Dan Simmons. I HIGHLY recommend everyone read this short
http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
And he recently had a come to Jesus moment about his liberalism/Obama to boot.
It was a FReeper who turned me on to Harry Turtledove who definitely goes out of his way to find unique ways of thinking of things.
His short story “The Road Not Taken” can be found here (I just downloaded it to my kindle for a more in depth read)