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Raymond Zinke Gallun was a prolific writer of short stories for pulp serials, particularly Astounding. Between 1929-1942 he published over 120 stories in pulps. His work shows interest in biology and genetic engineering.
He also wrote under the names Arthur Allport, E.V. Raymond, Dow Elstar, and William Callahan
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Jules Verne was a French playwright and novelist. His work often deals with the ways science might enable marvelous exploration, as in his novels Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
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Herbert George Wells was a British writer of some of the earliest modern science fiction. Wells wrote many utopian works of technologically advanced futures, and also pioneered the concept of aliens as invading forces to Earth. His most well-known works include The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and War of the Worlds, famously adapted as a radio play that fooled many people into thinking Earth had actually been invaded by aliens.
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Philip Francis Nowlan was an American science fiction writer. His first published story, in Amazing Stories, introduced Buck Rogers, an adventure hero whose exploits in space were adapted into comic strips, film, video games, and television. Nowlan's works had great influence on the interstellar space opera genre.
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Andre Norton, born Alice Mary Norton, was a librarian turned author who wrote children's and adult SFF and history. She sometimes wrote under pen names Andrew North or Allen Weston. Her work often deals with the maturation of a young protagonist depending on appreciating some aspect of history in their world. Her Witch World series marked a turn to fantasy. Norton wrote the first novel based on Dungeons and Dragons. She has won many awards, was a co-founding member of the Swordsman and Sorcerer's Guild in America, and was the first woman to be named SFWA Grand Master and to be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. She has been called the Grand Dame of SFF (Wikipedia - Andre Norton).
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Laurence van Cott Niven, aka Larry Niven, is an American author of hard scifi stories and novels. He is a winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, among other honours. His Tales of Known Space sequence, which includes his best known novel, Ringworld, is a work of future history with considerable influence over the scifi published since. His best known short work is perhaps Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, in which he considers the problems of Superman having sex with mortal women.
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Frank Belknap Long was a horror, fantasy, and science fiction writer. He authored hundreds of short stories for serials, as well as novels. He was a friend and mentee of Lovecraft, and contributed stories to the Cthulu Mythos.
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Seabury Quinn was an American author of science fiction and detective fiction. He wrote mainly for pulp serials, and also had a career as a lwayer. His most famous stories involved the detective Jules De Grandin. (Wikipedia - Seabury Quinn)
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Katherine MacLean was an American writer of science fiction, primarily short stories. Her first work published work appeared in Astounding in 1949.
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Raymond Douglas Bradbury was an American author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He wrote a fanzine, Futuria Fantasia, before beginning to publish himself in pulp serials. Many of his short stories were in The Martian Chronicles, which has been adapted as a tv miniseries.
His most famous work, Fahrenheit 451, is a curriculum standard in English speaking countries. He has had great influence on the SFF genres and is credited in his New York Times obituary with "bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream."
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Leigh Brackett was an early woman author of fantasy and science fiction, as well as of detective fiction and film scenarios. Her SFF short stories appeared mainly in Astounding, Planet Stories, and Thrilling Wonder Stories. She wrote many planetary romances, and was an influence on authors like Bradbury. After the 1950s, she worked mainly in film and television.
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Zenna Henderson was an American author and schoolteacher. She was an early woman writer of science fiction. Her work often presented aliens as the better selves of humanity.
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Robert Anson Heinlein is one of several authors given the name of Father of Science Fiction, and alongside Asimoc and Clark, called one of the "Big 3" of science fiction authors. His attention to scientific accuracy made him a pioneer of hard scifi specifically. He won four Hugos and seven retro Hugos. While he is criticized for his militarism, his writing explicitly rejected racism. He published under John W. Campbell, Jr. in the Golden Age of SF.
His most famous works are the novels Space Cadet and Starship Troopers and his Future History stories.
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Lyon Sprague De Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. One of John W. Campbell Jr.'s authors in the Golden Age of SF, he turned more to sword and sorcery stories in his later career. He also wrote nonfiction concerning SFF and authors in that genre. He often collaborated with his wife, Catherine Adelaide Crook, though she is not always given formal credit on works she helped to write.
