Shakespear and Dante...

[Laughing_Seraphim]

..there is no other.

Well I disagree. What would you say are the two great scifi writers dividing the contemporary world? Fantasy Writers?

My vote would have to be for Asimov and H.G. Wells on the SciFi side. *neither one of which I particularly claim as a favorite.

In fantasy it would be Tolkien and Brooks? This one is sort of hard to say since I think Tolkien may have defined and ultimately pigeon holed the genre. Brooks took a similar story and made it less of a Noble mans fantasy, turning it into a fantasy even plumbers could aspire to.

 

[Steerpike]

Tough question. I don't know that I'd view Wells as contemporary. Asimov and Heinlein, maybe? I could go back and forth in my own mind on this all day.

For fantasy, I suppose you have to go with Tolkien on the one hand (and in that same hand I'd include Brooks and other Tolkienesque writers). And on the other hand, fairly new crop of writers who take Fantasy into a grittier realm - Cook, Martin, Erikson, Abercrombie, and the like. I don't think I could pick just one.

 

[Telcontar]

I think we're still looking too far in the past, though I suppose this sort of thing can only be judged in hindsight. Partially because I don't always find books until they've been out for a few years.

For Sci Fi I'd nominate Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick, and even they are a bit out of date now. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the really modern science fiction scene. I should work on changing that...

Fantasy? Heck if I know. I don't think there are 'two great fantasywriters dividing the contemporary world.'

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

Larry Niven to Andre Norton for scifi...Niven being hard scifi, and Norton soft. I love them both.

 

[Phoenix]

For fantasy maybe Tolkien and Lewis? I don't know about the other.

 

[Laughing_Seraphim]

Larry Niven to Andre Norton for scifi...Niven being hard scifi, and Norton soft. I love them both.

Andre hadn't even crossed my mind. Sweet.

 

[Steerpike]

For Sci Fi I'd nominate Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick, and even they are a bit out of date now.

Funny, I almost went with the same two. Philip K. Dick is one of my favorites.

 

[AlexanderKira]

Fantasy, I would have to go with Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin. Jordan was influenced by Tolkien of course, but his writing was all his own, his world was all his own. George, well there just isn't enough praise to give to George anymore. He's fantastic, he redefined fantasy in my opinion. Two great authors.

 

[Ravana]

"Dividing"? Not completely certain what you intend here. (For starters, I don't see Shakespeare and Dante "dividing" anything, which probably isn't helping me any.…) But I'll try.…

I don't think Tolkien can be used here: he's too seminal to the entire field (just as Shakespeare is to English literature as a whole). Unless you want to appeal to him as being the defining exemplar of epic fantasy… in which case I'd say his opposite number was probably Robert E. Howard: good old-fashioned swords and sorcery, gritty, and without requiring several hundred, or thousand, pages to tell a story. It certainly isn't Brooks, at any rate, who began life as a Tolkien clone—unless you're talking opposites on the quality spectrum, which I gather you aren't. (I've been told he got better over time. I've been told that about plenty of other authors who I have no intention of reading a second book from, too.) Apart from that, I'm not quite sure where I'd draw any "dividing" line.

I wouldn't choose Asimov for SF: he made some major contributions, but Uncle Ike just wasn't that good. I'd be tempted to name Harlan Ellison as one, but I think he's more a third point on a triangle than a second one on a line—and I strongly suspect he'd be the first to agree, followed closely by anybody who actually knows him. (And Dick either makes it a parallelogram or a tetrahedron, depending on how you look at things.) I'd be very tempted to name Roger Zelazny; he and Samuel R. Delany are probably the two people most responsible for taking SF from marginalized pulp-printed space opera into something that may someday be considered "legitimate" literature, should the rest of the world ever get a clue. Ellison falls into this category as well, in terms of introducing sociological aspects to SF—but the other two also added a much greater consciousness of the use of language itself… "poetic" being the most commonly used adjective. Ursula LeGuin's name should be thrown with those three, and doesn't fall far short of Zelazny and Delany in literary quality… if at all. Gene Wolfe, who came along a few years later, also goes into both pools. Alfred Bester belongs in the larger of those groups—and while his name isn't as well known as it used to be, his influence on other SF writers has been profound and lasting.

