My personal Sci-Fi-Fantasy favorite has been the Dragonlance series. Rasitlin is one bad dude.
I don't think Heinlein ever wrote such a book. It was a possibility mentioned in one IIRC, but to my knowledge there was never an entire book written with that premise.
Try "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" or "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", or my personal favorite "Friday" by RAH.
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Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover series. Anne McCaffery - Pern. Andre Norton. The old Van Vogt books. I like sc fic, not magic/sorcery/fantasy.
You forgot Robert Heinlein. "Stranger In A Strange Land" is one of my all time favorite books.
I like Terry Brooks and for sheer amusement, Peirs Anthony.
Kim Stanley Robinson's first book, "The Wild Shore," was good, IIRC. OTOH, everything else I've picked up by him(?) was terrible. I felt tricked by the first one into buying the rest. Finally have given up.
To me, however, they all represent the past. Their heyday was primarily the 60s, 70s and 80s. For today I simply recommend that folks who liked those books check out Baen.COM. If you liked the authors you listed you'll probably really like their roster.
I would particularly recommend Ringo, Flint and Weber. One nice thing about Baen is that they have a free library where you can download ebook versions of their authors books to try out. They don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts. Like good drug dealers the first taste is free. They fully expect you to get hooked and then buy the rest of those authors books.
Lois McMasters Bujold. All around fun, but she slips "Hmmmm" moments into her stories.
CJ Cherryh. Some authors have only a couple of stories and they tell them over and over again. She doesn't.
Debra Doyal and James McDonald. Try em.
David Webb: Honor is good, but Colin is a personal favorite.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. A Japanese Jane Austin in Space.
Alan Dean Foster, The novels of the Humanx Commonwealth are great. His others are a bit hit or miss.
Pohl. Beyond the Blue Event Horizon and the entire Heechee series.
Best series ever -- Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber.
The first page will draw you in.
I love Robert Heinlein, and his Future History books are his classics, it's just that they are full of logical extrapolations about the future of human interpersonal relationships that make Christian fundamentalists have kittens and thus dampen his popularity on FR.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is a must read.
Ben Bova is pretty good, but he has drunk the global warming Kool-Aid - like so many other authors these days.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series is brilliant, but again, you have to wade through the Leftism of both author and characters.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are very good.
Vernor Vinge doesn't get mentioned often enough - "A Deepness in the Sky" is a fantastic book.
I like William Gibson, but not his imitators. His dystopian visions of a corporate-controlled future are actually a comforting alternative to a world faced with dhimmitude.
And I have no use for fantasy any more - it's all trite, repetitive, and boring except for Tolkien and George R. R. Martin.
By that I assume you mean overblown hack.
I haven't read much science fiction in a long time. My favorite science fiction are books set in the preset time. I'm not that big on books written hundreds of years in the future. One book I read many years ago and that I'd like to read again is about the moon coming out of orbit and threatening to crash into the Earth. But I can't remember title or author. If anybody can supply that info, I'd appreciate it.
Harlan Ellison -- great across the board
Herbert -- good up to and including the 5th Dune, then seems to have had a complete psychotic break.
Asimov: Foundaton Trilogy.
Have to agree. i wish Dr. Pournelle would go back to writing SF. i'm still waiting for a fifth book of his War World collection. (yes, i know there were two novels, but it's just not the same).
Pournelle got his PhD in education. His last work that i recall in 1996 dealt with the subject of education. Four writers got together in 1994 to project what the future would look like in 50 years. They each created works based on those discussions. Pournelle wrote Higher Education. It was a look at the Public School system that was truly frightening. The real frightening thing is that it doesn't appear that the disaster that Pournelle describes will take 50 years to happen.
I also forgot to mention the "Mork and Mindy" novels. I have them in hardcover.