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Neil Clarke, publisher & editor of writes about an (unscientific) survey he took on the internet. He asked about 1000 authors (with a speculative fiction bent, I presume, though Clarke doesn't say) who they thought were "most influential" for them.

His top 10 responses were:

Stephen King
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ray Bradbury
Neil Gaiman
Isaac Asimov
Robert Heinlein
J R R Tolkien
Philip K Dick
Kelly Link
Terry Pratchett

Among authors who have been published in Clarkesworld, King & Asimov wane. Among non-US authors, PK Dick supplants Asimov.

I also learned Kelly Link, who I'm not familiar with, is apparently high on a lot of authors' influences. Among published authors she rates higher, and among Clarkesworld authors even higher still.

(You can check out the rest of his top 10 and other breakdowns .)

Let's see....

(It might change later)

Stephen King and Ray Bradbury as well, Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko/Marvel Comics (counting them as one because I'm a lousy stinking cheater), Robert Aikman (because one can dream, can't one, that I might one day write prose like that?) aaand Clive Barker who took what everyone else was doing and turned it upside down.

Bobby wrote: "Let's see....

(It might change later)

Stephen King and Ray Bradbury as well, Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko/Marvel Comics (counting them as one because I'm a lousy sinking cheater), Robert Aikma..."

And since Neil Clarke went top ten, I'm gonna go top ten. Short fiction, we're talking.

Shirley Jackson. This lady was a boss. She has totally like, trickled, drop by drop into my consciousness. I read "The Lottery" in school with everybody else ("Holy shit!"). Also in school, also by Shirley Jackson, I read a story called "Charles". Hilarious and fantastic. Years later, I read The Haunting of Hill House (thank you, Stephen King). Wonderful. Not short, though, but still. Then, years and years after that, I read "The Summer People" and that's when I finally, finally realized that I was fan of this lady.

Robert E. Howard. When he's not being rabidly racist, he's an amazing story teller.

H.P. Lovecraft. Ditto. I also loved the way his stories sometimes blended science fiction and horror.

HARLAN ELLISON. His rage, his ideas, his imagination, his intelligence, his fire.

Kim Antieau. One story, "Briar Rose" I read in a collection called Metahorror totally altered my idea of the personal and emotional depth a speculative short story could achieve.

Honorable mentions:

Adrienne Maree Brown. You guys probably don't know her but she's making her move. You'll hear of her soon. Likewise, Lilliam Rivera. Both these ladies are at Clarion as I write this. Both are amazing talents. Keep an eye out.

In no particular order:

Harlan Ellison definitely. I don't try to write like him, per se, but the way he writes so strongly like himself is inspiring. Don't copy anyone -- readers will come to you for your voice, or they won't come at all.

Orson Scott Card. I'll throw in Bobby's caveat about writers who are horrible bigots but still awesome writers. [sigh] He's written some great novels, but his short stories are excellent; he's a wonderful craftsman.

Mercedes Lackey. Another one known for her novels, but her short stories are wonderfully written and great fun. One of her shorts about Tarma and Kethry, a warrior/wizard team, compares a song a very troublesome bard wrote about one of their adventures with what actually happened, showing the song, one verse at a time, interspersed with scenes of how it all really went. Hilarious, and a great story, among many others. Misty at her best is a wonderful read, without being at all pretentious about the writing itself.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg. She doesn't write a lot of short fiction, but in her various series, she has a talent for showing different ways people (of whatever type, in SF) can have a relationship, and then tells a story about it. I discovered her when I was in my teens, and her work got me thinking outside the box about people and relationships. Any kind of out-of-the-box thinking is valuable for a writer.

Catherynne M. Valente writes with a fairy tale style that's completely different from 99% of the fantasy books out there, but doesn't make you feel like you're reading a children's book. If you're looking for fantasy that feels very different from the usual set of Tolkien clones or tough-chick urban fantasies, try Valente's stuff.

Larry Niven writes wonderful short stories, and has a great talent for inventing aliens. I once saw a huge gang of people on a stage at WorldCon, a costume group showing at least a dozen or so of his aliens, wrought in fabric and plastic and metal and people. The Puppeteer was amazing. :) But Larry came up with all those different beings. Folks who think they can write SF because they've watched it on TV or in a movie theater need to read, and Larry Niven is one of the reasons why.

Gene Wolfe, because no matter what you're told as a writer, you do not have to stick to a sixth grade reading level. That popular "wisdom" insults readers and strangles writers.

Connie Willis, who's a master of all lengths. I like her novels, but sitting down with a Willis short story collection is a treat. I can't really put my finger on why, either; I just sink into them and enjoy. I hope to be that absorbing and entertaining some day.

