Current sf or fantasy parody/satire/humor books?

[Algeh]

I recently had the unpleasant realization that all of the authors that I used to like reading parody/satire/humor SF or fantasy books by have passed away. (I mean, I knew that about them each individually, but I hadn't realized that [entire category of thing I like] was apparently no longer written by living authors in terms of who I read books by.)

So, I'm guessing that this entire subgenera did not actually die along with the few people I happened to read, but that I somehow fell out of the loop on finding newer authors. Anyone have any suggestions?

I'm specifically looking for living authors here, particularly ones near the start of their careers, because I am both looking for new things to read AND for new people we might want to invite to the local SF con I'm involved with in future years.

[Eldan]

The Dresden Files are not straight up humour or paroday books, but Harry Dresden has a very snarky voice and occasionally, something hilarious happens.

[Aotrs Commander]

I can stronglyu recommend the six Space Captain Smith books by Toby Frost. They are basically, like, Victorian-ish era Space Britain and all the derring-do of the sort of "boy's own" war comic/Biggles-y sort of thing, only knowingly aware (if not quite self-aware in character). I found them extremely delightful myself. (Though you might get less out of it if you aren't from ol' Blighty.)

[Lapak]

Well, it's not the only thing she does but I can hardly reccomend Cat Valente's Space Opera enough. To crib from when I recommended it elsewhere:

Having just finished it, I can report that Cat Valente's new book Space Opera is absolutely recommended if you like any of the following:

- sci-fi comedies reminiscent of Douglas Adams' work
- Eurovision
- glampunk
- the idea that the most insightful writer in all of galactic history could be a homicidal monster writing a book of Unkillable Facts
- a story that manages to gaze unblinking at some of the worst aspects of humanity and yet leave you with a sense that there is hope for us as a species

It is perhaps not for everyone, but I adored it and maybe it should be.

The premise in a nutshell is that aliens show up and tell Earth we're on the chopping block as possibly non-sentient xenocidal maniacs, but all we have to do to prove ourselves worthy of existence is not come in dead last in their galaxy-wide singing contest.

It also got nominated for several of the big awards this year, so I am not the only one who liked it.

[Rodin]

John Scalzi has done some comedy/satire. I recommend both Red Shirts and Agent to the Stars. The former is an affectionately scathing look at what it would actually be like to live on the Enterprise, and the latter is about an alien coming to Earth and deciding the best way to make First Contact is a career in Hollywood.

[Traab]

A Lee Martinez does humor based fantasy fairly well. In The Company of Ogres, The Nameless Witch, Gil's All Fright Diner, they tend to take the standard tropes and have fun with them.

[SerTabris]

I recently read and enjoyed Kill the Farm Boy (Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne), which fits in this category nicely.

[RossN]

Some of Tom Holt's work is pretty good. He has a huge body of work including horror, drama and historical novels but he is best known for writing humourous fantasy, mostly set in the modern world. Here are a couple of his titles I liked:

Expecting Someone Taller - Basically Wagner's Ring Cycle updated to modern (1980s) Britain, kicked off by the hero accidentally running over a badger in his car that turns out to be a giant in disguise.

Nothing But Blue Skies - Chinese style weather controlling dragons and how they cope with modern life.

[Fyraltari]

I'm specifically looking for living authors here, particularly ones near the start of their careers, because I am both looking for new things to read AND for new people we might want to invite to the local SF con I'm involved with in future years.

Where is "here", exactly? because I have a feeling the french authors I can recommend don't fit your criterion.

[Darth Credence]

The Space Team series by Barry Hutchinson is pretty good. I think there are 12 in the series at this point.
Drew Hayes has a few decent series going on, with the NPCs being my favorite. Seems like a young guy, too.
But my current (living) favorite of comedy fantasy/SF is Robert Kroese. The Rex Nihilo series is great, as is the Mercury series. Land of Dis was a bit much, but the others are all solid.

[Algeh]

Where is "here", exactly? because I have a feeling the french authors I can recommend don't fit your criterion.

"Here" meant "in this thread" rather than as an implication of my locale, but you're right that for the inviting-to-conventions purposes the ones I'm likely to be dealing with suggested invites for would be English-language events. We occasionally will find it in the budget to fly in a GoH (Guest of Honor) from far away (GoHs get travel comped, and we do consider how far away they are when we think about who to invite), but for run-of-the-mill invites authors have to pay their own way to the con so are more likely to attend if it's closer to where they live.

In terms of stuff I, personally, would like to read more generally though, I'm also open to reading books by authors who are unlikely to attend my local con (or who I should make a point of trying to get readings/panels for if I'm traveling out of area to some place they are at - I tend to get to a Worldcon about every 5 years or so, so I have some chances to attend panels/readings/etc. featuring people from other places).

I don't think my French is up to getting wordplay-based jokes, though, so I suspect a lot of French-language humor would go right over my head, and satire based on yet more stuff I haven't read would probably be even more baffling to me. I can muddle through straightforward things like recipes or the brief French-language asides that show up in English-language novels, but I haven't tried to read anything complicated in French for almost 20 years now and I doubt it's gotten easier while I wasn't looking.