Best science fiction writers (now or ever)

This is the first time i've heard of such allegations. Of course, she died in 1999, and the last books of hers that i've read were written in the 1990s. It's easy, i will observe, to make such accusations 15 years after she died, and 17 years after her brother, Paul Zimmer, died. I'm ambivalent about discarding the works of any artists on such a basis. Wagner was a raging German nationalist, and antisemite. Picasso was, by the accounts of his family a friends, a real ****. I really don't know what to say, it is literally the first i've heard of this.

Plenty of short-term events have big consequences. The detonation of a nuclear weapon is all over in a few millionths of a second, the rest is heating the atmosphere.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

I agree, there's no hard-and-fast rule. Lewis Carroll's pictures of naked girls do not stop us reading Alice. Eric Gill's carvings weren't shrouded after the revelations of incest and bestiality. Michael Jackson's albums are still on sale. Wagner has been only rarely performed in Israel, although double standards abound - nobody says much about Orff, Voltaire, or Chopin.

Since you posted what was for me a revelation, i've looked around online. Grayland's account is too circumstantial to dismiss, at least as regards Breen. MZB's part may not have been what Grayland claims, but it would be a bit much to agree about Breen's behavior, and dismiss the charges about MZB just because i've enjoyed her writing. I'm saddened to have again the evidence of how ugly and cruel the world is.

I am sorry to have brought you that news, Setanta.

Don't give it a thought--i'd rather know such a truth. From my years working in the Army Medical Corps and in civilian E.R.s (casualty wards, i think you'd call them), i long ago knew the world to be brutally cruel. I'd prefer not to hide from the truth.

I agree as well. I especially liked Startide Rising.

I like Zelazny as well, but my favorite of his is a little book called Roadmarks.

My favorites:

Philip K. Dick
Isaac Asimov

(Those two are a class by themselves)

Ursula K. Le Guin
Stanislaw Lem
Brian Aldiss
The Strugatsky brothers

(and although not strictly Science Fiction)
Harry Turtledove

I read it a couple of decades ago. It's probably time for a re-read.

Who is Harry Turtledove?

An American science-fiction and alternative history writer.

Hello, old friend. Still working in politics down there?

My taste in science fiction writing was pretty varied. I read a lot of short story compilations which gave me an introduction to many dozens of writers, many of them very good indeed. Novels present a different set of challenges but many sci fi writers (you guys have named lots of them) were up to those challenges. Heinlein interested me when I was young but not past that period. Asimov was always worthwhile. Dune was a hell of an achievement. Clarke's work has stood up in some remarkable ways (prescient). But it has now been a long time since I picked up and read from this genre. In fact, I've read almost no fiction at all for the last two or three decades.

But I credit this early engagement with science fiction for coaxing me to look for social and scientific trends that might bear on our future world and society and for reminding me to use my imagination.

He wrote a very engaging series about an alien invasion of earth which, if memory serves, occurs during WWII. The lizard like aliens find ginger to be a highly pleasurable, highly addictive drug. I read it years ago but never followed it through to the end. So many of these series go on too long. I don't blame the authors, they're a gravy chain for them.

Gotcha. I'm not big on book series. The last one I read was by C J Cherryh.

I have read just about everything CJ Cherryh has written and in the past her series did not go on too long. I don't know what she calls the one which has been going on for some time now (Earthlings visit and inhabit a planet where the sentient life form are black skinned giants, only to run afoul of the aliens' culture) but I followed it pretty religiously. However, while I have the latest two books in the series, I've not been motivated to read them.

I didn't know she was still writing. She did some great stuff.

For me there is no best science fiction writer, but I'd be remiss if I did not mention James Tiptree, Jr. and Lester del Rey and of course John W. Campbell!

I didn't see my favorite writer mentioned anywhere... which probably means I have shitty taste in sci-fi as well (For instance, I still have to work through my first Phillip K. Dick book, and I was never thrilled about Aasimov... I know, I suck).

But, I did read (and thoroughly enjoy) Zelazny's Amber series, as well as the Ringworld saga by Niven.
The Mars series from Robinson was very, very sciency, and of course fictiony too, but it was soooo sciency that I started to believe it almost wasn't fictiony. If you get my drift.

A book I truly enjoyed (and is also already mentioned) was Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Engaging enough too: just finding out from the get go that this hacker (and one of the protagonists) has a coveted job as a pizza delivery man had me hooked from the very start...

Ender's Game by Card was also great.

But, the authors I missed on this list, (which make me think I have poor taste in sci-fi, since I can only assume that the books I thoroughly enjoyed are not up to par for a list of the great authors) are:

David Gerrot's (unfinished) series: War against the Chtorr. <-- I find this a very plausible 'alien invasion' scenario, as opposed to the more common: 'They just came with flying saucers to conquer earth'.

Spider Robinson: I should read more of his work, since I instantly fell in love with his Callahan chronicles (short stories that had at one time been published in the Analog magazine). I suck at figuring out the puns though.

My favorite writer ever is Dan Simmons though. Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and Rise of Endymion are books that really resonate with me... especially the latter two. Carrion Comfort is great as well.