The Sword and Laser discussion

Robert Heinlein 44
Isaac Asimov 26
Spider Robinson 24
Larry Niven 22
Orson Scott Card 18

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Of course, I've only been keeping track of my reading since 2004 so we're missing all the Bobbsey Twins, Sweet Valley High, and Babysitter's Club that I read as a kid. :P"

Yeah, my account only goes back to circa 2000. Otherwise, R.L. Stine just might be at the #1 spot for me. All those Goosebumps books in elementary school.

Although these numbers aren't accurate due to not having much of anything from before I joined, the authors probably are pretty close, with the notable lack of Anne McCaffrey and Katherine Kurtz. Oh, and Joe Haldeman.

Okay, this list isn't accurate at all.

Niven is probably artificially higher on the list due to his name being on the Man-KIn Wars collections, but I have read all but his latest few novels.

Jim Butcher - 21 - who I didn't start reading until late 2013
Brandon Sanderson - 17
Steven Erikson - 17 - my actual favorite
George R. R. Martin - 12
Brian Herbert - 11

I am making my way through Wheel of Time and some Discworld this year so Jordan and Pratchett should push out Martin and Herbert by years end.

1:Terry Pratchett 26
2:Isaac Asimov 13
3:Frank Herbert 9
4:Iain M. Banks 9
5:Guy Gavriel Kay 8

I expect Le Guin to pass GGK soon since I'm working my way through the Earthsea series and I havent read anything by GGK in 12 years.

EDIT: Also Goodreads seems to have some weirdness when it comes to whether it counts a series as one book or more. Also my most read authors list is really dude-heavy isnt it... I didn't start tracking what I was reading until a few years ago, so if it only included authors from there on it would look a lot different.

Brendan wrote: "EDIT: Also Goodreads seems to have some weirdness when it comes to whether it counts a series as one book or more."

Is that due to Goodreads or how books which are republished are packaged? I've never paid attention to it, but I imagine the ISBNs on individual books are different from those packaged as a set.

It looks like its how they were imported from my kindle, so yeah, what you said about the ISBNs.

Hmm.... not what I was expecting tbh;

1 Michael Moorcock (55)
2 Terry Pratchett (47)
3 David Eddings (19)
4 Philip K. Dick (18)
5 Bernard Cornwell/Neal Asher (17)

There were some comic/graphic novel authors in there but I took them out as I don't think you can class them together if only because of the differences in format.

I'm definitely missing some stuff which probably should be at the top (Pratchett, kids series I read growing up, Agatha Christie)

1. China Miéville 10
1. Neil Gaiman 10
3. Neal Stephenson 8
3. Iain M. Banks 8
5. Charles Stross 7
5. Ilona Andrews 7
5. John Scalzi 7
5. Brandon Sanderson 7

author

books read

1 Robert B. Parker 57
2 C.J. Cherryh 38
3 Roger Zelazny 36
4 Glen Cook 33
5 Raymond E. Feist 28
6 Michael Moorcock 27
7 Poul Anderson 26
8 Robert Ludlum 23
9 Arthur C. Clarke 19
10 Clive Cussler 16
10 Larry Niven 16

Mine didn't surprise me too much as I read a mix of genres. I will say early on it would have skewed more heavily to SciFi though.

1 David Weber 38
2 Jim Butcher 22
3 Lois McMaster Bujold 20
4 Anne McCaffrey 19
5 Mike Shepherd 14
5 Steven Brust 14
5 Sharon Lee 14

With the caveat that I'm not lifelong up to date on Goodreads, mostly since Kindle.Many books i've read are likely missing

My most read authors:
1. Lemony Snicket
2. Terry Pratchett
3. J.K. Rowling
4. Eoin Colfer
5. Neil Gaiman
5. Tamora Pierce
7. William Shakespeare
7. Jenny Nimmo
7. Isaac Asimov
7. Arthur Conan Doyle
7. George R.R. Martin
7. Dr. Seuss
7. Katherine Roberts

My list suffers from the long tail (as I suspect is true for many of you as well). I've read 384 books that I've logged in Goodreads. But few of them are series so things drop off quite quickly. It was worse before I started keeping track of graphic novels and trade paperbacks/Omnibuses.

