[BloodStreak]

Can anyone else think of any other revolutionary authors?

In my opinion, H.G Wells is by far the most revolutionary. He ignited the flames of Martian complacency which many authors have stoked.

[argon]

I think on Iain M. Banks and his "Culture." Not sure if he's that revolutionary, but his books are full of thought-provoking questions.

And of course Ursula K. Le Guin. There's so much to ponder reading her books. Like this one: "You can go home again, the General Temporal Theory asserts, so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been."

[fk1523]

Hi Bloodstreak. If I am asking a stupid question, please let me know. But what is martian complacency and how is it revolutionary?

[netghost]

If we're going with the theme of Great being great like Winston Churchill, rather than great like Spiderman.

Let's separate them.
Winston Churchill great:
Isaac Asimov - interesting ideas, but weak plot. He took off with ideas about robots and starflight. That was revolutionary.
Frank Herbert - He'll go in both categories.
H G Wells - for getting the genre chugging.
Robert Charles Wilson - for his insights into human nature on the whole, though his characters can be a bit thin.
Michael Crichton - for his weird, fascinating, shockingly realistic concepts, though he focuses too much on the science and not enough on the characters (sometimes).
Vernor Vinge - for his insights into the human condition, though his characters can be rather two dimensional, and the world rather in the foreground rather the background.
Orson Scott Card - because of his realistic characters played in front of the future, and his insights into the mind of children. Nobody had written anything like that before him.
John Wyndham - because of his commentary on the cold war, and where we would go if the war took off.

Spiderman great:
William Gibson - fascinating ideas as to where we're going with the world
Michael Crichton - I know he's here twice. That's because some of his books do balance science, world, and characters perfectly. Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Congo among them.
Frank Herbert - because I said I would.
Orson Scott Card - because he seems to be both.
Piers Anthony - because he's amusing.

[Michigan]

Orson Scott Card - because of his realistic characters played in front of the future, and his insights into the mind of children. Nobody had written anything like that before him.


Realistic? I think he has some of the most unrealistic characters out there, and his insights into the mind of children seem to not be insightful at all, in fact they seem way off, hence the very unrealistic characters.

[Rocket Sheep]

James Triptree Junior
Stanislaw Lem
William Gibson
PK Dick
Victor Pelevin
Mikhail Bulgakov
Arkady & Boris Stragatski
Sergey Lukyanenko

Because they wrote what they loved to write about in a style of their own.

[aquarious]

Hello guys what about Bradbury??? I agree, Ursula Le Guin is truly wonderful, my fave being "The Dispossessed". There is also Sheri S Tepper, who is often mis-filed under fantasy- "The Companions", "The Fresco" or "Shadows End" or "Sideshow" are all great books of hers.
Assimov is good to a point, as is early Heinlein.

[BloodStreak]

h.g wells was one of the first people to suggest that life is on mars and that people are still pondering upon the theory of life on mars.

[Curethan]

Phil Dick

>> the aliens are within our psyche... really the first true alternate to golden age man vs the universe style stuff imo.

[Shadow wooer]

I would think Jules Verne, even if it is a little outdated. It might be argued that he created the genre (save for Frankenstein, maybe).
Asimov, K. Dick, Simmons, Mopin (:rolleyes:)