Talk:List of science fiction authors

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[edit] older stuff

I think the borders between the different kinds of speculative fiction get a bit blurry sometimes. As long as the greats fall under one category or another I think we are doing okay. Milkfish 01:12 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

I added Robert Anton Wilson and Kurt Vonnegut. They may not be per se "science fiction" authors, but they satirize American life using some of the elements of sci-fi.

Kafka, science fiction??? I don't think so.

Why not? It makes sense to me. He certainly wasn't a genre writer, but if we are to accept Mary Shelly's Frankenstein as Science Fiction (and many do), then "The Metametamorphosis" certainly is.
No. Shelley treated the creation of life in terms of science (as known at the time). Kafka makes no such attempt; the guy just wakes up, and he's a bug. That's the difference.
Shelley didn't really write Sci-Fi either. Her novel was more in the gothic tradition of the time, although it could be considered proto-sci-fi. --BlackGriffen

[edit] writers vs. authors

Why is "writers" a redirect to "authors" rather than the other way around? -- Vicki Rosenzweig, probably expressing a personal quirk or pet peeve

"authors" was there first -- The Anome

[edit] Adding missing authors

Shouldn't George Orwell be on this list? If Mary Shelley, who only had one work of sci-fi at best, is on the list, shouldn't the author of 1984 be on the list, too? --BlackGriffen

It's a Wiki. If you think he belongs there, add him. Vicki Rosenzweig

Following a short discussion, I recently added brief mentions of well-known works to selected authors (i.e. those I knew off the top of my head) on the List of fantasy authors page. Is there any objection to a similar exercise on this page and, if not, could I have some help with the ones I don't know so well? Phil 12:38, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

Phil, that's a good idea so long as the info doesn't make each entry go past one line or so(which would make the page get too long). I noticed that this page shows up in Yahoo and Google when you do a search for a particular author. Consequently, I added as many of the birth/death dates as I could, then this page would be a nice quick stop shop of info for people who come here from Yahoo or Google. I've also been trying to add to the list as many of the older or early 20th century SF authors (especially the early pulp authors) as I can, for the same reason. I think it would be cool to make this as complete of a spot for SF info, as possible. So many of the other SF info sites are haphazard or incomplete (or too multimedia heavy).--MS, 15, Dec.03

There is now a Category:Science fiction writers which will eventually contain all the authors listed here. There are already authors missing from this list that are in the category, and this list has alphabetization erorrs as well. --ssd 17:05, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

1) I definitely feel E. T. A. Hoffman (1776-1822) should be included. His works are available in English, and "the Sandman" is about as SF as Verne's stories. A more recent German author is Martin Grzimek, born 1950 (Die Beschattung, which has been translated into English).

2) Is there a consensus on whether authors of works not (yet) translated into English should be included? The suggestion was made that this (I'm not sure which of the two lists, at least one of which I cannot open, is meant - nor do I understand why there are two lists) should be the most comprehensive SF author resource on the Web. That's a tall order, and there are at least three strong contenders (one in English, two in German) already out there. But if we are going to take up the gauntlet, then we should try to set up clear guide-lines.Kdammers 4 July 2005 02:08 (UTC)

I have added Thomas Atkinson and Don Sakers to the list of authors/fen. I won't write articles on them, because I am a friend of theirs, and thus have a COI. I've added links FYI. I am requesting someone to write articles on them. Bearian 01:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
More fo the same for Shane Tourtellotte. I am requesting an article on him. Bearian 01:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign authors

I'm going to add some names from the Spanish Wikipedia's article es:Ciencia ficción. Not sure if we want to list authors here who don't write in English, but I'll put them in and if anyone objects you can take them back out. Isomorphic 08:30, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to create an equivalent page on the Spanish Wiki (:es:?) and link them together? --Phil | Talk 08:11, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think that's the same thing -- especially because, given the English-language bias of SF, a list on Spanish wikipedia will (I guess) include a lots of English-language household names. So, I'd say, include Spanish-language, if they are known to a wider audience, say, Borges (if we count him as SF). -- till we *) 16:01, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Any author that has books published in English -- translated or otherwise -- should be in the author lists or categories. --ssd 17:05, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Fantasy authors accidently put in this list

I believe some of the authors included in this list were included mistakenly, as some only write fantasy fiction, and have not written any Science fiction. Below I have started a list of suspects. If you know of at least one Science fiction book they've written, add it after their name here. If you find a suspect entry, add it. Anything that is disputed (as above) rather than obvious should get its own full discussion.

