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

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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

[kyptin.livejournal.com]

(Saw you post on mrsmalkav's journal, came here, saw this, couldn't resist. Hi!)

I've gotta echo snailprincess: Dan Simmons is terrific. He has become my favorite author. He has great plots, builds believable and consistent worlds (a must for me), and writes well. He also researches his background extremely well, from Keats in the Hyperion saga to "The Iliad" in "Ilium" and "Olympos". Furthermore, he is a very versatile writer, having written mainstream fiction, sci-fi, horror...and having won awards across genres.

He also thinks about how to write, and how to read, and how to live. And he writes about such things. I find almost all of his messages (http://dansimmons.com/news/message/message_index.htm) on his website (http://dansimmons.com) to be well worth reading. (In particular, and relevant to some comments here re: Herbert and Heinlein, check out his thoughts on Negative Capability (http://dansimmons.com/news/message/2004_12.htm).)

So yeah, I'd defend Dan Simmons, for sure.

Great post! ;-)