your posts--if you're not sure of how to add a cover, you can go to your post below, click on "Modify" (you can always modify your own post) and copy the gobbledygook that starts with [url ] and ends with [ /img], then paste it into a post on our Covers topic!

Betsy


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

Leslie said:


> I read *The Queen's Gambit* last winter (in paper). Heath Ledger was going to direct the movie version of this and was hard at work on developing it when he died.  They were in discussion with the young woman who played the lead in Juno to be the lead character (the chess prodigy). Supposedly there is a finished 126 page screenplay out there somewhere in the world. I would love to read it.
> 
> There have been several unsuccessful attempts to get this on the screen and this time it looked like it really was going to happen, when Heath died. So sad...
> 
> L


Now that you posted that, I do recall reading about it somewhere... Ellen Page (from Juno) would be really good. I sure hope that it still gets made. I am going to have to run over to IMDB to see


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2008)

While he has a certain cult following, Tom Robbins is largely overlooked. My favorite of his is probably











Then











Followed by











And then











I have also read Robbins best-known second book, the bestseller:











but it is my least favorite of his novels I've read.

Robbins reigns alongside Mark Helprin







(book not on Kindle) as one of our current Masters of magical realism.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Thanks, I've downloaded samples!

Betsy


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## Kirstin (Oct 29, 2008)

Here are some from a series that I read and enjoyed. I don't hear much about them but they have a decent number of reviews on Amazon.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

I wish these publishers who let their books go out of print because they don't merit another print run would consider Kindle releases. Much cheaper than a print run and at least they could make some money off their backlist.


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Chad Winters said:


> I wish these publishers who let their books go out of print because they don't merit another print run would consider Kindle releases. Much cheaper than a print run and at least they could make some money off their backlist.


Or give the erights back to the author who could then pursue an epublisher (or do it themselves). Authors like to have their books available for when someone "discovers" them anew even if the book is years and years old.

L


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## Kilgore Trout (Dec 28, 2008)

As the editor of PODBRAM, I can suggest a few POD books that you have probably never heard of, but they impressed us as book reviewers with their various qualities. I am quite amazed that these few are the only ones that are available in the Kindle format. Several others have already been covered in other posts by Board Members who are also PODBRAM reviewers. These are ones I wanted to mention because you would otherwise have never discovered them.


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

Snapcat said:


> A lot of people have mentioned on these boards (including myself) how much they love Watership Down.
> 
> I just wanted to mention two novels that remind me of Watership Down in both style and suhstance and aren't nearly as well known.
> 
> ...


In a similar vein, the Ducton Wood series by William Horwood are outstanding. Kind of hard to track down all the books (6 of them) but well worth the effort if you are a Watership Down or Tailchaser's Song fan. The first one Ducton Wood should be fairly easy to track down a used copy, but the second trilogy is a bit harder. IIRC I had to get one of them shipped from Canada and two of them shipped from England but Alibris was my friend.

Anyway here is a link at Amazon for Ducton Wood. I'm also very curious as to whether any here have read the series and their thoughts on the books. Some excellent reviews and info about the book on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Duncton-Wood-William-Horwood/dp/0345341899/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240263198&sr=8-2


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

Forster said:


> In a similar vein, the Duncton Wood series by William Horwood are outstanding.


I read this book when I was a kid, I really loved it.... I didn't realize it was a series.....


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

pidgeon92 said:


> I read this book when I was a kid, I really loved it.... I didn't realize it was a series.....


Yeah! Someone else has read this book. 

Anyway here are all the books:

The Duncton Chronicles:
Duncton Wood
Duncton Quest
Duncton Found

The Books of Silence:
Duncton Tales
Duncton Rising
Duncton Stone


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

I wish I could give you my thoughts on it, but it must have been 30 years ago that I read this.... It was a really huge book, I just gave it away to the library in the last few years.... I shall have to click for the whole series....


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## Aravis60 (Feb 18, 2009)

Oooh.... I love C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, marianner! They are some of my all-time favorites.


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## rndballref (Mar 29, 2009)

If you like sports novels and books, especially from undiscovered authors here's a link to the first entry in an Amazon discussion forum I started with many cool books:

http://www.amazon.com/tag/sports/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx3KS4FB9UGMM2E&cdThread=TxLKN3NEYJ2M2P

Yale R Jaffe


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:



> One of my favorite books of all time is Five Smooth Stones, long out of print....I think my copy is missing the last couple of pages, and copies are hard to come by...
> 
> Betsy


In case you're not aware of it, that's just been re-released!


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## RangerXenos (Mar 18, 2009)

Jane Lindskold -- I have read all but one of this series, and think they are wonderful. I don't hear much about either the author or books, though.



