It's actually a hard question. What does favorite mean in this case? I'm trying to think of several authors that I would put up as contenders - Neal Stephenson, Kurt Vonnegut, Mr. Shakespeare, etc... - and for each I ask myself, "Did I like everything they wrote? Did I run out and stand in line for the next publication?" The answer to each is, "Partially, yes, but not always." I'll take a Shakespeare tragedy or comedy over the histories, any day. I read Stephenson's geek stuff (Snow Crash, Diamond Age...) multiple times, but couldn't even finish the Baroque stuff. And Vonnegut's early stuff is all classic, but later in life he got a little too grumpy-old-man for my taste.

Besides, that's a tricky metric given that a favorite author can be dead, and thus nothing new is ever coming from them again (about, maybe, but not by them).

Ok, I have an answer: Robert Heinlein. If you told me tomorrow that there was a newly discovered Heinlein novel about to be published, I would make it a point to go get it. I'm not sure who else I can say that for (*). I wouldn't flip through it on the shelf the next time I'm at the bookstore, like I might a Vonnegut novel. I'd head for Amazon and buy it on trust alone based on what I've liked about his previous works.

(*) I am leaving out Mr. Shakespeare because he's too obvious a choice. If you told me somebody magically turned up a script for Cardenio, I'd be on that puppy before you could finish your sentence.
Source(s):
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywo...

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