By the way,
Battlestar Galactica slamming through the atmosphere while launching fighters, then FTL jumping before hitting the ground. A great moment in sci-fi? SO SAY WE ALL!
15. Larry Niven
14. Philip Jose' Farmer
13. Robert Silverberg
12. Ursula K. LeGuin
11. Harry Harrison
10. Frederick Pohl
9. Frank Herbert
8. Harlan Ellison
7. Jack Williamson
6. E. E. "Doc" Smith
5. Philip K. Dick
4. Ray Bradbury
3. Robert A. Heinlein
2. Isaac Asimov
1. Arthur C. Clarke
Honorable mentions:
Douglas Adams
Alfred Bester
Ben Bova
Orson Scott Card
Gordon R. Dickson
David Gerrold
Stanislaw Lem
Theodore Sturgeon
Jack Vance
Gene Wolfe
Near exclusions
Roger Zelazny (too much fantasy)
William Gibson (body of work too small)
Harry Turtledove (is alternate history sf?)
Personally, I would switch #'s 1 and 3, putting RAH at the top of the list, and I would put British writer Stephen Baxter in the honorable mentions...but overall, I have a pretty hard time arguing the picks.
You left out Algore.
Edgar Rice Burroughs belongs on the list.
What, no H.G. Wells or Jules Verne?
Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
It’s a decent list, though I question whether Niven deserves to be lower than slot 8 or so.
Personally Heinlein would be my #1.
Decent list. I have read stuff by most of them. However I’d put Gene Wolf and Jack Vance in the top 15.
Here’s a vote for William Gibson.
No Cordwainer Smith? FAIL
I would put Robert Heinlein at number 1 and move Frank Herbert closer to 1, maybe 3 or 4. I’d also add Brian Herbert to Honorable mentions for his work completeing the Dune series and the Dune prequels.
I would put Larry Niven in 6th, behind Verne, Wells, Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. I would also include Robert Sheckley and Eric Frank Russell, because I enjoy my scifi with a warped sense of humor.
James Blish should be somewhere in that list. Allen Steele and Spider Robinson need honorable mentions.
Harlan Ellison is too low, and not having H.G. Wells on this list beggars belief. JMO.
John Ringo, probably in the middle 20s...
The late Iain M. Banks surely belongs on that list.
Michael Crichton deserves to be on the list somewhere.
No Johnw W. Campbell.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as 'bad luck'.” - Robert Heinlein