Bring back any author you like back to life?

[Jason Danger Keyes]

I can only shudder to imagine the terrors that an undead Edgar Allen Poe would write XD

 

[James Crook]

I'd love to bring back Sir Conan Doyle, to see what he thinks about the Sherlock Holmes movies. I like the first, and I'm going to see the second.

 

[fenrizz]

Douglas Adams. No one else. i need more dirk gently. i need more hitchhiker. but there will be never more of it...except the horrible-to-average eoin colfer fanfiction.

This, oh so much this!

Hitchhikers Guide is my favorite books of all time, and just knowing that there was supposed to be one more volume is almost torture!

 

[silenttea]

Oscar Wilde. 'Nuff said.

 

[VigodaOnIce]

Philip K. Dick, but I already know he is alive again. Ooops, I said too much. I gotta go; they're gonna be after me.

 

[Matt-Sama]

Tolkein so he can finish some of his transcripts and I'd like to read the full version of The Silmarillion.
William S. Burroughs would be another good one. Imagine what his cracked out tales would be like in our modern times with internet and whatnot.

 

[Eleima]

Definitely Frank Herbert for me.
So that he can knock some sense into that silly son of his, and pick up where Chapterhouse: Dune left us hanging.

 

[Tim_Buoy]

i would have to say brian jaques i loved his books and i was really sad when he died

 

[brumley53]

You have advance technology that can bring a dead author back to life, who would it be?

I've really enjoyed many Lovecraft tales so it would be him

Oh, hooray. You're bringing back a racist!

Bring Back Brian Jacques. Eulalia!

You know who else was racist back then? Everyone.

an assumption like that would just be ignorant. not EVERYONE was racist. just moronic asshats like Lovecraft. also, his writing is kind of... Blase'. it's truly boring.

There are a few problems with what you just said. I bolded and italicized them to help you out.

H.P. Lovecraft wasn't just a little racist like most people back then, he was very very racist and xenophobic, although saying his writing is bad because of that is stupid. The reason his writing is so interesting is because of the way he talks about things he doesn't understand, which is really just a huge metaphor for his xenophobia. He probably wouldn't fit so well in the modern day.

 

[piesandwich]

Another Vote for Douglas Adams. Dam Salmon of Doubt cutting you off mid flow *grumble grumble *

 

[Sacman]

I don't read a whole lot but I rather enjoy most of what I've read by Philip K Dick... I'm a sucker for cyberpunk and scifi in general...<.<

 

[Vigormortis]

actually, I really liked Michael Crichton's stuff... so him maybe?

I would have to second that. He was always one of my favorite authors. I've read and own just about every single one of his novels. Both of the fictional and non-fictional variety. And, quite frankly, there aren't nearly enough decent, speculative sci-fi/thriller/horror novels being written lately by any current authors. At least, none that I've seen.

Besides Chrichton, I would also pick (in no particular order) any of the following:

Issac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke
Carl Sagan
J.R.R. Tolkien
Jules Verne
H.G. Wells
Agatha Christie
Edgar Allan Poe
[edit][because my memory failed me]
Philip K. Dick
Frank Herbert

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

frank herbert. So he could finish the dune series with books that make CANONICAL SENSE. unlike his son who took to finishing the series but apparently didnt read the damn books!

 

[Caveworm]

Not sure if it has been said...

Frank Herbert. To finish of the Dune books and stop his bastard son from skull fucking his legacy.

 

[Move127]

Hermann Hesse

 

[teebeeohh]

no one
they probably would suck or at least not be as good when ripped out of their time. Oscar wilde wouldn't be half as miserable today and his work would most likely suck

 

[BlackjackCF]

Definitely Z. A. Recht. He wrote one of the finest zombie series out there - The Morningstar Saga. He also died at far too early an age at 26.

 

[Blackout62]

"Rise Ernest Hemingway. Rise and usher forth a new era of manli- Wait Douglas Adams, oh I'm all over that."

And so dry British literature was saved as the Hemingway zombie terrorized any and all wildlife that dared be able to kill mortal men.

 

[The Becker]

H.P. Lovecraft

 

[Jarlaxl]

I'd love to bring back Sir Conan Doyle, to see what he thinks about the Sherlock Holmes movies. I like the first, and I'm going to see the second.

I was going to say Sir Doyle, but I am of the understanding that he hated the Holmes stories after a point and wrote them solely because they made money - and, well, Holmes is the main way I'm aware of the man. He may be a jolly good character to have a beer with, though, and certainly a good deal less morbid than his counterpart in that genre, Edgar Allan Poe (for the Dupin character).

For me, it's tough. On the one hand, I want to say Emile Durkheim, because, holy hell, his writings are so damn INTERESTING, and oh what I wouldn't give to pick that man's brains apart for hours on end. (His being one of the founding fathers of sociology helps with that - Weber and Marx have always been fascinating if dense, and Durkheim's logic just makes so much sense to me.) I don't know French, though, so it could be like that one time I got my hands on an old-school Malleus Maleficarum only to find that the whole thing was in Latin and thus beyond my reading abilities.

On the other...Dashiell Hammett. Oh my God, Dashiell Hammett.