N.K. Jemisin is one of the leaders in showing us all how to write fantasy without going back to European history and folklore for our worldbuilding. Her first books, the Inheritance Trilogy, is set in a lush world with a long history; half the reasont he book is so absorbing is because the setting is not same-old-same-old medieval Europe. I like those books, mind you, but variety is always good, and there's far too little of it in fantasy. Jemisin's showing us how to fix that and do it right.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This one's maybe a cheat, because I know Kris and have taken classes from her. While I enjoy her fiction in various genres, Kris has influenced me greatly over the last few years with her attitude toward writing and publishing, her business smarts, and her eagerness to teach anyone who's willing to learn. She's influencing a whole generation of writers, and we'll all -- writers and readers alike -- be better off for it. If you're a writer, read her blog -- -- including her archived posts under "Business Resources." And if you're a reader, read her fiction because it rocks.

Angie

Angela wrote: "In no particular order:

Harlan Ellison definitely. I don't try to write like him, per se, but the way he writes so strongly like himself is inspiring. Don't copy anyone -- readers wi..."

Excellent list, Angie. Five writers on there, I've never heard of. Shame on me. Thanks.

Arthur C. Clarke & Robert A. Heinlein should be on the list, too. Along with Isaac Asimov, they were some of the most prolific short story writers during the golden age of SF.

Bobby, totaly allowed to cheat on the Lee/Kirby/Ditko thing...Stan would tell the story to his artist, the artist would draw the story, and only then would Stan actually write the story...amazing how well that system worked, I doubt it would work as well with any other combo of writer/artists

G33, that PKD would be more of an influence for overseas writers is not surprising....Stanaslaw Lem (sp) said PKD was the only SF writer that mattered (and then went on to say stuff in the same article that got him kicked out of the SFWA)...PKD made a large amout of his income from his overseas editions of his work, particularly the French editions

for my money, among the Big Three, Asimov was by far the best stylist...James Gunn called it "American Plain Style", I love it because it's a style that gets out of the way and lets the story flow...to me it's truely beautiful, a style all should aspire

Spooky1947 wrote: "for my money, among the Big Three, Asimov was by far the best stylist...James Gunn called it "American Plain Style", I love it because it's a style that gets out of the way and lets the story flow....to me it's truely beautiful, a style all should aspire "

Spooky -- I like Asimov's style too, and not only for his fiction; it also made his nonfiction very readable and understandable. I wouldn't say every writer should aspire to that style, though. If every work of fiction was written in the same style, no matter what that is, fiction would get very boring very fast. We need plain, clean writers like Asimov and others like him, but I think we also need writers like Bradbury and Ellison and Delaney and Rambo and Valente and LeGuin, whose styles are more obviously there, but still readable and enjoyable.

Angie

Angela, yes, I guess your are right...it WOULD be boreing if everyone wrote the same...but too many times I find a "fancy" style getting in the way of the story...at time like those I rember The Elements of Style (a thin book every writer should read on a regular basis) and Rule One: "BE CLEAR! BE CLEAR! BE CLEAR!

Spooky1947 wrote: "Angela, yes, I guess your are right...it WOULD be boreing if everyone wrote the same...but too many times I find a "fancy" style getting in the way of the story...at time like those I rember The El..."

The thing is, a story or novel that I don't like will probably be someone else's favorite, and that's cool. Having a wide variety of styles (and genres and subgenres and themes and settings and character types and cetera) means it's that much more likely that any given reader will be able to find something they love to read, which is what this is all for.

S&W (and CMS) are useful so far as they go, but they were written as guides for non-fiction. Fiction shouldn't necessarily sound like a term paper or a newspaper article. If that's the style the writer wants to use, for their purpose in writing that story, then that's fine. But there are times when strict style-guide style isn't at all appropriate. Frex., when you're writing dialogue, unless the character speaking is an English professor at a Toastmaster's meeting, they're probably going to use some run-ons and some fragments, they're probably going to use some slang, they might misuse a word or two, they're probably going to have some redundancies sneak in there. All of which are no-nos according to the style guides, but all of which are very appropriate for normal people just talkin'.

And if you're writing in first person, or deep third, or in third person with a distinct narrator-as-character, then that same conversational style is also appropriate to the narrative, not just the dialogue.

