When the Guardian referred to Martin Amis as 'Britain's greatest living author' last week, one reader was so outraged she threatened to emigrate - or worse. So if not Amis, who?

ahh yes well I think I would have to vote for Salman Rushdie but I'm strongly tempted to abandon conventional notions of good literary stylistics and vote for Terry Pratchett, purely in terms of narrative he wins for me. Of course it all depends what you want. Salman Rushdie writes much better prose. Thinking about it I would vote for both apples and oranges -- Terry Pratchett and Salman Rushdie -- different traditions the genre and the "serious" -- the comic and the high art -- the studied and the spontaneous -- both storytellers -- Terry Pratchett unpeeling popular culture, the polis, dreams, fears, authority, diversity, feminism -- Salman Rushdie East and West and the interzone of cultures and dreams, the nature of narrative and democracy

they write down and distil the dreams of the collective unconscious