Heinlein: the Future History;
Anderson: a future history;
two series and other works combined into a much longer future history;
five series and one novel comprising alternative future histories;
time travelers through history and into the future;
mutant immortals through history and into the future;
contributions to Niven's and Pournelle's later Heinleinian future history series.
Needless to say, I think that Anderson dominates the field but am also willing to hear from anyone who wants to present a different perspective.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
While I agree Poul Anderson dominated the SF field of his time, surpassing the writers you listed, I would have stressed they had younger colleagues and successors, such as S.M. Stirling. I mentioned Stirling because I consider him a very worthy successor of Anderson, and surpassed him in the alternate world/history sub-genre of science fiction. And, as we know, Stirling greatly admires the works of Anderson, who has not yet been surpassed as a writer of hard science fiction.
Sean
Sean,
I agree. I was focusing on future histories. Stirling excels at alternative histories. I might work my way through THE PESHAWAR LANCERS and CONQUISTADOR yet again but first it will probably take me a long time to trek back through Anderson's HARVEST OF STARS future history.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I look forward to your future comments about the HARVEST OF STARS books! And then your possible commentaries on Stirling's THE PESHAWAR LANCERS and CONQUISTADOR is also something to read with keen interest.
And Stirling's two Lords of Creation novels is best described as alternate world hard SF. And are among those of his books I most like.
I should perhaps have mentioned Hal Clement and books of his like MISSION OF GRAVITY. They are considered classics of hard SF and their author was admired by Poul Anderson.
Sean
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