author books read
1 Terry Pratchett 41
2 Mark Waid 7
2 Isaac Asimov 7
2 Michael Crichton 7
5 Cory Doctorow 6
6 Douglas Adams 5
6 Jonathan Hickman 5
6 Neal Stephenson 5
9 Alan Moore 4
9 Ken Akamatsu 4
9 Brandon Graham 4
12 Suzanne Collins 3
12 Dean Koontz 3
12 Grant Morrison 3
12 John Layman 3
12 J.R.R. Tolkien 3
12 Andrew Chambliss 3
12 Bryan Lee O'Malley 3
19 Dan Slott 2
19 Brian K. Vaughan 2

author books read
1 Terry Pratchett 56 (Looks like I'm missing some - unacceptable!)
2 Roger Zelazny 32
3 Larry Niven 25
4 Jack L. Chalker 21
4 R.A. Salvatore 21 (Drizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt)

Not including manga artists/authors (of which take up my top 5 spaces! =S) I have:

1. Lemony Snicket - 13
2. J.K Rowling - 8
3. C.S.Lewis - 7
4. Terry Pratchett - 5
Rick Riordan - 5
J.R.R. Tolkien - 5

I don't enter books in Goodreads. But my best guesses (lifetime) for most books read by an author would be Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, John D. MacDonald (all from around 40 years ago); Mercedes Lackey, Dick Francis (from around 10 years ago); Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, Nalini Singh (recent).

ETA: Lois McMaster Bujold, Tamora Pierce, Patricia Briggs, Charles Sheffield, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman should all be in there somewhere. I'm probably missing someone really major...

1. Orson Scott Card - 32
2. Richelle Mead - 17
3. Hugh Howey - 14
4. Charlaine Harris - 11
4. J.K. Rowling - 11
6. Neil Gaiman - 9
8. Margaret Atwood - 9
8. C.S. Lewis - 8
9. Stephanie Meyer - 7
9. Douglas Addams - 7

50/50 split between Men and women in pairs as you go down the list. Unsurprisingly, authors with series I love won the top spots.

I don't have most of their books up on Goodreads, by my top authors by number of books would be (in no particular order):

Edgar Rice Burroughs
C.J. Cherryh
Tanith Lee
Terry Pratchett
Michael Moorcock
Jo Clayton

And others I'm forgetting, of course. All were initially read back in my younger days when I had more time for reading (pre-internet, pre-computer games) and when my basic approach was to pick an author and read everything I could lay hands on before moving to the next author.

(And all were writing in the 70s & 80s & 90s when average book length was quite a bit shorter than it is these days.)

Joseph wrote: "(And all were writing in the 70s & 80s & 90s when average book length was quite a bit shorter than it is these days.)"

I don't think your top author was still writing then ;-)

Tassie Dave wrote: "Joseph wrote: "(And all were writing in the 70s & 80s & 90s when average book length was quite a bit shorter than it is these days.)"

I don't think your top author was still writing then ;-)"

Um. It's a fair cop ... :)

And as I'm thinking about it, I should also add Heinlein, who was writing then, but I was mostly reading his books from the 50s & 60s.

Mine are:

1. Terry Pratchett 42
2. C.J. Cherryh 39
3. Laurell K. Hamilton 34
4. Robert A. Heinlein 30
5. Rachel Caine 26
6. Piers Anthony 21
7. Jack L. Chalker 19
8. Seanan McGuire 17 (includes Mira Grant)
9. Stephen R. Donaldson 17
10. Jim Butcher 16

Nice to see so many other Cherryh fans on this thread.

Joseph wrote: "when my basic approach was to pick an author and read everything I could lay hands on before moving to the next author."

This is exactly what I did with Clarke, Asimov, and then Heinlein. Hence, my Top 3.

As I think back on it, I would not be surprised to find authors like Piers Anthony making my all-time top 5 Most Read List simply because they were prolific in an era where there wasn't much choice in SFF and my taste wasn't as discerning. (Space: 1999 novelizations, anyone?)

