Quite possible the best living SF writer.
I'd give that palm to David Weber -- at least this month. Weber, David Drake, Eric Flint, and John Ringo are clustered pretty close together, and you can get a first-class read from any of them. Besides, they swap back and forth so much, it's hard to separate them. Kind of a SF League of Superstars.
Man, are you like my long lost twin or something? These are the people who I would order book by BEFORE they wrote them!