Names to Know in Science Fiction and Fantasy

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This page is part of the "Names to Know" project.

The groundbreaking, the influential, the seminal... but not necessarily the most famous people in science fiction and fantasy literature.

An extremely incomplete list. Feel free to add more.

The Big Three
Almost universally accorded as the most prominent figures of 20th century science fiction, collectively responsible not only for creating and promulgating many of the tropes of modern SF, but also dragging it out of its pulp roots and into literary respectability.


 * Isaac Asimov
 * Arthur C. Clarke
 * Robert A. Heinlein

The Precursors of Modern SF
Writers from Ancient Greece to the 19th century whose work included elements and themes later considered to be typical of SF.


 * Ovid
 * William Shakespeare -- The Tempest is an Ur Example of the "Mad Scientist" story
 * Jonathan Swift
 * Mary Shelley
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton -- author of 1871's The Coming Race, a novel where the main character discovers a highly evolved subterranean civilization with psionic powers that are given a logical and scientific explanation.
 * Edgar Allan Poe
 * Mark Twain -- for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, one of the first Time Travel stories.
 * L. Frank Baum
 * Ambrose Bierce
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs
 * Jules Verne
 * H. G. Wells

The Golden Age
"The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12."

- Peter Graham, in the Fanzine Void, 1957

Science fiction from 1926 (when Hugo Gernsbeck founded Amazing Stories) to the founding of Galaxy magazine in 1950. During the Golden Age the only venues for SF stories were the genre magazines; the big publishers were not convinced that there was a large enough audience to make SF books profitable.


 * Forrest J. Ackerman
 * Alfred Bester
 * Eando Binder
 * Otto Binder
 * Jerome Bixby
 * James Blish
 * Anthony Boucher
 * Leigh Brackett
 * Ray Bradbury
 * Reginald Brentnor
 * Fredric Brown
 * John W. Campbell
 * A. Bertram Chandler
 * Lester Del Rey
 * Randall Garrett
 * Hugo Gernsback
 * Edmond Hamilton
 * L. Ron Hubbard
 * [[Cyril M. Kornbluth
 * Henry Kuttner
 * Fritz Leiber
 * Murray Leinster
 * Judith Merril
 * H. Beam Piper
 * Frederik Pohl
 * Cordwainer Smith
 * A. E. van Vogt
 * Kurt Vonnegut (although he would deny it to the day he died)
 * Donald A. Wollheim
 * John Wyndham

The New Wave
Born with founding of Galaxy and numerous small presses, this is the era in which SF started appearing in mainstream publication and in book form. The success of the small presses proved that there was a market for hardbound SF, and with Doubleday in 1950 more and more of the big publishing houses began adding SF lines. At the same time, large-circulation mainstream magazines like Playboy and Esquire began buying SF. This larger-scale publication quickly exhausted backlogs of stories originally printed in the pulps and the ensuing demand began encouraging new writers; as demand went up, pay went up, and it was in this era that it first became possible for an author to make a living by writing full-time.

Behind this expansion of the genre was the willingness of new writers to abandon strict scientific plausibility and explore themes generally ignored by the pulps in the Golden Age, such as politics, religion, sexuality, and experimenting with Post Modernism and Surrealism in their works, while placing a greater emphasis on style and a more highbrow form of storytelling. Starting in the 1970s, the "New Wave" era would also include authors who would get their starts writing Tie-in Novels for SF properties born in other media, such as Star Wars and Star Trek.


 * Dafydd ab Hugh
 * Douglas Adams
 * Robert Adams
 * Brian Aldiss
 * Kevin J. Anderson
 * Poul Anderson
 * Robert Asprin
 * Jean M. Auel
 * J.G. Ballard
 * Iain M. Banks
 * Greg Bear
 * Gregory Benford
 * James Blaylock
 * Pierre Boulle
 * Ben Bova
 * David Brin
 * John Brunner
 * Algis Budrys
 * Lois McMaster Bujold
 * William S. Burroughs
 * F. M. Busby
 * Octavia Butler
 * Orson Scott Card
 * Terry Carr
 * Jack L. Chalker
 * C. J. Cherryh
 * John Christopher
 * Hal Clement
 * Glen Cook
 * Michael Crichton
 * Avram Davidson
 * L. Sprague de Camp
 * Samuel R. Delany
 * Paul Di Filippo
 * Philip K. Dick
 * Gordon R. Dickson
 * Thomas M. Disch
 * Stephen R. Donaldson
 * Gardner Dozois
 * David Drake
 * Diane Duane
 * George Alec Effinger
 * Suzette Haden Elgin
 * Harlan Ellison
 * Philip José Farmer (technically began writing in the Golden Age, barely, but is best known for his New Wave-era works)
 * Eric Flint
 * John M. Ford
 * Robert L. Forward
 * Alan Dean Foster
 * David Gerrold
 * Lisa Goldstein
 * Steven Gould
 * James E. Gunn
 * Jack C. Haldeman II
 * Joe Haldeman
 * Harry Harrison
 * Simon Hawke
 * Zenna Henderson
 * Brian Herbert
 * Frank Herbert
 * James P. Hogan
 * Laurence Janifer
 * Diana Wynne Jones
 * Janet Kagan
 * Katharine Kerr
 * John Kessel
 * Stephen King
 * Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
 * Damon Knight
 * Michael P. Kube-McDowell
 * Michael Kurland
 * R. A. Lafferty
 * Keith Laumer
 * Stephen R. Lawhead
 * Ursula K. Le Guin
 * Tanith Lee
 * Stanisław Lem
 * Jacqueline Lichtenberg
 * Barry N. Malzberg
 * Walter Miller
 * Michael Moorcock
 * Andre Norton
 * Spider Robinson
 * Robert Silverberg
 * Norman Spinrad
 * Theodore Sturgeon
 * Robert Anton Wilson
 * Roger Zelazny

Cyberpunk

 * William Gibson
 * Cory Doctorow
 * K. W. Jeter
 * John Shirley
 * Neal Stephenson
 * Bruce Sterling

Postcyberpunk

 * James Patrick Kelly
 * John Kessel

"Contemporary"/Early 21st Century SF

 * China Miéville

And everyone listed in Template:Arthur C. Clarke Award

Precursors of Modern Fantasy

 * Lord Dunsany
 * E. T. A. Hoffmann

He Who Inspired All

 * J.R.R. Tolkien

Early- and Mid-20th Century Fantasists
Authors the majority of whose work appeared between 1900 to circa 1975.
 * L. Sprague de Camp
 * August Derleth
 * Barbara Hambly
 * Robert E. Howard

Historical Fantasy

 * Marion Zimmer Bradley

Modern (Late 20th/Early 21st Century) Fantasists
Authors whose work mostly or entirely postdates 1975 or so.
 * Piers Anthony
 * Gael Baudino
 * James Blaylock
 * Terry Brooks
 * Steven Brust
 * Jim Butcher
 * Glen Cook
 * Stephen R. Donaldson
 * Diane Duane
 * Esther Friesner
 * Neil Gaiman
 * Lisa Goldstein
 * Simon Hawke
 * Diana Wynne Jones
 * Robert Jordan
 * R. A. Lafferty
 * Stephen R. Lawhead
 * Tanith Lee
 * Katharine Kerr
 * Stephen King
 * Mercedes Lackey
 * China Miéville
 * Tim Powers

Organizations

 * Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America