Then for books I'm not embarrassed to have read, I'm sure I've read at least twenty McCaffrey books, and nearly everything Jack L. Chalker wrote (ballpark 40-50 books), as well as most of Kurtz's Deryni series, which has to be a dozen books. That would bump out favorite authors like Octavia Butler, who simply don't have as many books.

Now that you mention it Terrance Dicks should probably be on that list somewhere if I could remember which Target Dr Who books I read as a kid.

Lots of space and military in my most-read five. I suppose that wouldn't be a surprise to those who know me well. All but Cornwell are mostly SF writers.

1. Robert A. Heinlein 42
2. David Weber 41
3. Bernard Cornwell 40
4. Larry Niven 29
5. C.J. Cherryh 24

The next five, however, branch out a bit. I didn't realize I had read so much Robert B. Parker and Janet Evanovich.

6. Robert B. Parker 22
7. Patrick O'Brian 21
8. Walter Jon Williams 20
9. Lee Child 18
9. Isaac Asimov 18
10. Eric Flint 17
10. John D. MacDonald 17
10. Janet Evanovich 17

Interesting question. Thanks for setting it up, Louie.

This is a fun thread!

1 Terry Pratchett 18
2 Robin Hobb 17
3 Robert Jordan 14
4 Trudi Canavan 10
5 Wolfgang Hohlbein 9

Wolfgang Hohlbein is a German YA fantasy author. As a teenager I loved his books. After 9 books I finally realized that his book are all kind of the same...

Here's the actual Goodreads list:

1 Michael Moorcock 17
2 Simon R. Green 13
3 Edgar Rice Burroughs 12
4 Glen Cook 10
5 K.J. Parker 9
5 Jack Vance 9
5 C.J. Cherryh 9
8 L.A. Meyer 8
8 Brian Herbert 8
10 J.R.R. Tolkien 7
10 James S.A. Corey 7
10 Neil Gaiman 7

So it's at least similar to what I posted above; it's a combination of books that I've read since I started on GR (in Feb. 2011) and books that were on one of my rating sprees.

Here is my list.

1) A tie between David & Leigh Eddings and Brian Michael Bendis (24 books)

2) A tie between Terry Brooks and Grant Morrison (19 books)

3) Clive Barker (14 books)

4) Anne Rice (13 books)

5) A tie between Robert Jordan and R. Scott Bakker (10 books)

I didn't realize David Eddings had written that many books, or that I had read almost all of them. I didn't like Terry Brooks even as a kid though. My brother owned all of his books and I couldn't figure out why.

List is kind of skewed because I used to rate comics. Overall, really surprised that it's so classics heavy (wth Faulkner), not at all surprised at the top 3 non-comics (Gaiman Waugh and O'Connor are probably my favorite authors), really upset that there is only one woman, and really upset that Wodehouse is so low.
Edit: and oh geeze, no PoC either. I really need to diversify my reading life.

I have no idea how to upload images, alas:
1 Brian Michael Bendis 21
2 Neil Gaiman 15
3 Evelyn Waugh 13
4 C.S. Lewis 12
5 Flannery O'Connor 7
6 Tom Stoppard 5
6 P.G. Wodehouse 5
6 William Faulkner 5
6 Bill Watterson 5
6 J.R.R. Tolkien 5

Brendan wrote: "I didn't realize David Eddings had written that many books, or that I had read almost all of them. I didn't like Terry Brooks even as a kid though. My brother owned all of his books and I couldn't ..."

I have read 13 Eddings and I have 8 more on my bookshelf. Must be a couple more I don't know about though.

1 4763 John Scalzi 23
2 3153776 Mira Grant 11
2 38550 Brandon Sanderson 11
4 2860219 Seanan McGuire 8
5 1226977 Paolo Bacigalupi 4
5 324620 Laini Taylor 4
5 25883 Robert J. Sawyer 4
5 37557 Richard Kadrey 4
That is my up to tied for 5 authors although Scalzi is way up there because each part of the human division was considered separate and Seanan McGuire also writes as Mira Grant, although there is a at least four or five novellas in that McGuire/Grant total.