A big chunk of the art of fiction writing is knowing when it's allowable or even necessary to break the standard rules. To do this effectively, you have to know and thoroughly understand the rules first, comprehend what a given rule is trying to accomplish and make a decision that you want to accomplish something different, or that you want to accomplish the same goal another way. Writers who break the rules badly will usually have skipped the whole "learning and comprehension" part, which rarely works well. :P

But it comes down to what you're trying to do. Slipstream makes a whole genre (or whatever you want to call it) out of breaking your Rule One, out of not being perfectly clear, of producing a cognitive dissonance sort of feeling in the reader. If a particular reader isn't into that, that's fine, but there are folks who like it, which is reason enough for it to exist and be considered good, no matter what rules it breaks.

Angie

Angela wrote: "Spooky1947 wrote: "Angela, yes, I guess your are right...it WOULD be boreing if everyone wrote the same...but too many times I find a "fancy" style getting in the way of the story...at time like th..."

Yeah, not to stay on the Angie bandwagon but...

Story/narrative is paramount without a doubt. But Robert Aickman achieves an emotional resonance that is more precise, more accurate and more powerful because of the manner in which he tells his story. The same might be said of James Baldwin, Cormac McCarthy and yes, definitely Ray Bradbury. Without that sense of wonder, that lyrical poetry, Bradbury becomes something else entirely. The aesthetics of his prose add a whole other layer of meaning. The same could be said of say, Joe Hill (somebody I totally should throw in on my list). His collection of short pieces, 20th Century Ghosts exhibits an exceptional grace and style that you almost don't see anywhere else in speculative fiction. Compare his work to his dad's. They're both great but very different. And I love Stephen King, he's one of my all time favorites and lord knows, he's very clear, but his son's prose is more ambitious, more sophisticated and I would say, more emotionally accurate. When he writes about a museum curator who captures the last breaths of individuals, it's his style that sells it. Gorgeous. He veritably casts a spell in "My Father's Mask" with his absolutely liquid prose. If he were just to relate the events of the narrative in the order in which they happened, the story might remain, but the magic would be lost.

Spooky1947 wrote: "G33, that PKD would be more of an influence for overseas writers is not surprising....Stanaslaw Lem (sp) said PKD was the only SF writer that mattered (and then went on to say stuff in the same art..."

Spooky, do you have a link to what-sounds-like-a-very-interesting-article?

ill have the info for you tomorrow Bobby....I got to find the book

:D

Some of the short story writers who influenced *me* were:

Clifford D. Simak
Cordwainer Smith
Eric Frank Russell
Fritz Leiber
Robert E Heinlein
James White
Murray Leinster
Leslie Charteris

No love for Frank Herbert? He only wrote one truly great book, but what a book it is. Literature would be greatly diminished without Dune.

David wrote: "No love for Frank Herbert? He only wrote one truly great book, but what a book it is. Literature would be greatly diminished without Dune."

Um, we're talking short stories here.

Short stories? Sorry, guess I should have read a bit closer.

David wrote: "Short stories? Sorry, guess I should have read a bit closer."

Other than that, you're absolutely right! :-D

In the more modern age, I have been surprised at just how poetic Ken Liu and Yoon Ha Lee can be.

In terms of long-term influences, certainly Dick and Asimov (probably more so than anyone), H. Beam Piper, but also Pat Cadigan. Curiously, not so much with Arthur C. Clarke.

From a non-scifi background, Stephen King without a doubt, but also Flannery O'Connor and Richard Ford - both have certainly been characterisation and storytelling influences.

Jack Vance has a posse.

I am going to throw out an author that has receeded from view but is still strong. He is Robert Shaw (1931-1996) and he was a prolific author. He covered a broad array of ideas but the one that brought him to mind again is a story about a possibility that Alexis a personal assistant like service that may have recorded a a crime. The police want to hear the recording. This is so similar to a short story "Light of Other Days" (August 1966 Analog) and it introduces a product that may have recorded a crime. It then went through the social and legal permutations that such a thing could produce. I have remembered this story for 50 years.

Mark wrote: "I am going to throw out an author that has receeded from view but is still strong. He is Robert Shaw (1931-1996) and he was a prolific author. He covered a broad array of ideas but the one that brought..."

References to Shaw's "slow glass" have shown up in other, later stories by other authors over the years. E.g., I noticed it casually mentioned in Modesitt's Time God (1982) when we discussed it earlier this year.

I'd just like to second a few of the names above:
- Philip K Dick
- Arthur C Clarke
- Orson Scott Card
- Ray Bradbury ("The Veldt" might still be my all time favorite short story)

Other recommendations:
- I really liked William Gibson's collection Burning Chrome although it might be a little dated now - in the same vein is the anthology Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
- Stephen R Donaldson's collection Daughter of Regals and Other Tales
- A really fun short story by an underappreciated author is Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evans