Another favorite author in our house that seems to be off the radar is Laura Anne Gilman. We've read all the books in her Retrievers series, they're great.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

for sci-fi fans, I had somehow never heard of Hemry Beam, but I picked up his "megabundle" from Baen in multiformat ebook that is readable on Kindle and was very impressed. One of the included series is military sci-fi and the other is well-described as "JAG in space".

http://www.webscription.net/p-987-the-hemry-ebook-megabundle.aspx

a bargain at the bundled price of $30.00 for 7 books


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## Rhiathame (Mar 12, 2009)

I enjoyed the Lianen Universe books by Sharon Lee and Steven Miller. They can be purchased in Omnibus at Baen
http://www.webscription.net/s-117-sharon-lee.aspx


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

And here I thought I was the only one who read Heavenly Horse (with the sequel, Piper at the Gate) and Duncton Wood!

Watership Down is on my all time top ten, as is Tailchaser's. In fact, I went through so many copies of Tailchaser when it came out, every time I'd show up at a book signing, I'd have to buy another copy. After this happened two or three times, Williams inscripted one with something along the lines of "do not read, lend, or otherwise dispose of this book".  He was still relatively unknown at this point; his first trilogy wasn't even finished yet.

His first series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is outstanding. Sad to say, not yet on Kindle and they're great big massive DTBs.

The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Book 1)
The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Book 2)
To Green Angel Tower, Book Three: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
---------------

Under the underappreciated author category: One of my favorite series pre-Kindle was so rare that no one I met had ever heard of it. It took coming here, finding the set on Baen's site, discovering a sequel (more than one!), and posting it in my sig to find another person who actually had read the first ones clear back when they started in 1988. PC Hodgell's Kencyr universe is unlike any fantasy I've ever read before or since. Some background can be found on Baen's site, linked below; ebooks are available there, not through Amazon at this time.

The God Stalker Chronicles: God Stalk, Dark of the Moon, Seeker's Mask, To Ride a Rathorn, Blood & Ivory]

Another author--different genre--that I don't see talked about much around here is Donna Andrews. She's a mystery author who blew into the market several years ago with her debut, Murder with Peacocks. 


Unfortunately for us, only the latest two books in the series are Kindleized. I need to take the time to add this set to the clicking thread, and to get email off to the publisher and author. These books are an absolute riot though--don't miss out on them just because they're a little behind in this whole ebook thing. LOL


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

Another good book I haven't seen around in a while:



I actually should have put this on my top ten list, but forgot about it.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

My very favorite author (not JKR or Gabaldon) is Susan Howatch. She writes mainly historical fiction, plus a six book series on the Church of England (the Starbridge series) and a trilogy on the healing ministry within the CofE (the St. Benet trilogy).

Out of all her books, only the last two in the St. Benet's trilogy are Kindleized. I refused, at first, to buy the #2 & #3 until #1 was Kindleized, but I had to cave. No sense biting off my nose to spite my face. I just read them. _The High Flyer_ and _The Heartbreaker_.

I keep clicking!!!


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

Another one of my favorite authors who I don't think is all that well known:



If you like the outdoors......hunting, fishing, camping etc. or you were ever forced to do these activities as a child this guy has written some of the funniest and greatest books available.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Forster said:


> Another one of my favorite authors who I don't think is all that well known:
> 
> 
> 
> If you like the outdoors......hunting, fishing, camping etc. or you were ever forced to do these activities as a child this guy has written some of the funniest and greatest books available.


I'll second that. McManus' books are pretty much the only thing my late father would read apart from endless cycles through the Zane Grey library. I used to read them all before I gave them to him as gifts. 

And I don't even like hunting, fishing, etc.

Mike


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Here's one that I love and few people read by Dostoyevsky"

From the House of the Dead



Edward C. Patterson


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## boydm (Mar 21, 2009)

The Giants trilogy (Inherit the Stars, The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, and Giants' Star) by James P. Hogan is one of my favorite science fiction stories, but Hogan never seemed to break out like other SF authors. Unfortunately, it's not available for the Kindle. It looks like you can only buy it used.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

boydm said:


> The Giants trilogy (Inherit the Stars, The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, and Giants' Star) by James P. Hogan is one of my favorite science fiction stories, but Hogan never seemed to break out like other SF authors. Unfortunately, it's not available for the Kindle. It looks like you can only buy it used.


Inherit the Stars is available free at www.baen.com (http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm)

several others are available for purchase and transfer to Kindle at http://www.webscription.net/s-60-james-p-hogan.aspx

(not the last 2 Giants books, unfortunately)


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## Rhin (Mar 26, 2009)

Snapcat said:


> In another thread I've been discussing the commercial success of authors such as J.K. Rowling. But this thread isn't about that- why don't we list novels that haven't been successful, but are worth reading? Maybe books that are out of print or overlooked. Any such suggestions of authors I never would have thought to look at simply because they are unknown? Or favorite books no one would have heard of?


