A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

The original meme is a basic list, available here, which simply shows which writers you're familiar with.

My version: Drop the authors you’ve never read to the bottom. For the remainder, discuss or rec at least one of their books with at least one sentence of explanation about why you do or don’t like it. Ask your readers to tell you about the authors you’ve never read.

Cynthia Felice. I only read the book she co-authored with Connie Willis, Water Witch, which was enjoyable but not memorable.

Diana Wynne Jones. One of my favorite writers of all time. Click her tag for more reviews and discussion. My favorites of hers are The Homeward Bounders, Fire and Hemlock, Witch Week, and Charmed Life. The last two are in print in the USA in omnibuses, as The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 2: The Magicians of Caprona / Witch Week and The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1: Charmed Life / The Lives of Christopher Chant.

Gwyneth Jones. I’ve read some of her YA written as “Ann Halam.” It tends toward the awesomely depressing. (Dr. Franklin's Island (Readers Circle): Kids are utterly helpless prisoners as they are slowly mutated against their will; Taylor Five Everyone the teenage heroine loves dies horribly, and the orangutans whose survival they all died for go extinct anyway.) The only one I’d rec is her least depressing book, Siberia: A Novel, which has the wonderful idea of growing animals out of high-tech kits.

Leigh Kennedy. I only read her infamous short story, “Her Furry Face,” about chimpanzee bestiality. Okay, it’s really about how the main character is such a sexist pig that he’d rather have sex with a chimpanzee than a woman, because the former will look up to him adoringly and make no demands. But still. Kids! Grow animals from high-tech kits! Then have sex with them! No, I am not going to add a “chimpanzee cunnilingus” tag.

ETA: My bad. It was actually an orangutan. (No wonder they're in such desperate straits in Taylor Five.) I'm not making an "orangutan onanism" tag either.

Lee Killough. I only read her collection of linked short stories, Aventine, which are set on a high-tech artsy/bohemian planet, and are about new and alien technology turned to the service of art. The plots are predictable “biter bit” tales, but the ideas are quite cool. I especially liked the one in which actors take drugs to make themselves really get into character.

Nancy Kress. She’s famous for idea-driven sf, but my favorite of her books is the quirky fantasy The Prince of Morning Bells. It’s clearly influenced by The Last Unicorn in its mix of fairy-tale beauty and eeriness with clever metafictional references, but manages to carve out its own identity as well. I also enjoyed her classic sf novel Beggars in Spain, about the implications of what at first seem to be a small genetic alteration, to remove the need for sleep. But I like the original novella better. The novel is worth reading, though, and stands on its own. Don’t bother with the sequels. I also don’t rec her mainstream thrillers or anything involving reincarnation. But her short stories and novellas are often quite strong.

Authors I’ve never read, H-K: Monica Hughes, Katherine Kurtz. . If you’ve ever read anything by either of them, please discuss in comments.