Your Personal Top 10 Speculative Fiction Authors?

Silver Owl

Silver Owl

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I'm a big lover of nerdy lists so this is an obvious one for this forum.

Here's Mine:

In no particular order!

Mervyn Peake
Phillip K Dick
Ursula Le Guin
M. John Harrison
Octavia Butler
Brian Aldiss
Alastair Reynolds
China Mieville
Ian M Banks
Neil Gaiman

I want to know everybody else's?
 
Um...

Lois McMaster Bujold
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Neil Gaiman (hit and miss, but when he hits... Wow)
Pat Rothfuss
Chris Beckett
Orson Scott Card (mainly for his short work, and I know it won't be universally popular)
Frank Herbert, for Dune and Messiah
Stephen King
Audrey Niffenegger (her Fearful Symmetry is defo speculative, even if Time Traveler's Wife is a bit more of a stretch)
Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. Not sure I can choose....
 
This is impossible. I'd fill up a top 10 before I passed the Golden Age authors and there are all kinds of superb writers of short fiction for short periods, such as Zelazny in the 60s, Tiptree and Varley in the 70s, Cadigan in the 80s and Chiang in the 90s and on who, while they may have written a great novel or more and may have published a thing here and there outside the peak period, can't really make a list like this but really deserve some kind of mention. So I tried to pick favorite authors yet also be at least somewhat temporally fair. Even aside from all that, there are still a dozen or two authors I could put on the list as easy as some that did make it. And I did cheat anyway and come up with 11 - I couldn't leave van Vogt or Sturgeon off even though they imbalance the list to the Golden Age but I didn't want to bump a later author for them either. And, as always, this list can change unpredictably at short intervals. *deep breath* So...

In order of first professional SF publication:

Isaac Asimov
A.E. van Vogt
Robert A. Heinlein
Theodore Sturgeon
Arthur C. Clarke
Algis Budrys
Norman Spinrad
Vernor Vinge
John Shirley
Bruce Sterling
Greg Egan

The SFE has articles on them all, too, of course but, oddly, the wikipedia articles are usually (though not always) better in a lot of ways.

But what is this list? How do you pick it? The authors I have the most books of? (So where is Cherryh who is in the top 10 of "most numerous books"?) The authors who've written some one or two examples of overwhelming brilliance? (Where is everyone from Daniel Keys to Robert L. Forward?) The authors who've written the most consistently for the longest time? (Some of the authors I listed didn't last a whole career so why are they here, then?) And so on. I just picked people who I have a lot of books of, or at least a lot relative to their total, over a significant span of time, that I liked most of a great deal, who have at one time or another really lit me up with something or affected me in a personal way, who didn't have much bad to significantly counteract the positives. Is that more or less how you folks picked yours? Or other criteria? Or'd you just wing it and I'm taking this way too seriously? :D
 
J-Sun said:
This is impossible. I'd fill up a top 10 before I passed the Golden Age authors and there are all kinds of superb writers of short fiction for short periods, such as Zelazny in the 60s, Tiptree and Varley in the 70s, Cadigan in the 80s and Chiang in the 90s and on who, while they may have written a great novel or more and may have published a thing here and there outside the peak period, can't really make a list like this but really deserve some kind of mention. So I tried to pick favorite authors yet also be at least somewhat temporally fair. Even aside from all that, there are still a dozen or two authors I could put on the list as easy as some that did make it. And I did cheat anyway and come up with 11 - I couldn't leave van Vogt or Sturgeon off even though they imbalance the list to the Golden Age but I didn't want to bump a later author for them either. And, as always, this list can change unpredictably at short intervals. *deep breath* So...

In order of first professional SF publication:

Isaac Asimov
A.E. van Vogt
Robert A. Heinlein
Theodore Sturgeon
Arthur C. Clarke
Algis Budrys
Norman Spinrad
Vernor Vinge
John Shirley
Bruce Sterling
Greg Egan

The SFE has articles on them all, too, of course but, oddly, the wikipedia articles are usually (though not always) better in a lot of ways.

But what is this list? How do you pick it? The authors I have the most books of? (So where is Cherryh who is in the top 10 of "most numerous books"?) The authors who've written some one or two examples of overwhelming brilliance? (Where is everyone from Daniel Keys to Robert L. Forward?) The authors who've written the most consistently for the longest time? (Some of the authors I listed didn't last a whole career so why are they here, then?) And so on. I just picked people who I have a lot of books of, or at least a lot relative to their total, over a significant span of time, that I liked most of a great deal, who have at one time or another really lit me up with something or affected me in a personal way, who didn't have much bad to significantly counteract the positives. Is that more or less how you folks picked yours? Or other criteria? Or'd you just wing it and I'm taking this way too seriously? :D
Click to expand...


You raise loads of interesting questions. I could also come up with a few authors that wrote 1 or 2 brilliant works and not much else of note. I tried to have authors that had produced a significant amount of stuff. I also picked authors I was relatively versed in as obviously not many people have read all that the genre has to offer. I tend to gravitate towards either the New Age or contemporary authors. There are loads of authors I think are objectively brilliant but they have to also have affected me personally to have made the list. People like Daniel Keyes would have made it if he'd written a bit more and Ballard and Connie Wills also nearly made the list. I also agree with you on Spinrad he's brilliant.

Oh and of course you're taking the question too seriously but it's much more fun that way IMO.
 
So, this is a list of "favourites", not "ones that I think are best", because the latter is hard to the point of impossible.

In no particular order:

Diana Wynne Jones
Melissa Scott
Elizabeth Moon
Robert Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Tanya Huff
Mercedes Lackey
China Mieville
George
Paul Cornell & Ben Aaronovitch (I can get two for the price of one, right?)
 
Silver Owl said:
You raise loads of interesting questions.
Click to expand...

