Midlist Authors

[Waylander]

I know what the term midlist author means, but I wouldn't be able to recognise a midlist author by name. I know Charles Stross is midlist but only because he says so on his blog. Does anyone know of any midlist authors I may have heard of? I read a lot of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Thriller and Historical Fiction.

[pwalker8]

Probably the majority of SF&F authors you have read would be called mid list.

Just off the top of my head - Katherine Kurtz (the Deryni series), Barbara Hambly, Tanya Huff, Timothy Zahn, S.M. Stirling, Holly Lisle,, gosh the list goes on and on.

Really, it's a whole lot easier to say who _isn't_ mid_list. Authors like David Weber, Jim Butcher, Robert Jordan, J.K. Rowlings.

There is certainly a grey area of authors who have had a hit or two. I don't know if there is an offical cut off point. One thing that I would say is that any author who was written books in any of the major franchises such as Star Trek or Star Wars is most likely a mid-list author.

[Waylander]

Would someone like LE Modesitt count as a midlist author? It would be really great if there was a list of sci-fi/fantasy midlist authors somewhere, so I can see which ones look good. I'm just tired of reading only the bestsellers all the time, as they are most widely available in physical bookstores, and the most visible on Amazon. Anyone know how I can go about this?

[pwalker8]

I would say that LE Modesitt is considered mid list. High mid list perhaps, but I don't think that he's had a best seller type book.

Goodreads might be your best bet. A lot of people see to like that service. Another way to see to the see the currently active SF&F books is to visit the various SF&F publishers web sites (Baen and Tor come to mind) and look at their catalogs. I've been reading SF&F since the early 70's. I've probably got 1000+ different authors in my collection (both ebooks and paper books). That's a bit much to be posting as a list. You could go through some of the SF&F threads in this forum for various people's favorites and get a pretty good list.

Most mid list authors are known for series. When I look through my collection, so of the series that stand out to me are (I'm probably going to misspell some names since this is off the top of my head)

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series.
Anne McCaffry's Dragon Riders of Pern series
Jerry Pournelle's Mercenary series (Pournelle probably isn't mid-list)
James Hogan's various series
Michael Moorcocks Eternal Champion series
David Gemmel's Drenai series
Barbara Hambly's various series
Harry Turtledove's lost legion series (known for alternate universe books)
S.M Stirling
David Duncan
Katherine Kurtz Deryni series
Patrica Bray
Glen Cooks Black Company and Garrett series (Black Company is dark, Garrett is very funny)
Gordon R Dickson (The Dragon Knight series)
Poul Anderson
Tanya Huff
Ursula K Le Guin
L Sprague De Camp
MK Wren
Michael Scott Rohan
Jennifer Roberson
Harry Harrison
Sean Russel
Andre Norton
Melissa Scott
Tim Powers

That's just off the top of my head of well know mid list authors.

[JSWolf]

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series. <-- midlist
Anne McCaffry's Dragon Riders of Pern series <-- not midlist
Jerry Pournelle's Mercenary series (Pournelle probably isn't mid-list) <-- not midlist
James Hogan's various series <-- midlist
Michael Moorcocks Eternal Champion series <-- midlist
David Gemmel's Drenai series <-- not midlist
Barbara Hambly's various series <-- midlist
Harry Turtledove's lost legion series (known for alternate universe books) <-- midlist
S.M Stirling <-- midlist
David Duncan <-- midlist
Katherine Kurtz Deryni series<-- midlist
Patrica Bray<-- midlist
Glen Cooks Black Company and Garrett series (Black Company is dark, Garrett is very funny) <-- midlist
Gordon R Dickson (The Dragon Knight series) <-- not midlist
Poul Anderson <-- midlist
Tanya Huff <-- midlist
Ursula K Le Guin <-- not good enough to be midlist
L Sprague De Camp <-- not midlist
MK Wren <-- midlist
Michael Scott Rohan <-- midlist
Jennifer Roberson <-- midlist
Harry Harrison <-- not midlist
Sean Russel <-- midlist
Andre Norton <-- not midlist
Melissa Scott <-- midlist
Tim Powers <-- midlist

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Ursula K Le Guin <-- not good enough to be midlist

Funnily enough, I'd say Le Guin was not midlist for the exact opposite reason. Sentence-for-sentence she's probably the best writer in that list. I don't like all of her books, but I can't deny the quality of the prose. She might even have had too many big sellers to count as midlist, but even if not, I'd see her as more of a prestige author: a multiple award-winner and author of some important works, with appeal outside the genre.

I don't know if that even really counts as a separate category, but then I don't find "midlist" a very useful or meaningful term.

[Waylander]

I would have said that David Gemmell was definitely midlist, but perhaps not?

[pwalker8]

It all depends on your definition of mid-list. I tend to view it by sales, i.e. does the author have to keep writing to make ends meet, or did they have that mega NY Times best seller that gives them independence. Many of the ones you say are not mid-list, seems to be more because they are well known rather than big sales. I serious doubt that Norton ever had a best seller. There are a couple that I call mid list that might have had one or two big sellers, but not many.

Just as a note, I'm not particularly wed to a given definition of mid-list, nor am I offended by someone disagreeing that a given author is mid list or not. Just saying where I'm coming from.

[mgbino]

I tend to think of anyone that hasn't hit the top 20 or so of the NY Times or Sunday Times bestseller list as midlist.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mgbino

I tend to think of anyone that hasn't hit the top 20 or so of the NY Times or Sunday Times bestseller list as midlist.

I would imagine that virtually all of us fit that qualification. Does that mean we're all midlist authors?

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Funnily enough, I'd say Le Guin was not midlist for the exact opposite reason. Sentence-for-sentence she's probably the best writer in that list.

I would agree. Fortunately, Jon's opinions are just that. *Jon's* opinions. And one should look at them in that light.

[taosaur]

Yeah, LeGuin is one of the highest profile authors in two different genres, and Left Hand of Darkness is seen by many as a classic irrespective of genre. I don't know how high she's landed on the NYTimes list, but even if she's never seen the top ten (I suspect she has, probably with Earthsea), she's certainly transcended the midlist by general acclaim.

Modesitt was the first name that came to mind for me. Jim Butcher fought his way up from the midlist. Kevin Hearne, author of the somewhat Dresden-derivative Iron Druid series, is at best midlist. Is Dan Simmons midlist? Hyperion gets recommended a lot, and I think Drood may have sold well, but his body of work overall has that "got bills to pay" feel.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by taosaur

Yeah, LeGuin is one of the highest profile authors in two different genres, and Left Hand of Darkness is seen by many as a classic irrespective of genre. I don't know how high she's landed on the NYTimes list, but even if she's never seen the top ten (I suspect she has, probably with Earthsea), she's certainly transcended the midlist by general acclaim.

I'd be reluctant to call any Grand Master "midlist!" McCaffrey, Norton and LeGuin were the first three women to make the list (Connie Willis being the fourth and most recent). These are people who have a solid place in history at the very top of their genre, whether or not they sold as many blockbusters this week as J. Random Crimewriter or L. Diet Bandwagonner.

[pwalker8]

As I said, it depends on your definition of midlist. Most of the time that I've seen it used, it refers to authors who sale well enough to economically justify publishing their books, but with no best sellers, rather than by perceived quality of the work or longevity. I think that "sells enough to pay the bills" is the phrase one normally sees. By that definition, pretty much every SF&F author until fairly recently (in the 70's say) is at best a mid-list author, even if they are Grand Masters.

[DrNefario]

I think even now SF is probably too small a field to lift most people out of the midlist, regardless of award-winners and occasional minor bestsellers. Fantasy is possibly a different story.