Yes, me! And my book. 

No, alright. Seriously, here's an author you might not have heard of: Christopher Moore, author of _Lamb: the Gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal._ It's a comedy.

I thought it was well-written and frequently hilarious. But it is geared more towards adults.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I'm glad my books don't fit in this catagory. lol.

Edward C. Patterson

How about the recent PBS presentation book, and another 2 Dickens masterworks that people just don't read enough.





and



In fact, Dombey & Son was one of the most popular Charles Dickens book and then . . . poof, who reads it now. I DO.

Edward C. Patterson


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## CeliaHayes (May 25, 2009)

One of my favorite and mostly forgotten novels - even thought it made a splash about 40 years ago, Pulitzer Prize and all - even a movie/TV series, was The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, by Robert Lewis Taylor -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/TravelsofJaimieMcPheeters.jpg

It was a funny and fantastically informative romp through the Gold Rush era old West, and yet it seems to be out of print and nearly forgotten.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Perhaps Samuel R. Delaney might fit in that category? He's certainly had some success, but nothing close to NYT best-seller type success; perhaps because both thematically and stylistically he is rarely (if ever?) main-stream. I think the books of his that moved me the most were...


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

These were made into a miniseries with Elizabeth Montgomery and Hal Holbrook back in, oh, early eighties or so and called The Awakening Land. Seriously good!

It's about a young woman named Sayward and her efforts to keep her family together and survive in the woods of Ohio. The names of the books speak of the progress -- at first there were so many trees that the family couldn't see the sky and, by the third book, it was a town. She's this wonderfully strong, practical character who you really end up loving!

There's a scene where she loses a child. I made the mistake of reading it at work, and couldn't stop crying.


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

I'm giving The Queen's Gambit a try.  Found a new one for a good price.....
This is a dangerous thread!  gggeeezzzzz.......


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

The Genellan series by Scott G. Gier. Some of the best sci-fi I've ever read outside of Niven and Pournelle.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

For Fantasy lovers if you can get ahold of any of Alan Dean Foster's "Spellsinger" books, they're wonderful. They're out of print and in litigation trying to figure out who owns them now, but if you can find one grab it. Brian Jacques also has a wonderful series of books I don't hear a lot about which I guess you'd call his "Redwall" series, but it's high fantasy with animals which is fun... come to think of it, "Spellsinger" has a lot of talking animals in it too...

  

"Weaveworld" by Clive Barker is amazing too. I want this one on Kindle so I can reread it!



Looks like the "Redwall" books are one of those annoying lines of novels where the first in the series isn't on Kindle. Actually the first 14 or so of the books aren't on Kindle yet  Here's the handful they do have...

    

I haven't read this one but the linkmaker found it instead of a book above... and it sounds really interesting. I think this is the first time I've taken a recommendation from the linkmaker.


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## MonaSW (Nov 16, 2008)

Tana French. I really enjoy her books but they aren't to everyone's taste. If you want everything wrapped up neatly at the end of the story, you probably wouldn't like the end of her first book.


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## Mollyb52 (Jan 4, 2009)

I read this a few months ago and can't get it out of my mind. I am going to reread it soon.


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

Scheherazade said:


> For Fantasy lovers if you can get ahold of any of Alan Dean Foster's "Spellsinger" books, they're wonderful. They're out of print and in litigation trying to figure out who owns them now, but if you can find one grab it. Brian Jacques also has a wonderful series of books I don't hear a lot about which I guess you'd call his "Redwall" series, but it's high fantasy with animals which is fun... come to think of it, "Spellsinger" has a lot of talking animals in it too...


I second this recommendation wholeheartedly! I first read these eons ago and have the hardcover limited editions packed away somewhere. Guess if they're in litigation they won't be on Kindle soon, so I need to go find the DTBs again!


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## MonaSW (Nov 16, 2008)

Scheherazade said:


> Looks like the "Redwall" books are one of those annoying lines of novels where the first in the series isn't on Kindle. Actually the first 14 or so of the books aren't on Kindle yet  Here's the handful they do have...


I haven't heard of him, I will have to try these out. I did enjoy the SpellSinger books, and have them in paperback.


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## QueenBee (May 4, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> One of my favorite books of all time is Five Smooth Stones, long out of print....I think my copy is missing the last couple of pages, and copies are hard to come by...
> 
> Betsy


Wow. There's a blast from the past. I read Five Smooth Stones many many years ago and thought it was a wonderful book. Looks like you can get it on ebay for about $15. I may have to grab a copy.


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