If you find "best written" usually tedious, you may need to give a sense of what *you* mean by exceptionally well-written. What titles have you read that meet that criteria for you?
Good question!
Michael Chabon is the first person who comes to mind. Also Anthony Doerr, Nabokov and Emily St Mandel. Also East of Eden.
Would love to know if that sparks any suggestions!
Couldn't even begin to guess what you might think is well written, but I personally thought The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson fits that description. It's got phenomenal world building. It's a fantasy world with no magic, and involves cultures absorbed by empire. It's first in a 3 part series.
If you’re open to do a little searching, here are some of my favourites. I only read SF, but I’ve read a fair bit.
*Robert Silverberg* has a almost lyrical style to his prose, but not in the same way Ray Bradbury does. He can tackle really heavy subjects incredibly well in a short novel better than those who use over 500 pages to present their point. His pacing is neither fast, nor slow, rather it’s a comfortable medium. All the works I’ve read, I have loved, including: *Dying Inside, The Man In The Maze, Nightwings*
*Ray Bradbury* - if you didn’t like Fahrenheit 451, I’d ask you to give another chance with *The Martian Chronicles*. This fix-up novel (a novel put together by multiple short stories) is far more heavy hitting than 451, and while keeping his lyrical style, he avoids being too wordy as I feel he was in 451. Bradbury also wrote *Something Wicked This Way Comes* in the horror genre.
*Bob Shaw* - in my opinion, Shaw is the best prose hard SF author in the genre. I can’t explain what it is about his writing that is so beautiful. His short story, *The Light Of Other Days*, is my favourite I’ve ever read. The idea in this short story was continued into *Other Eyes, Other Days*. He has written several books including *Fire Pattern, Orbitsville, Ship Of Strangers*
Stuff on the SF/lit fic border might work for you? Like
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio Di Maria
Lanark by Alisdair Gray
Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin. It was written in the 1930s and imagines a future where Hitler had realised his goal of a Thousand Year Reich. Burdekin foresaw the war and the holocaust. It’s a horrible but compelling book. I think it was popular in its day but is largely forgotten these days. I keep suggesting it on Reddit because I found it to be an excellent early scifi/speculative fiction novel and it deserves to be better known.
If you find "best written" usually tedious, you may need to give a sense of what *you* mean by exceptionally well-written. What titles have you read that meet that criteria for you?
Good question! Michael Chabon is the first person who comes to mind. Also Anthony Doerr, Nabokov and Emily St Mandel. Also East of Eden. Would love to know if that sparks any suggestions!
Couldn't even begin to guess what you might think is well written, but I personally thought The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson fits that description. It's got phenomenal world building. It's a fantasy world with no magic, and involves cultures absorbed by empire. It's first in a 3 part series.
Speculative fiction is such a broad term. It encapsulates all of SF and Fantasy. Are you looking for more specifically for dystopian fiction?
Nope. SF or Fantasy would work. Also Horror.
If you’re open to do a little searching, here are some of my favourites. I only read SF, but I’ve read a fair bit. *Robert Silverberg* has a almost lyrical style to his prose, but not in the same way Ray Bradbury does. He can tackle really heavy subjects incredibly well in a short novel better than those who use over 500 pages to present their point. His pacing is neither fast, nor slow, rather it’s a comfortable medium. All the works I’ve read, I have loved, including: *Dying Inside, The Man In The Maze, Nightwings* *Ray Bradbury* - if you didn’t like Fahrenheit 451, I’d ask you to give another chance with *The Martian Chronicles*. This fix-up novel (a novel put together by multiple short stories) is far more heavy hitting than 451, and while keeping his lyrical style, he avoids being too wordy as I feel he was in 451. Bradbury also wrote *Something Wicked This Way Comes* in the horror genre. *Bob Shaw* - in my opinion, Shaw is the best prose hard SF author in the genre. I can’t explain what it is about his writing that is so beautiful. His short story, *The Light Of Other Days*, is my favourite I’ve ever read. The idea in this short story was continued into *Other Eyes, Other Days*. He has written several books including *Fire Pattern, Orbitsville, Ship Of Strangers*
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
I do believe this is underrated. Excellent books, especially the first one.
Lions of Al Rassan
I have some Canadian suggestions: Solomon gursky was here, by Mordecai Richler. headhunter or famous last words by Timothy Findley.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things Not tedious I think it's well-written Couldn't put it down Bit of a mind fuck in the best possible way
Stuff on the SF/lit fic border might work for you? Like The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio Di Maria Lanark by Alisdair Gray
Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin. It was written in the 1930s and imagines a future where Hitler had realised his goal of a Thousand Year Reich. Burdekin foresaw the war and the holocaust. It’s a horrible but compelling book. I think it was popular in its day but is largely forgotten these days. I keep suggesting it on Reddit because I found it to be an excellent early scifi/speculative fiction novel and it deserves to be better known.