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Nathaniel Schachner was an American chemist, lawyer, and author. He published as Nat Schachner, Chan Corbett, and Walter Glammis, and in his early scifi writing collaborated with Arthur Leo Zagat. His stories were published in Wonder Stories and Astounding; he also wrote one novel, Space Lawyer.
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Isaac Asimov was born in Russia and came to the US at three years old. He was an author of science fiction, popular science, and history, as well as a professor of biochemistry. His first published story appeared in Amazing Stories in 1939, and he was eventually mentored and published by John W. Campbell, Jr.
The influence of his Robot and Foundations series on science fiction as a genre would be difficult to overstate. His Three Laws of Robotics have greatly influenced any consideration of robots since. Asimov published prolifically and won dozens of awards for his work, including Hugos, Nebulas, and Locus awards. He published in many pulp serials, and eventually gave his name to Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (aka Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine).
His greatness as an author is tarnished by his sexual harassment of women at conventions and elsewhere (Wikipedia - Isaac Asimov).
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Alfred Elton Van Vogt was a Canadian author of metaphysical space opera. His first work, Black Destroyer, was published in Astounding and he was part of Campbell's stable of authors in the Golden Age of SF. He sometimes wrote with his wife, E. Mayne Hull before 1950.
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Hugo Gernsback was born in Luxembourg and emigrated to the US as a young man. His original interests and publications were in electricity. He was founder of Amazing Stories and served as editor from 1926-1929. He also founded Wonder Stories, aka Thrilling Wonder Stories, among other pulp serials. He also contributed stories to his publications. Gernsback had great influence over early science fiction, and the Hugo Awards are named in his honour.
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Wilmar House Shiras was an early woman writer of science fiction. Her first scifi story appears in Astounding in 1948; she continued to write scifi until the 1970s. Her most famous work is Children of the Atom, a novel about radioactively mutated child geniuses that inspired the X-Men.
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Farnsworth Wright was a contributor to Weird Tales, and was its editor for 177 issues from 1924-1939. Under Wright, Weird Tales published stories of lasting interest in horror, scifi, fantasy, and sword and sorcery.
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John W. Campbell, Jr. was one of the most influential editors of science fiction, as well as an author of stories for pulp serials himself. Ha has been called the Father of Science Fiction. He helmed Astounding Science Fiction (aka Astounding Stories, aka Analog) from 1937 until his death. The leader of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Campbell guided authors such as Asimov, Del Rey, Heinlein, Simak, Van Vogt, Kuttner, and Moore; Asimov credits him with at least co-creating his Three Laws of Robotics. Campbell won numerous Hugo Awards and his novella The Thing from Another World was adapted as The Thing (1982).
Campbell's racist views on slavery and segregation, as well as his interest in pseudoscience, led to some alienation from the science fiction authors and community in his later years (Wikipedia).
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Born Edward Hamilton Waldo, Sturgeon was an American writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror stories and novels. Sturgeon was one of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s regular writers. He often included themes of sexual diversity and adolescence in his work. He won Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy. International Fantasy, and Gaylactic Spectrum Awards.
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Henry Kuttner was a American science fiction writer admired for his wit and offbeat humour. He wrote extensively for pulp serials and also wrote many novels. He was an admirer of Lovecraft and contributed to the Cthulu mythos. His best known works were stories about Gallegher, a quirky inventor.
Kuttner wrote under numerous pseudonyms, including Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell, particularly after his marriage to C.L. Moore, when most of their works became joint ventures. He met Moore after writing her a fan letter.
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Catherine Lucille Moore was an influential and much admired writer of fiction for pulp serials; her first story appeared in Weird Tales in 1933. She worked extensively with John W. Campbell, Jr. She had two characters for whom she wrote multiple stores, Northwest Smith and Jirel Of Joiry (a female ruler of a land something like medieval France but with magic).
From 1940 until his death in 1958, she was married to fellow author Henry Kuttner. They wrote for pulp serials together under many pen names, including Lawrence O'Donnell and Lewis Padgett. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls her "the better half of their partnership."