Asklemmy

Terry Pratchett.

Neil Gaiman

Sir Terry Pratchett.

A phenomenal author whose ability to weave a story is fantastic, but was also adept at writing in jokes and references that make re-reading the novels a delight.

He died in 1982 but his works are hugely influential:
Philip K Dick.

Brandon Sanderson

The man is a top flight book generating machine. Where he's taking the Cosmere, I don't know, but I'm gladly awaiting for the novels he'll write the in future to find out. Reading the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn is a joy.

I also really enjoyed how he wrapped up The Wheel of Time. He is much less reluctant to kill off characters than many other authors, and that series needed some serious character culling to bring closure.

William Gibson. He's a huge influence on modern scifi

Douglas Adams is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of the period.

He is known for light, surrealistic science fiction comedy, not a genre generally considered "high art" but his mastery of language is superb. He is a master of analogies in a way that is both funny but also makes the reader think about the roles and conventions of symbolism in language.

David Foster Wallace

Stephen King

Haruki Murakami

Kurt Vonnegut

Toni Morrison

Just a few names that popped into my head

Edit: some of these are based on popular opinions. For example, I never really got into Toni Morrison

Terry Pratchett (first book 1971 so barely counts haha)

Neal Stephenson

Umberto Eco.

This isn't a perfect example but Cormac McCarthy has been my favourite author for years now, and his first major work Suttree was from '79.

My all time favourites novel is Blood Meridian from 1985. If you're familiar with metamodernism, which is basically very modern works that have their cake and eat it when it comes to modernist ideals and postmodern critique, you'd clock that practically every western is either a modernist white hat western or a metamodern "the west is grim and hard, but also fucking cool" western. The only straight postmodern takes on the west that I know of are either Blood Meridian or pieces of work that take direct notes from it, such as the films Dead Man from '95 (except maybe the Oregon Trail video game from. 85'). Blood Meridian otherwise is a fantastic novel which meditates on madness and cruelty, religion and fate, race, war and conquest and so many other themes. It also has one of the best antagonists ever written in Judge Holden, a character who I would have called a direct insert of Satan if not for the fact that his deeds and the novel as a whole are closely inspired by true events. I feel the novel takes inspiration from Apocalypse Now, specifically the '79 film and not Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness. If you enjoy that film, you're likely to enjoy this book. The opening and closing chapters are fantastic, but I often find myself re-reading chapter 14. It has some of the best prose and monologues of the entire novel, and encompasses in my opinion the main turning point of the novel.

His other legendary work is The Road, a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel. I'll talk on this one less but as our climate crisis grows and our cultural zeitgeist swings more towards this being the critical issue of our time, the novel fantastically paints itself as both a fantastic warning to our 21st century apocalypse and the unresolved 20th century shadow of nuclear winter. Despite this, it hones in on a meditation of parenthood and could be considered solely about that, with other themes of death, trauma, survival and mortality being explored through parenthood. Of course the unsalvageable deatg of the world that make the setting also makes this theme extra tragic. There is an adaptation into a film from 2008 but it isn't anywhere near as potent as the novel and I'd suggest should only be seen in tandem with reading the novel. The prize of this novel has really evolved to fit the novel too. McCarthy is renowned for his punctuation lacking prose, but where Blood Meridian is practically biblical in its dramatic and beautiful prose which juxtaposes the plain and brutal violence, The Road sacrifices no beauty in it's language but is so somber and meanders from mostly terse to so florid, while also always perfectly feels like how the protagonists are seeing their world.

Two authors I haven't surprisingly seen mentioned

Neil Gaiman is great. If you haven't read his works yet, start with *the ocean at the end of the lane". A wonderful, short read.

This second one is going to be controversial.

George RR Martin. The books are actually well written, and yes the final book probably won't get written, but it won't take away from your enjoyment. He is a very good writer.

Cormac McCarthy, wrote some books you might have seen as movies such as The Road and No Country for Old Men.

Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is a crazy good book.

Neil Gaiman. The man can write novels, YA novels, graphic novels, children’s books. And they all have such well crafted worlds that you just want to lose yourself in them.

I also think Neal Stephenson and Corey Doctorow deserve WAY more attention than they get.