1 Stephen King 62
2 Laurell K. Hamilton 38
3 Charlaine Harris 28
4 Terry Pratchett 24
4 Sharyn McCrumb 24
5 Anne Rice 21
5 Ellis Peters 21

Was a little surprised by my list. I've been reading Stephen King since I was a kid and I'm pretty sure I've read all of his books except for the last one so that makes sense. The Laurell K Hamilton and Charlaine Harris books are from reading every book in a series, once I start a series I always feel like I have to finish it even when it goes bad.

Brendan wrote: "I didn't realize David Eddings had written that many books, or that I had read almost all of them. I didn't like Terry Brooks even as a kid though. My brother owned all of his books and I couldn't ..."


Eddings novels....

Belgariad series
Belgariad - 5 novels
Malloreon - 5 novels
Belgarath the Sorcerer
Polgara the Sorceress
The Rivan Codex

Sparhawk series
The Elenium - 3 novels
The Tamuli - 3 novels

The Dreamers series - 4 novels

Stand Alone
The Redemption of Althalus
High Hunt (not fantasy)
The Losers (not fantasy)
Regina's Song (not fantasy)

Total: 27 novels

I just realized that Robert Jordan is getting credit for WoT 12-14, while Brandon Sanderon is not. So even if I let Jordan keep credit for those 3, Sanderson should get credit too, which actually puts him at 16 just ahead of Jordan.

Trike wrote: "Space: 1999 novelizations, anyone?"

Hah! I never went to novelizations, but I do have the full box set of Space: 1999. My fave has to be the 2001 tribute / takeoff when they go through the black hole with their resistors on (or repellers of some kind, memory is dim) and two of them age just like Dave Bowman. Including extra bushy eyebrows. Unintentional comedy gold!

John (Taloni) wrote: "Trike wrote: "Space: 1999 novelizations, anyone?"

Hah! I never went to novelizations, but I do have the full box set of Space: 1999. My fave has to be the 2001 tribute / takeoff when they go throu..."

Good lord, I wish that series was as good as my childhood memories of it. Although said memories are mostly focused on the one episode (I think it was S2?) where they found the Graveyard of Lost Ships and there was some kind of tentacle monster that ate people.

1 Robert Jordan - 28
1 Tamora Pierce - 28
3 Brandon Sanderson - 19
4 L. Frank Baum - 14
5 Marguerite Henry - 12
5 Walter Farley - 12
7 Terry Goodkind - 11
8 J.K. Rowling - 10
9 Philip Pullman - 9
10 George R.R. Martin - 5
10 William Shakespeare - 5

When I look at my bookshelf, the numbers don't surprise me. What I will say though, is that of the top 5, Brandon Sanderson is the ONLY author I didn't start reading before I was in high school, and of the top 10 (well, 11 because of a tie), Sanderson and Martin are the only 2 I didn't start reading before high school. What does this tell me? I had a lot more time to read lengthy series before I went to college. And that I've been reading more breadth than depth since then. And that it is time to find another lengthy series.

1 Tamora Pierce - 28
2 Traci Harding - 8
2 John Marsden - 8
4 Brandon Sanderson - 7
5 Laura Ingalls Wilder - 6
5 Veronica Roth - 6

I'd keep going but I have 10 authors tied for 8th place!
This reflects my teenage reading habits: only two of those authors I've discovered post-teenage years. However, out of those, only Laura Ingalls Wilder hasn't been re-read as an adult.

Joseph wrote: "John (Taloni) wrote: "Trike wrote: "Space: 1999 novelizations, anyone?"

Hah! I never went to novelizations, but I do have the full box set of Space: 1999. My fave has to be the 2001 tribute / take..."

Good lord, I wish that series was as good as my childhood memories of it. Although said memories are mostly focused on the one episode (I think it was S2?) where they found the Graveyard of Lost Ships and there was some kind of tentacle monster that ate people. "

Yeah, I tried to watch the show again recently and was astounded by how terrible it is. I *think* Barbara Bain was playing the doctor as an android in the pilot, but I can't be sure. I only made it through two episodes before packing it in.

The commercials, intro and "This Week on Space: 1999" bits are absolutely brilliant, though, and they were prescient in their style. MTV quick-edits a full decade before MTV even existed.

