[Vicious Love]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Try Frank Herbert.

Inventor of the beefswelling. Nonetheless, point taken. Dune just never springs to mind when I think of SciFi. Personal bias, coupled with repressed trauma. Both Herbert and Tolkien took a real dive in writing quality after they changed their first names.

Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke (as has been mentioned by Leif) were full of interesting ideas that they wrapped into stories.

And how! Though Asimov did have a tendency to repeat himself, hence my assertion that much of his stuff wasn't all that good, conceptually. His best was brilliant, though.
Clarke had this distressing tendency to occasionally try and focus on the narrative, which really wasn't his forte. His nonfiction is usually much better than his fiction.

Heinlein, I must disagree, did write decent novels.

Actually agreed. For some reason, I felt it'd be splitting hairs to digress any more than I already was. My bad.

I know people (who I think are culturally blind) who don't care for G.R.R. Martin

Heh. The only author who kills off major characters in footnotes and appendices. What's not to like?