While Ayn Rand is best known for her fiction I find her non-fiction essays higher quality.
The essays are shorter and to the point.
The novels are endless—and the characters tend to be caricatures which end up wooden when put into movies.
And some of the plot action is laughable too. Utter BS. I got around to reading "Atlas Shrugged" a few years ago. When I got to the part where Dagny leaves Rearden; the steel magnate she was boinking, for Roark, instead of being pissed off, Rearden's thrilled for her because he thinks that Roark's an incredibly special genius. Yeah, right. I fell out of my chair laughing at that bit.
There are some right-on characterizations of leftist/government parasites in her books and some killer observations too. But both Atlas and the Fountainhead are turgid reads, often flat and unrealistic.