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juvenile novels, like Farmer in the Sky or Starship Troopers, are fun, casual, and still innovative. His better novels, like Doorway into Summer or Stranger in a Stranger in a Strange Land are tremendous works of thoughtful consideration and speculation.

4) Isaac Asimov. Asimov's novels are consistently landmarks for the genre. His Robot series write the book on how robots are to be viewed, even to the point where scientists refer to his Laws of Robotics as if they were the standard for the industry. His Psycho-history novels write the standard for world building and consistency in an invented time-line.

5) Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke is the most hard-science of the early science fiction writers, but his short works are also notable for their humor and classy characterization. His landmark novel is 2001: A Space Odyssey, but shorter, lighter novels like A Pebble in the Sky, give a better sense of who this seminal writer is.

6) Alfred Bester, who wrote the wonderful novel Stars My Destination is the father of psionic evolution being used in a science fiction setting. His work still has an impact on science fiction, even to the point whee J. Michael Strazynski offers an homage to him in Babylon 5. Bester is often ignored in the marketplace to the detriment of the genre.

7) Ursula K. LeGuin. No other writer has made the impact in feminism and culture in science fiction that LeGuin did in her work. Her novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, is the best exploration of a truly alien culture.

Then there are the literary giants who are barely in the genre, but who have their work firmly implanted in the essence of science fiction. Don't look for these writers exclusively in the science fiction section of the bookstore, for they are more often found in the literature section.

1) Kurt Vonnegut. Don't be confused. He's a great writer. But his works, both great and small are serious efforts in the genre. His short story, "Harrison Bergeron," is a tribute to post-modern thinking about political correctness and quotas. His novels, from Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan, to Cat's Cradle, are monumental works of speculative fiction.

2) George Orwell. 1984 is the archetypical dystopic vision.

3) Aldous Huxley. A Brave New World is Huxley's effort to do what Orwell did. It is both different as well as significantly more readable than Orwell.

4) George R. Stewart. The Earth Abides is an apocalyptic novel that rarely gets in to the science fiction section, but it should be there.

5) Octavia

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