Literature, Poetry, and Books
John Miller has compiled a top ten of contemporary conservative fiction writers--the usual suspects are there, such as Drury, Dos Passos, Wolfe, McCarry, and Helprin, but not always for the novels you might have urged. I have no particular quarrel with this list (though Tolkien deserved a mention), but compare it with the greatest novelists (or poets) at hand--Henry James, to name one. Or just consider some from the 19th century: Austen, Dostoevsky, Tolstoi, and Trollope. David Lodge would have been a daring choice for this list. Whom would you have picked?
CORRECTION: As per Richard Adams' comment #2, below, my mention of the Europeans is inappropriate; John clearly intended this to be an Americans only list. An even greater blunder on my part was to omit Melville and Twain from my list of 19th century authors.
I’d also have given Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) a nod, for sure. But if I had to pick one, my vote would go to C.S. Lewis for "That Hideous Strength." Although the third book in what is known as Lewis’ “Space Trilogy” it has little to do with space, but is instead a powerful and often eerily familiar indictment of the “elite” - in media, government, science, finance - getting a free hand in social engineering, and what can happen when a small group of people with courage and faith stand up to “power” in its most terrible incarnations.
I'm fairly certain Miller's list is devoted only to American writers. That explains some of the omissions.
Perhaps there's an active conservative ban or boycott on non-American writers? I'm not sure O'Reilly's called off his boycott of All Things French yet...
Anyway, this list looks to be about as worthless as the list Miller made of conservative rock songs.
Surely you don't mean to indicate that Twain was a conservative author. A great author, yes; a conservative author, very doubtful. Twain supported nearly every quack "rights" movement of his day. Claiming him for the conservative camp is pretty weak.
I'm still waiting to see other picks for the original list, not being a big fan of American contemporary conservative fiction writers myself.
There is a new Sheriff in town: "America's Galactic Foreign Legion" by Walter Knight, a 13 book science fiction series depicting a strong America taking humanity across the galaxy to fight spider-like aliens.
Robert Goble is an up-and-coming conservative fiction author to watch out for. His novel Across a Harvested Field had quite a few subtle subtle pro-family pro-individualist arguments weaved into his story.