Before entries above are deleted, they should be either

OR

  • removed from this article as science fiction writers if someone is really sure they never wrote anything resembling science fiction


Ooh, this is a good idea, thank you. I'm not sure I should mention this, but technically, Brooks's Shanarra universe is a far-future post-apocalyptic one, and considerable of its species diversity is owing to mutation. Thus, while the storylines are all fantasy (i.e., sword and sorcery), there is theoretically a sci-fi underpinning. I'm not sure that makes him a science fiction writer, but there you go. Certainly it doesn't make him a good science fiction writer... -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 04:01, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Any explanation is useful and should be mentioned. It's just a matter of where.  :) --ssd 07:18, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
With all due respect but most of the authors that ssd has listed (especially Dean Koontz) wrote as least one or more science fiction short stories and also if even one person thinks that any of the their work is SF than they should be on this list. -MS
Note, I changed "Science fiction authors" to "Science fiction writers" above, since the latter now seems to be the preferred category. --Hob 21:20, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The decision as to whether an individual author belongs on the list is whehter or not the text of the author's article says they write science fiction. If the author page is wrong, correct that first. In all cases, please use reliable sources and avoid controversial edits or POV comments. Avt tor 20:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Koontz earlier in his career wrote many books under a dozen or so pseudonyms. --Pleasantville 20:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A Proposal: SF Author Bios Should Be Moved from Wikipedia to the ISFDB Wiki

I propose that science fiction author bios be moved from Wikipedia to the ISFDB Wiki.

After a brief experience with Wikipdia, its editors strike me as a pack of officious trolls whose main concern is to make sure that you don't actually know the people you are writing about. The science fiction field doesn't work that way. I know hundreds (maybe over a thousand) science fiction writers, editors, and fans. Many, many of them could be described as my "associates." Am I connected to most members of the professional science fiction community in some way? You bet.

I've helped run a Hugo-nominated SF semiprozine for a couple of decades, I edit two year's best volumes, and am married to one of the most eminent editors in the field. But this connectedness holds true of really a lot of the people doing the actual biographies: Perhaps their connections are not so visible or so obvious, but the SF field is like one big extended family. We've all slept on each other's couches. We've bought each other drinks. We marry each other's daughters. . . . It's Clan Fandom.

And of those creating biographies that don't know their subjects, what they are mostly doing is lifting the ISFDB bibliographies wholesale and transplanting the content over to Wikipedia.

So lets have a revolution. Let's take the SF and fantasy bios over to the ISFDB Wiki and pull out of Wikipedia. Can we do this?

Or have I misjudged the Wikipedia sysops? Are they really reasonable people who will let people who actually know what they are talking about write there?

SEE ALSO:Jed Hartman's mediation on the state of affairs at Wikipedia: Wikipedia and sf. He provides an excellent example of exactly what I'm talking about: Somewhat similarly, [Teresa Nielsen Hayden] wrote a great article at Wikipedia a while back, about Roger Elwood, that consisted mostly of personal anecdotes. It was well-written and full of personality (like some of the old Britannica articles by major authors once were), and I couldn’t bring myself to attach a note to it saying “This is, unfortunately, not the right style or approach for Wikipedia.” But, sadly, it wasn’t. And the article has subsequently been rewritten to fit Wikipedia better, though the current version (last I checked) contains a link to TNH’s version. The Talk page for that article is a perfect example of clash of Wikipedia culture with sf culture: TNH gave a long and impassioned and compelling argument in favor of her version, but unfortunately her approach was wrong according to established Wikipedia policy.

According to the rules andstandards explained to me last night, none of the great living critics (TNH being one) ought to be allowed to write about sf writers. Also, since ISFDB now has a Wiki, it makes sense to move the Wiki entries on its writers closer to the source from which many of the SF writer bios are lifted.Pleasantville 11:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Kathryn Cramer