It would be hard to argue against Robert A. Heinlein, for any number of reasons—not the least being that he was one of the few whose works successfully progressed from space opera to more sociological, less technical material… and then combined them: Stranger in a Strange Land preceded The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by five years. Anybody who could write both deserves a place at the top.

I'm going to have to split my vote for the other person to go opposite Heinlein, I think: on the one hand, Zelazny, for reasons mentioned—and on the other, William Gibson, whose stylistic and subject-matter influences determine much of SF's "A-List" publication today. He's the one person I can think of who could claim to be the heir of Bester (and Ellison and John Brunner, and, yes, Dick), and at the same time of Zelazny (Delany, et al.), and who has had an equally great impact on writers who've come after him. Which is why I can't come up with any other names for fantasy: I just can't think of anyone who's had a similarly far-reaching impact.

 

[Laughing_Seraphim]

It's a famous quote Ravana,

As the poet T. S. Eliot wrote, "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third."

This is somewhat true, but only covers a certain spectrum of literature, and a narrow one at that.
In regard to Sci Fi and Fantasy there are also the greats that it seems every sci fi and fantasy junkie alive has read. At this stage of the game guys like Tolkien and Wells aren't nesseccarily playing the field alone. Were the greats of these genres stack up against each other, who would emerge as comparable champions?

 

[Steerpike]

If you look solely at the effect on popular culture, then I think on the Fantasy side of things you have to have Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Also, Lovecraft (putting aside any argument as to genre) and C.S. Lewis to a lesser extent than the first two. George R.R. Martin with the advent of the TV series, games, and the like.

Science fiction is a bit more difficult for me. Philip K. Dick, for not only his ongoing popularity but the number of films based on (or, more accurately, purporting to be based) his work. Richard Matheson (again putting aside arguments of genre) for I am Legend, and for numerous Twilight Zone episodes. The readership of Heinlein and Asimov appears to be to be substantial as well.

Then there are some who are not best known for being writers themselves. Lester Del Rey, for example. Although he did write, he wasn't that great at it. But as a publisher he had a tremendous impact, particularly in science fiction.

 

[Larkin]

Some nominations I haven't yet seen would be Ellison, Lem, Clarke, Vance, van Vogt, Peake, LeGuin, Butler, Delany, and Leiber.

In fact, I'd put Leiber as one of my definite picks for the 'fantasy' side of the question. I imagine someone like Mervyn Peake, perhaps, on the other side of it. To generalize, Leiber is anti-ornamental and low fantasy, more concerned with plot than characterization, whereas Peake is ornamental almost to the point of excess, high(er) fantasy, and much more focused on character than on plot.

 

[danr62]

Terry Brooks on the same page as Tolkien? You must be starking mad!

I read two and a half books from him. I'm not sure how I managed to stomach it. In fact, the part of the third book I read almost mirrored the plot of the first book exactly.

I'm with Ravana here; if he managed to improve I don't really care to find out.

 

[Reaver]

Terry Brooks on the same page as Tolkien? You must be starking mad!

I read two and a half books from him. I'm not sure how I managed to stomach it. In fact, the part of the third book I read almost mirrored the plot of the first book exactly.

I'm with Ravana here; if he managed to improve I don't really care to find out.

I have to agree with this. Terry Brooks is a shining example of finding the proverbial "one trick pony" and riding it hard for almost forty years. On the Sci-Fi side: in my opinion, Frank Herbert is the Tolkien of the genre. Dune and the subsequent novels (save for his son Brian and co-author Kevin J. Anderson's shoddy take on it) are jewels.