Need new Authors to read

I've been trying to read the Shannara books by Terry Brooks, and although I managed to get all the way through Sword of Shannara, Elfstones of Shannara is really unexciting and pretty crappy over all. I stuck with Sword of Shannara because I wanted to see what this magic sword did (which turned out to be pretty boring in my humble opinion) and Elfstones doesn't even have that to hold me. I borrowed a David Gemmel book from the library, I forget what it's called now, I'll give that a go, or maybe try some more Stephen King. Unfortunately the Gemmel book is a hard back which is a bit of a pain in the tits for carrying around (I rarely read in the house, usually on public transport and at work). I need to try some new authors, I like the idea of this Christian Jacq fella, sets all his books during the reign of the Pharoahs in ancient Egypt, could be interesting. Maybe I should try reading outside my usual scope, maybe try some crime writers or something. Perhaps I should wait til I actually have a reader or two before posting stuff like this, you can't get reccommendations from nobody :D freedoms_stain, out.