Best writers by @papi.mati
Intro
I always have a huge problem with choosing the best of the best.
The best actor? Nicole Kidman... Oh, wait no! Hugh Grant! I mean Keanu Reeves!
Best musician? Probably Nat King Cole, or maybe Robbie Williams. Yes, like I said before, definitely Michael Bubble!
Best writer? Kill me, but I can't choose only one.
I love Denis Diderot and Etgar Kerret, but I won't write about them.
I have a lot of respect to Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien. Two totally different authors: one writes horror books, another fantasy. Both of them would be in my top three, but the first place goes definitely to Stanislaw Lem.
Stephen King
Stephen King made plenty of great books, like my favourite "Desperation", besides that "Shining", "Carrie" or "It". Basically, even if you don't read much, there is a big chance you know his books because the simple language he uses and the knowledge how to build the tension chapter after the chapter makes it the perfect scripts for the movies. Probably half of the horror movies are based on his literature.
He writes tens of books each year and, unfortunately, that means that some of them are truly bad. I hated to read "Blaze" or "Insomnia" but the worst book of King was definitely "Christine" about some evil... Car.
The opposite to it would be "Dolores Claiborne", book about the woman who decides to kill her abusive husband, "Desperation" about some deamons released from the underground in the middle of nothing or "It" - creepy clown which feeds with the fear.
It's like 75/25. Whenever you get the book of Stephen King, you have 75% chance of reading something entertaining and 25% that it will be a total crap.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Tolkien has a special spot in my heart because that author made me love literature. First "adult" (in the meaning for adult readers, not a storytell for kids) book I took in my hands was "Hobbit". I was not sleeping that night - finished in the morning with the head full of barefoot hobbits, bearded dwarfs, huge dragons and treasure maps.
Next thing was, obviously Lord of the Rings. The world created there was so complete, so real, even though obviously fictional, that I loved it totally from the very first page. You see, with Tolkien you don't have to worry that book might be bad, like with King. It's basically guaranteed.
My dream is to read Tolkien's books in original language version. I'm not sure if my English is good enough to enjoy it, usually it requires much more energy than regular reading in Polish, but I believe I can rediscover it, experiencing the text in the way Tolkien wrote it, not being forced to rely on translators.
Stanisław Lem
First place goes to Polish science fiction author, Stanisław Lem. His works were translated into tens of languages but it's not the mainstream so chances that you know him are quite low. You might see the "Solaris" movie with George Clooney" - that's based on his book (hundred times better than the movie).
Stanisław Lem was writing during the communism time in Poland. Every book of his was in a different style so critics from abroad suspected that it's not just one person but the team of writers (they were wrong).
During the communism we had a censorship, it was impossible to write some stuff and yet he was always smart enough to create the artwork which looked like the tribute to the government but actually was a cruel critique of it.
He was writing more serious sci-fi dramas and comedies, like stories about the Pixie who travels from one planet to another. Some of his books were purely philosophical, as the philosophy was his second passion about astronomy.
Being astronomer and a writer you could be sure that all the events described on his book were bringing some knowledge too. He was not only entertaining the readers, but also explaining some physics as the astronomer and motivating to ask about the place of the humans in the universe as the philosopher.
We can easily call him futurologist too. He was mentioning in one of his books that futurology is not a magic but more guessing what future will bring based on the history of science and the technology available nowadays:
In 1961, in the book "Return from the stars", he writes about the libraries full of digitalized books, saved in the cristales, which now is understood as ebook and digitalized books prediction. At the very same book he mentioned that some of that books were read by the lectors (that would be audiobooks).
In "Dialogs", philosophical book from 1957, Lem was considering if it would be possible to connect the powerful computers in some net to increase their counting power. That was much before the Internet was made.
He also predicted existing searchers like Google, smartphones, VR, Biotechnology and 3D print. Did you see "Futurama" animation? David X Cohen, author of that animation, mentioned that his mother loved science-fiction, especially Stanislaw Lem which she was reading to him when he was a kid. That was the inspiration to create this cartoon.
I hope I was able to motivate you to read Stanisław Lem. Even though he is not the mainstream, there is a big chance that some of his books were translated into your language. Check it and let me know what do you think about this writer, futurologist, philosopher, astronomist, guy who managed to find the way to avoid censorship, inspire to make Futurama and Solaris and entertain hundreds of thousands with his books.
Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati
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Gracias! 🤗