I do argue that almost everything that isn’t mundane sf is fantasy with the serial numbers filed off. Sufficiently advanced fictional technology is indistinguishable from fictional magic.
I agree with Atwood. IMHO science fiction needs to have a science-based premise. A dystopian tale set in the future doesn’t make it “science fiction”, it makes it “dystopian fiction”. Orwell’s 1984 wasn’t science fiction, either. Neither is most of what’s classified as fantasy.
It’s interesting that nobody ha mentioned Brandon Sanderson, who’s probably the most successful genre writer working today. And yes, he’s technically a Fantasy writer - but he writes Fantasy as if it were SF.
George R.R. Martin once wrote that he loves both genres equally, and that sometime he’d think of a story and characters and only then decide whether to set it in a SF or Fantasy universe. The money quote was, I think, “It’s all just stories”.
I think that’s more common than you think. I think the some of the greatest “genre” writers in history - people like Vance, Zelazny, LeGuin, Wolfe, Silverberg, Donaldson, Bujold - moved freely between the SF and Fantasy “fields” because they saw them as merely tools for writing the stories they wanted to tell. One story is better with space ships, another story is better with dragons, a third story is better with both. In the end, so long as the story is good, it doesn’t matter what label they put on it.
I was going to say David Brin. Wrote a lot of good, adventure “hard SF” in the 90s. Won awards.
And, he’s alive (as you noted), and is an actual scientist. His stuff is not well known now, too bad! Some of the most imaginative alien races in SF.
Currently, he runs a blog where he talks mostly about politics and plugs his books.
Somewhere, Isaac Asimov is still churning out novels.
I know who Neil Gaiman is because he is famous. Never read anything of his, but his name and especially the tv/film adaptations have been heavily promoted for most of my adulthood. My daughter was a big fan of Coraline and I watched a couple episodes of Good Omens around 5 years ago, that’s about all of his stuff I’ve been exposed to. Also know his name partially due to his marriage to Amanda Palmer, a heavily hyped musician I’m sure many here will brag about never having heard of either.
Huh. That’s a pretty deep and meta take on it. I see what you’re saying, but Sanderson definitely dresses everything up in fantasy garb. I suppose he might be science fiction in the same way that Star Wars is fantasy (and yeah, I see that case, too); but overall I consider him to be a prominent fantasy author.
Which, now that I think about it, may or may not disqualify NK Jemisin. Without going into spoilers, I’m not sure how to categorize her most famous work; and her other works are definitely fantasy.
John Varley is still alive. It looks like his most recent book was published in 2018, so I’m not sure if that counts as “still writing” or not. I’m guessing he’s pretty well known in sci-fi circles but probably not much outside.
I’m currently reading The Sunlit Man. Read that, or Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, or the Wax & Wayne books, and you’ll see that that fantasy garb has been getting very thin and tattered lately.
Fair enough. I’ve read two or three of his books (something about Rainbow Magic, and some Old West fantasy), and he didn’t really grab me enough to read more by him, but I’ll take you at your word.
Madame P. thinks it’s David Weber, of the Honor Harrington series.
My guess’d be Seth McFarlane, because of The Orville, or maybe Matt Groenig for Futurama.
I don’t think either of them fit the OP:
I like books “written in the current millennium”, but I’m much more interested in “technology issues” books, not “social issues” books. Writers like Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Iain Banks, Alastair Reynolds, etc. Books that in the middle of the action dedicate ten paragraphs to describing the precise mechanism by which the sentient missle operates. I like the intricately imagined technology to be a main character.
Larry Niven
Not long ago, or a lifetime ago if you’re not a geezer, the answer was easy, Isaac Asimov or perhaps Arthur C. Clarke among living writers, Jules Verne all time. Back then science fiction was a fringe genre. Now, if there were still bookstores, science fiction would take up as much or more shelf space as any other literary style. May as well ask who is the most famous romance novelist or author of books For Dummies.
Iain M. Banks is another of the ‘recently dead’ authors, otherwise he would have been my choice above all others. Even above Asimov and Clarke, (but not above LeGuin).
I get that. Not really my jam at all. But Banks, Hamilton, etc. are more recent authors, and not the sort I was talking about (note that prior to your post, none of their names had appeared in the thread).
Wait - isn’t Robert Silverberg still alive?
If recent means 11 years ago. It surprises me that Banks would be considered famous. Maybe in the UK? In the U.S. I doubt you would find one person outside of hardcore SF fans who every heard of him. Asimov and Clarke were famous outside of SF circles. If someone needed a talking head or a quick article in the realm of future speculation they were the ones to go to. Both published in mainstream publications like Playboy. Clarke hosted TV shows. I had no idea what Banks looked like until I looked him up right now. Clarke and Asimov are instantly recognizable despite being dead for decades.
Yes. But at 89, I was afraid to add his name to a list of living science fiction writers out of concern for invoking ironic fate.