IMHO, Stephen R. Donaldson tops the list. After that, include R. A. Salvatore, Tolkien, Lovecraft, Ayn Rand (ok--she's a mixed bag), James P. Blaylock, Asimov, and Joseph Campbell (not really a novelist, but if he wrote it then I'll read it). This series had no single author (a collective world) but I really liked the Wild Card novels--the Astronomer is probably the most sick and twisted person you could find (thanks to Lew Shriner) and (trivia) Dr. Tachyon once appeared (albeit slightly altered) in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (can you name which one, and who wrote the episode?).
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