I must be tired as I put this into WordPress three hours ago with the intention of just saving the information so I could work on it later, it was going to be my blog for tonight, but I clicked on the wrong button and published it with only my notes. I’m going to do it now and hope for the best
It’s a great premise and one I found on Twitter this morning tweeted by bantamspectra, the idea of choosing the 12 greatest science fiction writers currently alive. So, here’s the blog and it makes interesting reading. bantamspectra asked about Anne McCaffrey and whether she should be on the list. I’m going to give my list of the 12 greatest science fiction writers and I’m just going to forget about whether they’re alive or not as my list is going to be biased in favour of the older writers, I haven’t read many new authors yet so it’s hard to include them or exclude them.
Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, how can you argue with either of those two, they are the fathers of science fiction.
Isaac Asimov is a definite, as is Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury is up there in the top people. After that they start getting a bit harder to define. I suspect Robert Heinlein should be in there even though I don’t like his writing, he had some rather strange ideas on sex. E.E. (Doc) Smith and Ursula K LeGuin must be in there at some point and I’m going to throw Roger Zelazny in there as well. Susan Cooper is pretty good despite the fact that I don’t actually like her Ship Who Sang series. I’m putting in Neal Stephenson and Phillip K. Dick but I’m not quite convinced about those two. Maybe if I did something radical and gave myself time to think about the whole idea I might have a totally different list. I have noticed there are only two females in this list and that’s interesting, I haven’t included Anne McCaffrey as I feel her work is more fantasy than science fiction until I review her books in my mind and come to a different conclusion. I might have to read a few of her books outside the Pern books and write down my conclusions.
So, can you give me your lists? It’s always good to see what other people read and it’d be interesting to see how your lists compare with Visions of Paradise’s list and mine. You might read different authors and I’d have to read them to see if I agree with you. Oooohhh, reading new books, now that has to be good.