I'm the opposite of you. I think Hemingway is better than Conrad. Hemingway's novels are good, but his short stories make him one of the best, if not the best, American short story writer.
We must duel this out, in Sabatini style! Hemingway gets a bit too hoist on his own petard. At times. And also. Lots of sentence fragments. That don't matter. Conrad's writing style disappears, which (in my opinion!) makes him a more elegant writer for my tastes. If I want stylized writing, I'll read Hammett (whom I also like.) Hemingway just feels in between the two, somehow, and a bit awkwardly juxtaposed. Not that he's bad (that is reserved for people like Ayn Rand); he's good--but I wouldn't count him as equally much of an influence, thanks to that.
Hemingway is minimalist, for one thing. A lot of modern writers use fragments as well. There's nothing wrong with it. I think Hemingway does a good job with them. Second, he is heavily influenced by Russian writers such as Tolstoy and Turgenev. I'm not sure how much Russian literature you have read, but his style is a copy of Turgenev's. An interesting thing I've noticed is that all of the women I know dislike Hemingway. He tends to write about war, hunting, bullfighting, and other "manly" things that women tend to hate. Maybe that could be off-putting as well.
The subject's not an issue in my case: Look at the other authors whom I like; you won't find an Austen amongst them. It's the style that grates. I have not read Turgenev, but I've read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Pushkin (speaking of dueling...), Solzhenitsyn, others. So I'm not hostile to the Russians. I just like a less intrusive authorial voice unless it's done for deliberate purpose (Joyce) and I don't really grasp Hemingway's purpose quite as much. I'll look up Turgenev, though!
As for authors, I can't really name many specific ones, because I am kind of a new reader, if that makes any sense. But Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye, American Psycho all had a big effect on me, and largely affect my writing style. Also, big movie epics, like King Kong('05), Titanic, Braveheart, and Gladiator influence my stories as well. As for music, no band stirs my imagination quite like The Mars Volta.
A healthy diet of Cormac McCarthy, Tim Willocks, Don Winslow, Daniel Woodrell and Clive Barker help me alot with inspiration but discovering hidden gem's out there gives me a new huge injection of inspiration. Reducing my musical influences to just one or two is impossible because im a music junkie so i'll simply rattle off a few: P J Harvey, Nick Cave, Mark Lannegan, Tom Waits, Muse, Choir of young believers and The twilight sad
The author who first got me really reading and later inspired my writing was Alan Dean Foster. I particularly like all things he wrote related to the Commonwealth, and how he created a non-linear series. Then again, I've never read anything of his that I didn't like. I've enjoyed other authors, certainly, but his style and voice have inspired me more than any other writer.
