Stranger in a Strange Land wasn’t always as progressive as some people give it credit for. For example, homosexuality was portrayed unequivocally as a “wrongness” as it went directly against the idea of binary gender/sex roles that played a major part of the novel’s central thesis.
Also let’s not forget Jill’s infamous line “nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped it’s partly her fault.”
David Brin wrote a short story, “Stones of Significance” (included in his recently-published anthology, it turns out), in which a writer suddenly finds himself confronted with a movement to grant rights to all fictional characters. Sounds like the inevitable outcome of the whole holograms bit.
Wells is natural pick for the Nineteenth century, but his Twentieth century SF wasn’t nearly as influential, In My Opinion.
Asimov and Clarke are worthy contenders for the title. Tiptree, Le Guin or Butler? Great writers for sure, but for adults and adults have already been largely influenced by what they as kids and this is where Heinlein stands out. His juvenile series from 1947 through 1958 was widely read, widely praised (by the public and the reviewers) and largely still in print.
A case could be made for Bradbury, as a lot of kids read him, but in terms of exposure minor compared to Heinlein. Ellison is mostly read by those who already read SF.
I gotta agree that anything after TEfL is mostly shite, and I feel sorry for anyone judging RAH by those. But before that was an impressive body of work, putting political theory in childrens books was pretty rad at the time.
True I liked job a comedy of justice though.
No offense but are you high or do you just dislike female authors?
Le Guin is a giant of the field and has had a massive impact since the 70s on the next generations of writers. Every kid I knew who read SF or Fantasy read a Wizard of Earthsea and, eventually, The Disposessed.
You may have missed the part where I called them great writers. How this translates in disliking female authors is something for you to worry about.
And we are not the only ones who think Le Guin was good; according to David Hartwell Heinlein called her the best writer of her generation.
And I can say nothing bad about Octavia Butler. Besides being a great writer, she used to come into the bookstore I worked at and was nicer than pie.
Being a wonderful writer does not translate into the most significant. One could argue that any of these writers are better than Heinlein. It’s my argument that RAH influenced more writers, scientists and engineers than anyone so far named. Except perhaps Asimov. Maybe. With his non-fiction.
What is inarguable is that Heinlein outsold everything Le Guin, Butler and Tiptree wrote put together; more evidence for significance.
Third Place?
I’d argue that Clarke probably had as much influence.
Sales are not a measure of significance unless you want to invoke the spectre of L. Ron Hubbard. Sales are a measure of commercial success aka “sales.”
Third Place?
University Book Store, on the Ave.
‘Sales are not a measure of significance…’
{insert sigh} Some people seem allergic to anything ‘commercial.’ A book that is read by a lot of people is certainly more significant than one read by a relative few. Certainly not the only way to judge significance, but it is one of the few way a book’s impact CAN be measured.
Clarke was a major writer, and one of the best. However, I’ll be a bit controversial and claim his standing in the ‘Big Three’ (Robert, Isaac and Arthur), however, is partially due to the Atlantic Divide. He was Great Britain’s (deservedly) noted Hard Science Fiction writer and stood as a natural contrast to Asimov. Of course, if you pressed me, I couldn’t easily come up with another name to replace him so maybe I’m very wrong. If he didn’t influence quite as many NASA engineers as Heinlein, that may because NASA engineers tended to be American.
Say hi to Duane. I’ve known him almost 30 years.
I’m not allergic at all. I just don’t think it is the measure of significance or else that means Butler wasn’t terribly significant for most of her career (but she actually was).
Dude invented the geosynchronous comm satellite in a novel…
Butler was and is significant.
I’m not at the Book Store anymore, but I’ll drop your 'nym to Duane next time I’m in.
And, yeah, you are right about satellites! but IIRC it was in an article. You got me on the Clarke Orbit.
He doesn’t know my 'nym so it won’t help. I’ll say hi to him the next time I’m in town to visit my grandma and my brother. Duane was recommending books to me when I was high school age…
So it isn’t purely a matter of sales then?
I think this is a good argument. The guys who built Apollo grew up reading Destination Moon and Have Spacesuit Will Travel. An entire generation of SF writers modeled his sense of adventure. There were other similar writers in Campbell’s stable like H. Beam Piper, but RAH was the star. Asimov didn’t excite people the same way, I find his writing…robotic. His characters are wooden. There’s no Asimov character as colorful as Lazarus Long. I loved Clarke the most as a teen, but I don’t think it has aged as well as Heinlein.
Asimov is a horrible writer only passable by the low standards of the era for SF but that could be said for most of the “Golden Age” writers. Go try Van Vogt.
It wasn’t until the 1970s until SF started producing writers that were actually good at the craft of writing, with a few exceptions.
Well, that might be going too far. You might not like Asimov, but you haven’t read actual horrible prose if you think his is that bad.
Heinlein #1? Hilarious!
Oh his stuff is awesome and trippy. I should read more of it.
I love the early stuff in some ways though. Like E.E. Doc Smith where they have these amazing spaceships instant communications across the galaxy and so on but they still use slide rules. The whole concept of a computer was a totally foreign thing.
I have to remind myself when reading Doc Savage pulps that all the gadgets were total science fiction for 1930s.
I haven’t been able to read any of his stuff in 30 years. Great ideas, wooden writing and two dimensional characters.
