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So who is the greatest living science fiction and fantasy author? Is it Ray Bradbury who has done the rarest of all things for genre fiction and crossed over to being used in English classes from elementary school all the way to college and universities? Does it go to Stephen King? He's sold oodles of books and even managed to convince the mainstream he isn't (usually) science fiction? Can we anoint Terry Pratchett? Despite his presence, and the legacy of Douglas Adams, People who Matter are still convinced humor doesn't sell. Another reasonable choice is Lois Bujold who has more Hugo Awards for both science fiction and fantasy, and is a perennial nominee for the Locus, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards as well? A case can be made for J.K. Rowling as well, without much need to go into what she's done. Robin Hobb certainly deserves a strong look as well. Mercedes Lackey has helped define SF/F for the last two decades and has written and sold across half a dozen of the subgenres. Another name some might throw out is China Meiville, for lush language and creativity? R. A. Salvatore has sold well enough that he can make a legit claim to being the greatest too.
So is the greatest living SF/F writer one of these? Or is there someone I just don't know?
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Pratchett by several lengths of the racetrack
Kate
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If it were me having to name the greatest today it would be a tie between Bujold and Bradbury.
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Or you could go back earlier, for Philip Jose Farmer, who's still alive and kicking and who was the first guy to put sex in SF in 1952, which changed the genre forever.
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I'd probably award the "title" to Bradbury, with Stephen King in second. For the sake of argument, other names worth tossing out there are Orson Scott Card, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Robert Silverberg, and Daniel Keyes.
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Of the others, I have to take my hat off to Rowling. She put forth a product that made kids -- and adults -- want to read. She brought a number of readers to the genre who had either never considered reading SF/F or who had left the genre and had no intention of ever returning. For that, kudos.
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I like the people on your list a lot, especially Mieville and Bujold, but I think some of them are too early in their careers to claim top honors.
That's obviously not true of Pratchett and King. And I'm not knocking them: their place in the pantheon of genre fiction is secure. But their best work lies in a fairly narrow range (horror for King, humor for Pratchett). It seems to me that the greatest writer in the field should be less specialized.
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John Wyndham wrote a goodly many that became films and then there are Huxley and Orwell, both of whom had books used in curriculi.
I guess the guy who started it all was H.G.Wells. He surely deserves a mention.
I don't see the great ladies mentioned. The first great lady coming to mind is Andre Norton. Then what about Marian Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey?
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Most of the rest you've listed are also deceased, and the question was the greatest alive. :)
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One of the reasons I picked Bradbury is he's passed the "relevant X years later" test. FAHRENHEIT 451 was first released in 1953, the book is older than 2/3's of the people on flist, and still both readable _and_ relevant.
And I freely admit that I worship the ground Lois hovers just above.
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Among the living, Diana Wynne Jones body never fails to satisfy. She's often overlooked because she focuses so much on women an their issues, but nobody--not even Norton--better capture women's secret fears and hopes. For that matter, I can't think of a mainstream writer who does it better either.
As for my tip of the hat, that goes to Fritz Leiber, who established the structure and tropes Salvatore and others rely on. Not only that, TSR licensed his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series to build their game structure. Who knows how many writers and readers have been influenced by the resulting games and their derivatives?
Cheers,
Jean Marie
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And i think too many writers take "Tough Guide" as a "How To" book and include all of it...
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Anyway, on to the rant:
http://gerriwritinglog.livejournal.com/37274.html
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So my vote is DWJ and possibly Bujold, but just because I really like The Sharing Knife sequence.
And totally agree with you about Pratchett - it must be a character flaw on my part, but apart from Good Omens, I don't get the love. ::shrug::
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The Sharing Knife is probably the weakest of all the books Bujold has ever put out. It really lacks the depth of books like Curse of Chalion or Paladin of Souls. I have to wonder if she dug TSK out from under the bed while she works on something else. Compared to her other works, TSK is light frothy fun read. If she were anyone else but Bujold, I'd be placing her in the candy category, but Bujold has shown that she's so much more, and I hold her up to the standards she set for herself.
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sfd: Well that’s great news. Everyone will be happy about that. Do you find that you have readers of Vorkosigan who haven’t really gone with your fantasy offerings?
