Who are the best science fiction/fantasy authors?

5/22/ | Myself

[tet68]

Any of the “Bolo” series.
For reading material go...

http://www.baen.com/library/

[ironmaidenPR2717]

Dittos on George R.R. Martin & William Gibson.

And perhaps this falls into the juvenile category, but I was entranced many years ago by Zenna Henderson. Many write somewhat in her genre now, but back in the 70’s, her style was refreshing and new to me.

[Hacksaw]

Larry Niven

Jerry Pournelle

Ben Bova

William Gibson

[Billthedrill]

Just to echo some others, Heinlein is my favorite of the Big Three. Philip K. Dick, of course, and Ray Bradbury are essential. Clarke's Childhood's End has had echoes in more works than one might imagine. John Brunner is wonderful. William Gibson is brilliant, the more so if you were actually into computers when Neuromancer came out in '84. Neal Stephenson is my current favorite, The Diamond Age being my favorite among his books. Snow Crash is pure fun. Anyone with the brass big 'uns to name his principal character "Hiero Protagonist" and still get it published is my kind of author... ;-)

[Borges]

Well I do my best!

But it’s almost impossible to define what SF is and what it is not historically. With that in mind I nominate Homer, Dante and Milton. With a shout out going to Nabokov’s Pale Fire

[Tanniker Smith]

Top 100 Sci-Fi Books

1	1	Frank Herbert	Dune [S1]	1965
2	2	Orson Scott Card	Ender's Game [S1]	1985
3	3	Isaac Asimov	Foundation [S1-3]	1951
4	4	Douglas Adams	Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy [S1]	1979
5	5	George Orwell	1984	1949
6	6	Robert A Heinlein	Stranger in a Strange Land	1961
7	7	Ray Bradbury	Fahrenheit 451	1954
8	8	William Gibson	Neuromancer	1984
9	9	Isaac Asimov	[C] I, Robot	1950
10	10	Arthur C Clarke	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968
11	11	Larry Niven	Ringworld	1970
12	12	Robert A Heinlein	Starship Troopers	1959
13	13	Philip K Dick	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?	1968
14	14	Aldous Huxley	Brave New World	1932
16	15	Arthur C Clarke	Rendezvous With Rama	1973
15	16	H G Wells	The Time Machine	1895
17	17	Robert A Heinlein	The Moon is a Harsh Mistress	1966
18	18	H G Wells	The War of the Worlds	1898
19	19	Dan Simmons	Hyperion [S1]	1989
20	20	Arthur C Clarke	Childhood's End	1954

[SouthDixie]

L. Ron Hubbard, founding father of Scientology.

[JenB]

Great thread. It’s like walking through a used bookstore and nodding at my favorite authors.

Some names I haven’t seen mentioned yet (most of my favorites have been listed):

Connie Willis - best author writing “currently” hands down - but her output is sooo slow, it’s been eight years since her last novel though she’s written some novellas since. Try “To Say Nothing of the Dog” for a wonderful light comedy about time paradoxes, cats, the Blitz, and it’s a Victorian comedy of manners as well. Or “Doomsday Book” for a truly wonderful tragedy.

Keith Laumer - Baen’s been reprinting his great old stuff. Try the “Retief” stories, or just pick up a collection. Conservatives should love his things.

C.L.Moore - haven’t read enough of hers but she wrote such lovely old stories.

Cordwainer Smith - ditto

James Blish

Roger Macbride Allen’s Time trilogy.

Jack McDevitt, Robert Sawyer, Allen Steele - all current authors that are as good storytellers as the old masters, but writing with a more modern viewpoint. Sawyer especially, while I don’t always like his viewpoints, takes on issues that I think will actually be issues for the next century - questions about what is human and where the edges of humanity are.

[BnBlFlag]

Niven/Pournelle, Heinlen, Asimov, Clark

[Lysandru]

What about:

* Andre Norton?

* Poul Anderson?

* H. Beam Piper?

* A.E. Van Vogt?

* Norman Spinrad?

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Ah, one of my favorite topics. A great topic to start the Memorial Day weekend.

I consider SF and fantasy different genres, so I'll make a list for each.

Fantasy

1. Tolkien - He didn't start fairy tales, but he made the genre popular and respectable. I've read through LOTR at least four times, once out loud to my children. Reading it out loud really impressed me with the beauty and variety of language he used. He has different vocabulary and style for elves, hobbits, orcs, and men. He also used his Anglo-Saxon and ancient Finish studies to create elvish and dwarvish. No one else really comes close with their quality of writing.

