Late-night author survey

[yendi]

So, as some of you may know, one of my favorite authors is Jon Courtnay Grimwood. I don't know why, as I've done minimal drugs, have no interest in DJing, and am thoroughly unimpressed by cyberpunk in general. But for some reason, I like his work.

But I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned how I discovered his work.

A few years ago, I was in the Science Fiction and Mystery Bookshop with my friend Colleen, browsing around before a Neil Gaimain signing. As we're both wont to do, we were grabbing books that we felt the other hand to read and forcing them into each others' hands. One of the novels she foisted upon me was Replay, by Ken Grimwood. It was one of the ones I ended up buying, and I thoroughly enjoyed it -- it's a fun time-travel romp that won the World Fantasy Award sometime in the '80s. It's also partially set at Emory, a nice bonus.

I attempted to seek out other works by Grimwood, but couldn't find any in print.

A couple of years later, I was ordering from amazon.co.uk (back when it was still Bookpages, before Amazon bought them out), and needed to get one more book to get a cheaper shipping rate. Remembering that many authors I enjoy are published in the UK even when they're out of print in the US, I searched for "grimwood." I didn't find Ken, but I found Jon Courtney Grimwood instead, and his stuff sounded interesting, so I ordered a book of his, and was hooked.

So, that's the strangest, most roundabout way I've ever discovered an author. What's yours?

Comments

[mightywombat.livejournal.com]

Let's see... I was in Barnes & Noble with a little extra fold in my pocket... always a dangerous proposition. I was looking for some good, juicy horror pablum, just to feed my need for gore and softcore porn in one novel. I picked through their selection, mostly picking off books that looked or sounded intersting by their titles or covers (I know, I know...).

Among the two books that I picked out were Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton and Blood Price by Tanya Huff. I brought them homw, read them (yummy!) and handed them to my Mom, "Here, you might like these." The next thing I know, Mom's bought all the Anita Blake books, and all the Tanya Huff books she could find.

I read, I like, and the next thing you know, a friend of mine is proposing an RPG "Based on this series you've probably never heard of," the Anita Blake books. Go fig. Not really a roundabout discovery, but an interesting way for it to come back to me...

Discovering authors

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Well, I was helping clean up at the end of NorWesCon last year and they had a bit of swag to give out to those that helped. I was given this book - Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling. I enjoyed it. I wasn't high fiction but it was engaging and enjoyable. Enough so that I went out and bought the other two books. I have to say that giving the book away as swag worked. It's likely that I wouldn't've bought the books otherwise..