Kathryn, I think there's a basic misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is about. It is not intended to be a place for original material. By definition, Wikipedia isn't authoritative, it only stores information which is recorded elsewhere. No one is suggesting that people like Teresa or yourself shouldn't be writing about authors. If you could put bios on some web site where your work is signed, where random passers-by can't change your comments, then your work would certainly be considered authoritative, and Wikipedia editors could then reference your work.
I don't have your credentials, but I have my little Aurora award for fan writing, I attend twenty conventions a year, I work on Worldcon and other convention programming so I know a lot of the principals. I recently helped with a massive rewrite of the article on science fiction. Does the article reflect my opinion? Well, from a Wikipedia perspective I would say "understanding" rather than "opinion", but basically, yes, absolutely. But in this forum, it matters not even a little bit what my opinion is. The reason the article is standing mostly the way I wrote it is because I nailed eighty footnotes to it. I didn't do research and then present analysis; because I'm familiar with the topic and the community, I wrote what I knew to be true, and then I did research afterwards. Because the end result ended up properly cited, it has remained reasonably stable. Even so, other people have come along and tweaked bits, changed citations, and so on; that's the way this tool works. In discussions on these talk pages, if people say "such-and-such is true because I say so", other people go "yeah, so?" But if someone like me, who has a fairly broad knowledge of the subject, can say "such-and-such is true because Kathryn Cramer said so on whatever.info", that actually works as a logical argument with other editors here.
Wikipedia has two great advantages and one great disadvantage. The first advantage is that the interface is pretty darn easy to use. The second is that the great number of contributors creates a gestalt intelligence that generates broadly better results than what any individual could do. And of course this exactly does not work for individuals who, themselves, are authoritative on a topic. The disadvantage is that less-informed individuals can, at least temporarily, add inaccuracies (or just plain vandalism). It would be horrible to have your authoritative comments scrambled by some jerk, or just nibbled away over time by progressive edits.
Moving bios off Wikipedia won't accomplish anything. A lot of people find Wikipedia to be useful, so the Google page-rank algorithm directs people here. Putting the bios somewhere else first (preferably not on another wiki) would be helpful. If you really wanted to ensure your comments got wide distribution, put them on a web site where the articles are clearly signed by the creators, but also use some GFDL or other creative commons or free-ish license that would allow others to copy your stuff without worrying about copyright, that would really work. But even if you use a normal copyright on a public web site, researchers could still use it as a research reference.
It's not so much a different culture as just a different tool. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral and anonymous, which is the exact opposite of being authoritative. I'm useful here because I know who is really authoritative; your experience and direct knowledge of people and issues is important, and that element gets lost if you post directly here.
I really hope that you, Teresa, and people of similarly-wide experience decide to create content somewhere that we can find and refer to. Alexander von Thorn 17:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, the answer to - Let's take the SF and fantasy bios over to the ISFDB Wiki and pull out of Wikipedia. Can we do this? - is simply "no". No person or group has the right to say Wikipedia can't cover science fiction authors; nor can they control the use of existing biographical texts here, which have all been posted on condition of agreement to the GFDL licence (ie freely copyable and editable). Tearlach 19:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Even further, it’s not just impossible but seems besides the point. With an admittedly unscientific sample of one (Doc Smith), the ISFDB doesn’t seem to have much biographical data at all. I like to think that his Wikipedia entry is good and will get better—more so than if it were taken away from the universal encyclopedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FlashSheridan (talk • contribs) 17:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Page cleanup

I've started checking names with no WP entries against ISFDB http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi , and removing names with no entries (or just one or two short stories) as non-notable -- as this is a list of notable SF authors. I'm also linking notable authors with no WP entries to ISFDB -- so it's clear which authors have been checked.

Cheers, Pete Tillman 19:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Completed cleanup. Later authors without WP listings have the ISFDB link appended, which will make it easier if/when they get a Wiki page. So I guess I should change the first ones. Maybe later. Deep enough, Pete Tillman 21:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
On that note, who is "J. Richard Jacobs"? For that matter, who is "JC De La Torre"? Pleasantville 20:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Removed Jacobs as non-notable-- no ISFDB entry. I've heard of De La Torre, and his blog is SFnal... [googles] Ah, he's a published novelist: http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/228.html -- science-fantasy, sounds like. So he's marginally notable, I suppose. Cheers, Pete Tillman 21:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to cut the comments on notability from the main list. Such disucssions should take place on the Talk page, not on the main list. --Pleasantville 14:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] suggestion for new design

Take a look at the German list: It has a clear lay-out and includes nice stuff (though in a number of individual cases the actual choices are doof). Let's adopt it! Kdammers (talk) 04:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What German list? You don't mean the Category:German science fiction writers page, do you? I clicked on some of the authors there and didn't see a link to a German list of SF authors. Milkfish (talk) 19:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)