I really began to love to read while in high school, and my favorite authors were my heroes: J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut.
The books, the authors who matter the most are those who speak to me and speak for me all those things about life I most need to hear as the confession of myself
The diplomatic thing for me to say is that if publishers are dressing up other authors as Terry Pratchett clones then they are doing a disservice to those authors. If they didn't dress them as clones but did something different, then those authors could be pioneering in a different sense.
There are twenty-four characters in this book named Max. Let there be an end to this silly business of authors never giving their own names to characters in their novels. False modesty, faugh!
I am one of those authors who believes (perhaps foolishly) that she is in complete control of the story.