Thanks. :)

I could also come up with a few authors that wrote 1 or 2 brilliant works and not much else of note. I tried to have authors that had produced a significant amount of stuff. I also picked authors I was relatively versed in as obviously not many people have read all that the genre has to offer. I tend to gravitate towards either the New Age or contemporary authors. There are loads of authors I think are objectively brilliant but they have to also have affected me personally to have made the list. People like Daniel Keyes would have made it if he'd written a bit more and Ballard and Connie Wills also nearly made the list. I also agree with you on Spinrad he's brilliant.
Click to expand...

Sounds like we had at least some of the same criteria then - good to get your perspective. And nice to meet another Spinrad fan.

Oh and of course you're taking the question too seriously but it's much more fun that way IMO.
Click to expand...

Good answer! That's the way I look at it too - "if it's worth doing..." :D

BTW, I spun off a thread because Egan was the only guy I could list after the 80s and that didn't seem right. Hope that compliments this or disappears vs. getting in the way.
 
I am not into "speculative fiction" only "science fiction"

Lois McMaster Bujold - I have tried two of her fantasy novels, they do not interest me.

Robert Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke

Kim Stanley Robinson
David Brin
Larry Niven

Harry Harrison
John Scalzi
Orson Scott Card

psik
 
The first eight were easy. The last two took some thought and would probably change depending on my inclinations that day.

Frank Herbert
Isaac Asimov
Robert Heinlein
Arthur C. Clarke
Larry Niven
Iain M. Banks
William Gibson
Philip K. Dick
Brian Aldiss
Bruce Sterling
 
no particulular order of importance:
Dick
Simak
Vance
van Vogt
Asimov
Anderson
Pohl,even more so in collaboration with Kornbluth or Williamson
Silverberg
Bob Shaw(rarely gets mentioned,i know)
Clement

***honorable mentions:Budrys,LeGuin,Brin,B.J. Bailey,Edmond Hamilton,Kuttner,CL Moore,Harlan Ellison,Robert Sheckley,Blish**
 
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No particular order:

HORROR
Glen Hirshberg
Ramsey Campbell
Peter Straub
Fritz Leiber

FANTASY
H. P. Lovecraft
Caitlin Kiernan
Jonathan Carroll
Peter Beagle

SCIENCE FICTION
Alfred Bester
Ursula K. Le Guin


Almost all of them could be swapped out for someone else on a different day. The sf grouping is the most difficult. I read little sf any more, and among the older writers I could, any given day, choose Heinlein (based on his short stories), Corwainer Smith, Edgar Pangborn, Eric Frank Russell, Kuttner/Moore, or any of several others.

Randy M.
 
Ray McCarthy said:
He's Horror?
Shirley Sword & Sorcery, fantasy and SF. Absolutely excellent too.
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Leiber has done excellent horror (Conjure Wife, Our Lady of Darkness, many short stories of "urban horror" long before anybody thought up that term, including the masterpieces "The Girl With the Hungry Eyes" and "Gonna Roll the Bones") as well as fine fantasy and science fiction.
 
Both terrific stories, Victoria. Leiber also produced arguably the cornerstone of the 20th century horror, "Smoke Ghost," a superb late career story, "Belsen Express," and at least one terrific (and amusing) ghost story, "Four Ghosts in Hamlet." His novella, "You're All Alone" is top-notch, as well, though it lost something when expanded (The Sinful Ones). Of those writers who began publishing in the 1930s, he was the only one I know of equally at home and influential in sf, fantasy and horror. (Although Sturgeon probably came close to that level, too.) His first collection, Night's Black Agents came out of Arkham House, known for Lovecraft and horror, and besides "Smoke Ghost" included "The Automatic Pistol," "The Hound," "Diary in the Snow" and a few other major entries in the horror story.

Anyway, Ray, I considered him for fantasy too, but I've read more of his horror than his S&S. If I'm speaking to the choir, sorry, but just for context: What we now consider urban fantasy/urban horror was just plain fantasy in the days of Unknown. The difference is that today it's in novel form, back in the 1940s it was coming out in short story form from Leiber, Sturgeon, Heinlein, Fred Brown, Eric Frank Russell, Anthony Boucher, Kuttner and Moore, and a bunch of others I'm probably forgetting. And -- I forgot to add before posting -- a lot of it wasn't just fantasy, it was horror, influencing somewhat later writers like Richard Matheson and still later writers like Stephen King.


Randy M.
 
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Hard, hard...and 2-3 of these would most likely be swapped out for other authors on another day. There's a lot of vintage SF here...then and now, my preference, clearly.

Asimov, Isaac
Bester, Alfred
Dick, Philip K.
Gaiman, Neil
Gibson, William
King, Stephen
Niven, Larry
Silverberg, Robert
Sturgeon, Theodore
Tolkien, J.R.R.
 
Hmm...tough one. Here's a shot--just SF, no fantasy:

Iain M. Banks
William Gibson
Octavia Butler
JG Ballard
Philip K. Dick
John Scalzi
Thomas M. Disch
Ursula K. LeGuin
Arthur C. Clarke (mainly for his influence on me, as an SF reader, when I was young--doesn't read so well now)
Gene Wolfe
 
Nerds_feather said:
Hmm...tough one. Here's a shot--just SF, no fantasy:

Iain M. Banks
William Gibson
Octavia Butler
JG Ballard
Philip K. Dick
John Scalzi
Thomas M. Disch
Ursula K. LeGuin
Arthur C. Clarke (mainly for his influence on me, as an SF reader, when I was young--doesn't read so well now)
Gene Wolfe
Click to expand...

Loads of good choices! Haven't read any Gibson or Disch though. I must get round to them seeing as we have 4 authors in common on our respective lists which suggests similar tastes.
 
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