LMB: You can’t argue tastes. There’s a variety of people who have a variety of opinions. Some of the Vorkosigan readers haven’t enjoyed the fantasy as much, some of them have enjoyed them more. Some people who have never tried the Vorkosigan books, have tried the fantasies. It’s a hazard for any writer who chooses not to write the same thing all the time. You will invariably please some of the people some of the time, but very seldom all the people all of the time. The thing about it is that liking books isn’t like getting married. You don’t have to just love one. You’re allowed to love, like, more than one. You can have more than one favorite. Trying to convince people that literary monogamy is not required can be a bit of a stretch.
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Greatest Living SF writer
I think mention should be made of Eric Flint, who is not only a creative novelist but has also defined the debate about DRM and electronic books for the profession, as well as being as prolific an editor as he is a novelist.
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Flint is definitely competent, although I personally can't stand his work. But again, his achievements with DRM, ebooks and editing - with all due respect for their significance - don't count as "writing".
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And it's okay that you don't like Flint. He feels that he'll never win awards. He is, in my humble opinion, a throwback to the days of RAH where authors wrote stories, not littrachur, and he's created the most popular current shared world in the genre: 1632.
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I tend to hate award-winning stuff. Hugo and especially Nebula voters seem to consider Big Themes And Concepts the vital thing, and the presence of a good story somewhere between "tertiary" and "irrelevant"
Still, I've interacted with him on the Bar a couple of times. Seems like a nice guy, and definitely smart. I'll look him up.
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While he's young compared to other names on the list, what about Neil Gaiman?
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And he does *cool* very well, also. ;)
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Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series needs to be in there somewhere as well.
Elizabeth Bear is starting to climb up the ranks. Her writing possesses depth that often needs a second read.
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Or Guy Gavriel Kay? His Fionavar Tapestry stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Lord of the Rings as one of the best fantasy trilogies ever, IMO.
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I guess it depends on what you mean by greatest. Quite frankly, while I admire their longevity, I can't stand either Harlen Ellison or Ray Bradbury. Stephen King may excite readers, but his books aren't exactly what I would call deep. Same with Pratchett. I'm not knocking their writing. They're obviously popular, but I'm not sure popular makes them one of the greatest writers ever.
Honestly, I tend to think of Bujold or Ursula K. Le Guin when I think of great writers. Michael Moorcock would be another one who I'd seriously consider a candidate. He was definitely one of my influences.
In the end, though, I'd have to go more with Bujold. She just has a richness of prose that most of the rest can't match or beat, and she tends to write very deep, even when she's writing lighter stories.
J.K. Rowling, imo, needs to come in very near the top, though. That's not just because she single-handedly introduced reading to whole generations, uniting adults and kids into one big readership. The Harry Potter series has a depth that a lot of people want to overlook just because it's a kid series. I don't think it can be.
*looks longingly at her list of favorite writers who are dead, sighs, and moves on*
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I tend to associate that with the overwritten, massively over-analyzed crap that we all had shoved down our throats in high school English classes.
The sort of thing that turns a lot of people away from ever voluntarily reading anything afterwards.
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I think anyone who gets the nod for greatest living writer needs to write more than the reading equivalent of cotton candy. Don't get me wrong--I like candy stories, too. But to earn the title of greatest living writer, the authors need to be writing things closer to steak or lasagna, something that sticks to the mental ribs, draws the reader back in to experience the story again and again, fills them up without the sugar rush that candy stories leave.
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But.
Chip Delaney. Nova. "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones".
And Steven Brust. Freedom And Necessity.
And dammit John M. Ford should still be alive; and if you'd posted this two weeks ago you know I'd have put in for Tom Disch.
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Michael, great collabs? Niven & Pournelle & Barnes and Flint & Freer & Lackey come to mind ... and Brust & Bull.
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db
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Howard
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Bradbury - I read F451 and enjoyed it (and it stuck in my mind) but although I've read other Bradbury I don't remember them without recourse to google/wikipedia. Therefore I consider Bradbury to be almost a 1 trick wonder.
I also think it helps if something the author has written has entered into wider popular culture. Pratchett gets a nod here as does Bujold since both have produced quotes that one sees in odd places.
Another possibility is Orson Scott Card. Enders Game and Speaker to the Dead work on multiple levels, are popular as introductory works and have some memes that have entered culture (Speaker to X is one).
Larry Niven isn't dead yet. Lots of stuff there that is well known (on the gripping hand...). I think Niven is more influential that Pournelle in literary terms although in political terms it's the other way around. Niven's non collaborative work is stronger too and better known even though I prefer Pournelle personally as someone to read.
I think JK Rowling needs to write something other than HP and see it also be successful to count otherwise she drops into the one-hit-wonder category.