My personal favorite contemporary author is Adrian Tchaikovsky with James SA Corey (two authors) as my other absolute favorite, I’ll read anything by either of them. Alaistar Reynolds is also on that list for me too. I suppose it is worth checking out what else Dennis Taylor is producing as I do enjoy this series and I may see him as a favorite one day. And yes it would take reading books other than the Bobiverse to get there. As I recall the Bobiverse is his first books and it’s definitely going to take more than one series to make it on my “favorite author” list.