2. Patricia McKillip - Patricia is perhaps the most consistently, lyrically, beautiful writer alive today in any genre. The Riddlemaster trilogy is great and still makes me want to read it again. “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” I enjoy just as much. Her recent books, “Alphabet of Thorn”, “Od Magic”, etc. are like individual gems. She is beautifully descriptive and plots her books as mysteries to be unlocked.

3. Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time series is exasperating because of its immense length and rambling descriptions, but it has scenes that are better than anything except the high points of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I love his complex plotting—in his twelve books of the Wheel of Time, there are over 2400 characters and hundreds of points of view. He has at least nine (!) main characters and typically has four or more main plot threads in each book, plus dozens of subplots. He also extensively uses prophecy and foreshadowing—many prophecies and visions from the first book are fulfilled two, three, six books later. Some are still to be fulfilled. He has created dozens of nations and cultures and maintains their consistency throughout the series. If you want complexity, he's your man.

4. Tad Williams - Many will argue he should be higher than this. Certainly his portrayal of elves in the series “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” is as good as Tolkien’s. When I think of elves I think of his vision as readily as Tolkien’s. His major drawback is his slow plotting. He took a hundred pages to get the plot moving in “The Dragonbone Chair.” If you're a patient reader, Tad will always reward you.

5. CS Lewis - Obviously the Narnia series is his major fantasy work. In it he blends legend and Christian allusions skillfully, while making a very entertaining an original series of stories that are accessible to the young and old. Had he specialized in this genre, I suspect he would rival Tolkien.

6. Stephen Donaldson - The White Gold weilder series is at times beautiful and then despairingly dark. Many will put him higher than I do. If you read nothing else of his, read his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

7. CJ Cherryh - Equally known for her SF, her fantasy is excellent. The “Fortress” series has layers upon layers of reality, moving through space and time.

8. Evelyn Nesbitt - I've only read “The Windboy” and that alone puts her on this list.

9. George MacDonald - “Back of the North Wind” is one of many great stories. He was the inspiration for CS Lewis and many others.

Gotta go. More later.

[BlueStateBlues]

Some good ones already on the list. Some others who caught myt attention and interest,

Charles Stross (should I say the Great Charles Stross)
Robert Anton Wilson (Schroedingers Cat [sp?])
Rudy Rucker
Bruce Sterling
Douglass Preston and Lincoln Child, together and separate works, not all of them S.F.

But lo, I remember Edgar Rice B. fondly from high school, taking me to Mars and back. Bradbury says Burroughs is the best writer, in terms of word usage, of the 20th Century.

[catman67]

You’ve got my vote for “moon” also; as well as for “Starship Troopers”!

[Old North State]

I think Walter Miller’s seminal work , “A Canticle for Liebowitz”, deserves mention. It is often overlooked.

[heartwood]

Yes, but he gets points for being a Dirty Old Man. Also for being quick with witty limericks.
______________

I got a kiss and an autograph when he was in his Dirty Old Man phase - as did a few thousand other girls.

[GSWarrior]

If you like fantasy, you must read Jack Vance.

Tales of the Dying Earth is a great place to start; The Last Castle is a classic.

[Biblebelter]

I will point to a book that has not been mentioned. I was always fond of Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and his Dog. If anyone has ever seen the movie, do not hold that against the book. It was a God awful movie with Don Johnson who was a complete unknown at the time.

[heartwood]

I always found Cherryh dry, dry, dry.

How about fantasy in the linguistic style of Jane Austen? There's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. She wrote at least one novella in the same style, set in the same world, if you want to try that before embarking on a thousand page - but it's done very, very well, in language, creativity, and evoking of a strange alternate history.

[GSWarrior]

I saw A Boy and His Dog. It was a long time ago, but I remember not being terribly impressed.

[filbert]

Is Terry Pratchett worthwhile? I get a sense he is anti-religion. Not sure I want to read him.

My sense is more that he comments on the human tendency to corrupt religion (and, frankly, just about everything else) to serve human ends rather than divine ones. Some of his most sympathetic characters have been priests who have gone up against "the establishment" of their church/religion/whatever which have lost the true meaning of things.

(It is fiction and fantasy, after all . . . A setting consisting of a flat disc-shaped world on the back of four gigantic elephants all standing on the back of an enormous turtle swimming between the stars should be your first clue of that .)

I'd have to say that Pratchett is probably my most favorite current author--I'd second the recommendations of most of the modern military science fiction writers (David Drake, Weber, etc.) Most of Pratchett's early work especially is better enjoyed however if you have a grounding in classic science fiction and fantasy--the works of Fritz Leiber, etc.