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

[clairebaxter.livejournal.com]

Orson Scott Card is an asshole, but he has written some fantastic books. I think the best of his work is actually in Maps in a mirror, his book of short stories. (There's just a paragraph in there to ignore, in one of his essays where he decides to let his asshole show.) Ender's Game is great, but I also like Speaker for the Dead (not as a sequel, and no love for it's sequels) and Ender's Shadow (again, hate the sequels).