Trike wrote: "The commercials, intro and "This Week on Space: 1999" bits are absolutely brilliant, though, and they were prescient in their style. MTV quick-edits a full decade before MTV even existed. "

That was a hallmark of most Jerry Anderson productions. I saw an interview where he pitched the idea of showing what was going to happen at the start of each Thunderbirds episode. Everybody though he was crazy showing clips of action at the beginning of the show. Remember the beginning of Stingray? "Anything can happen in the next half hour."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E06cN...

EDIT - regarding the Space 1999 episode with the tentacle moster. I havn't seen that in 30 years but can still vividly remember that the music in that episode was Adagio in G Minor.. awesome stuff.

Tom Clancy 18
William Kent Krueger 13
Vince Flynn 11
Timothy Zahn 11
Michael A. Stackpole 7

Clancy is slightly inflated because it counts his ghostwritten books as well as the ones he actually wrote

Long before Goodreads, I started keeping a log of books I read. I was about 12 and I kept it in a school notebook and then we got a word processor I switched to keeping it digitally on a floppy (this was nearly 20 years ago). And when we got a computer I switched to keeping a rtf document. And when I got to the online era, I was able to convert the document into something I could use and uploaded it. All of this goes to saying I've got pretty good record of most of the books I've read. And I am still surprised by this.

1. Mercedes Lackey 73 (thought this had to be a mistake but no)
2. Piers Anthony 45 (I was young)
3. Peter David 44
4. Ken Akamatsu 36 (I thought about skipping him because manga but left it there).
5. Charlaine Harris 27
6. Lois Bujold 26 (I really wish that we had a SF pick from her).

Well, I did 6 instead of 5 because I didn't feel right about kicking out the manga but I also thought I should have the 5 most read novelist on there. Also LMB is the best.

I read so many BSC books. I was heartbroken to find out that a lot of them were ghostwritten (Ann M. Martin wrote the first 35 though).

1 Terry Brooks 39
2 R.A. Salvatore 34
3 Edgar Rice Burroughs 16
4 Brandon Sanderson 12
5 Robert Silverberg 11
5 Robert Jordan 11
7 David Eddings 10
8 J.K. Rowling 8
9 George R.R. Martin 7
9 Piers Anthony 7
9 Paul O. Williams 7
12 Cherie Priest 6
12 Margaret Weis 6
12 Michael Moorcock 6

Rikki wrote: "Long before Goodreads, I started keeping a log of books I read. I was about 12 and I kept it in a school notebook and then we got a word processor I switched to keeping it digitally on a floppy (th..."

List nerd high five!

I did the same thing. I'm not sure what happened to that original notebook. Probably got lost in a move at some point.

Trike wrote: "Rikki wrote: "Long before Goodreads, I started keeping a log of books I read. I was about 12 and I kept it in a school notebook and then we got a word processor I switched to keeping it digitally o..."

I didn't do anything quite that formal; but there were a few years in the 1990s when I was working as a substitute librarian, and in the summer I'd grab a mess of the record sheets they gave out for the children's summer reading program and use them to track things. Wonder if they're still around anywhere ...

Rikki wrote: "Long before Goodreads, I started keeping a log of books I read."

Trike wrote: "List nerd high five!"

I've also been keeping a log of what I read. Dating back to 2005. - And before Goodreads, I use to use a site called Bibliophil.org. Luckily, right before it went down, I downloaded an export file of all my books, so it was pretty easy to log my past reading activity when I started my Goodreads account. Still, I had to edit the metadata to most of the entries.

Joseph wrote: "Trike wrote: "Rikki wrote: "Long before Goodreads, I started keeping a log of books I read. I was about 12 and I kept it in a school notebook and then we got a word processor I switched to keeping ..."

It was even worse. I also would periodically organize all of the books in the house (at least 1000) by author and genre and kept a list of that. This would go on until either I finished or someone else got tired of tripping over books and put them all back (haphazardly).

I also organized my books by author and genre. Asimov constantly confounded me in that regard.

I only had two bookshelves, though, so I eventually had to keep my books in cardboard boxes. I'm afraid to even count how many books I have.