Samuel R Delany, Philip K Dick, Ursula K Le Guin, and (maybe) William Gibson.

[pmb]

What scifi/fantasy authors would you be willing to defend as writers of high quality literature and not just genre fiction? What authors both have something to say, and say it well?

NB: I'm primarily looking for people who are by default filed in the SciFi ghetto, not "real" authors who have occasionally been filed in SF/fantasy. Because Kurt Vonnegut is widely acknowledged to be a virtuoso writer and has written a bunch of SF, but I'm not sure that most people think of him as a science fiction writer.

Comments

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Have you reread Asimov recently? It's starting to age poorly. Which is sad because I love those books so much. (Foundation, the Robots, the short stories, ... I've read all the Asimov fiction in every library I've used)

[joyquality.livejournal.com]

Asimov was the one who convinced me that murder mysteries aren't inherently shit. But it's hard to make an argument that sci-fi murder mysteries are quality literature and not genre fiction. (I haven't read anything besides the books featuring Elijah Baley and some of the short stories, so I can't comment on the rest of his work.)

[esmesquall.livejournal.com]

One thing about crappy genre fiction is that genres have "rules," and writers are expected to stick to them -- so a work of science fiction that incorporates murder mystery conceits is kinda risky, which might place it in another category, if it's well-executed.

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

I think that Asimov intentionally kept writing in his same style, even after the notion of scifi started moving on. (Contrast with something like Star Trek which constantly tweaks its continuity as real history contradicts the fictional set-up.)
I mean, he was still writing about Multivac in 1975.

That said, I'm not sure that his books are high quality literature. In fact, I don't have any idea what high quality literature is. I don't think I've ever read any.

(I used to think I was a pretty devoted Asimov fan, but eventually I noticed that the two books that I cared the most about were co-written with Robert Silverberg. I've never read any of R.S.'s solo works, but, hrm. [time passes] Okay, back now: you can now download entire bibliographies on the illegalnet. I'll keep you posted)