I'm going to repeat Ursula K Le Guin and Margaret Atwood because it's hard to overstate how much of everything is in their works. Iain (M) Banks I'll also echo, but will add China Miéville because there aren't enough anarchists in this thread.

Alan Moore

Saga of the Swamp Thing and Watchmen are two amazing runs of comics he wrote.

Huge fan of his recent-ish novel, Jerusalem.

Cory Doctorow and I suggest reading Walkaway. I found it transformative.

Can I cheat? Ursula K LeGuin's first famous book, A Wizard of Earth sea, was published in 1968. Amazing stuff. Also I love her short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.

Considering how many of his stories have been adapted to tv and movies, in addition to being great on their own: Stephen King.

Andy Weir -from a not too avid reader

Terry Pratchett! The Discworld books have kept me busy for years now and I don't even consider myself much of a reader.

Iain M. Banks.

Really love how nobody is hating on any of the replies here.

• Greg Egan
• Rudy Rucker
• Vernor Vinge

Hard, computational SF aren't given nearly the respect they should, and these apply math, comp sci, and physics in a way nobody else does. If there's any civilization in the future, they'll be seen as visionary.

Runners-up are Robert L. Forward, Alastair Reynolds, but Forward has very little computation, and Reynolds doesn't show his math too often.

James S A Corey

It's a pen name but still.

I haven't seen Chuck Palahniuk mentioned, and he was very influential to a bunch of us millenials, I imagine. He is very good at writing about the nihilism of modern times.

Fight Club is the most popular example of his novels, and its a great read. I am also really particular to, Rant:The Oral Biography of Buster. Its such a weird story, and was one of the first books to really spark my interest in reading fiction. He has a bunch of other good novels I would recommend, like Snuff, Choke, and Lullaby.

Ken Follet: Pillars of the Earth. Historical fiction. You're transported back to the 1200s. Cathedral building with raunchy politics, a bit of HBO Game of Thrones mixed in. It was extremely visual... and fondly memorable for me.

Haruki Murakami. I've liked everything he's written up to 1Q84. I'm sure his newer stuff is good too I just haven't caught up to them yet lol

If you want something more like hard sci-fi/cyberpunk, I recommend the Otherland series by Tad Williams. It's seriously probably the best modern sci-fi I've ever read

• John Scalzi - Old Man's War series and The Interdependency series
• Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse

I would say Robin Hobb. She writes easy to read, character driven fantasy novels that gracefully deal with a gamut of difficult topics (e.g., orphanism, otherness, sexual violence, mortality, etc.). The books really helped me build empathy for people and concepts that were far afield of my own experience.

Vonnegut

Ones that many people have mentioned: Atwood, Wallace, Murakami

One I don't think anyone has said yet - Paul Auster. I've only read New York Trilogy so far, but I thought it was superb.

My nominations will be limited in scope to fantasy and sci-fi, but there are a few stand outs. Now, on to my nominations.

There are so many amazing authors in our era, but I'll stick to a few only.

1. Brandon Sanderson - he writes like a machine, churning out books in-between other books. He's unstoppable. I haven't enjoyed his latest stuff, but his early stuff is outstanding high fantasy. Way of Kings blew my mind when I read it, and Mistborn was so original and awesome.

2. Joe Ambercrombie - The Blade Itself is a wonderful book, as are all the follow-up novels

3. Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos is the most complex, outstanding, high-minded, thought provoking science fiction I've ever read.

4. N. K. Jemisin - The Fifth Season and it's sequels are some of the most unique ideas I've ever read. It's incomparable to anything else. It stands alone in creativity.

Honorable mentions: William Gibson, Dennis E. Taylor,

Cormac McCarthy

Ray Bradbury. All his books are amazing.

Bah, I don't feel like reading? He wrote tons of short stories.

Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time Saga.

The Amazon show does not do it justice on my opinion, but it has been explained with how it's another turn of the wheel and a "what if"

Stephen King is definitely a great author

A few years off from your criteria, but Ursula K. Le Guin released A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968. However, she had been pretty prominent in science fiction for the decade.

Important enough to inspire Pratchett and Miyazaki (of Studio Ghibli).

She's a hugely influential writer.