In all the books I read about writing, they suggest reading widely, both in genre and out of genre. Try something new, something old, something borrowed…… Here are some of my favorite Science Fiction Authors.

Orson Scott Card is still one of my favorites, it really doesn’t matter what you think of the author, I focus on his writing and it has had a major impact on how I view the world and how I think about things. Some of the constructs, the questions he poses in his works still resonate with me years after I first read his works.
Frank Herbert and Douglas Adams also were early finds in my life. Heinlein, (Do I even need to write down his first name? Ok fine, it’s Robert.) Ray Bradbury, HG Wells and Aldous Huxley too. Kurt Vonnegut I found fascinating, though I would not think of him first as a science fiction writer.
I found Dan Simmons, Neal Stephenson and William Gibson later in life. I have toyed with Asimov for much of my life and though I highly respect him, his work is good for me, something I should read/defiantly need to read, but doesn’t make me want to curl up with his books.

Carl Sagan’s Contact really stuck with me and I was mostly ok with how the movie turned out. The book was of course better, but I understood why they did what they did for the movie. I did read the original (Mary Shelley’s) Frankenstein, which can be counted as perhaps the first science fiction novel and having seen countless movie versions of it, the book was such a departure from what I was expecting at the time.

Ursula LeGuin is another one that I discovered early and then found a whole backlog of books I had not read. Does Margaret Atwood write Science fiction? I think some of her work surely qualifies and I have read a bunch of it. I am a big fan of her work. A Wrinkle in Time was probably one of the earliest science fiction stories I read, at that age I read more fantasy than science fiction. (I still like fantasy today.)
There are many more books and authors on my “To Read” list, I know I need to read Asimov again, there are many books by the authors listed above that I still haven’t read, even though I have enjoyed their work, I need to read more of their work.
Do we, as authors and writers of all kinds, seek to find authors we can relate to? Or worlds that we can relate to? I should read more widely, read different genres and stretch myself. I have read some YA dystopian fiction; I guess it would be classified as science fiction. The Hunger Games and Divergent were well done and very accessible. Matched and the rest of that series I read most of as well.
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies and the series that followed I found fascinating because it was unlike anything I had ever read. (OK, it was a lot like that one Twilight Zone episode #12 looks just like you, or whatever the number was) but other than that, the world he created was wonderful and vibrant and horrible at the same time.
I have read some romance and some mystery, some “thriller” and whatever do you call the girl with the dragon tattoo, that series was disturbing but so well done.
SO, I am looking for suggestions, any thoughts? What should I read, what are your recommendations?

I attended a portion of Gen Con in Indianapolis. It was very interesting and I saw all the things/people/characters/booths that I thought I might see. But the most interesting part of attending Gen Con for me was the writer’s symposium.
I did not know what to expect and it was quite the adventure. I am glad I made it fit into my schedule and just admitting that I was a writer, could be, should be, maybe one day will actually let someone read something I write…. that was powerful.