were A. C. Clarke and Angela & Karlheinz Steinmüller, for they did emphasize the science part most in their stories, trying to project the near future based on todays social and technical developments. Next to that are Joe Haldeman and Larry Niven, I think; they tried to do the same with a farther future, which gets more "blurry" regarding the predicitions, of course. Most others (e. g. RAH, and startin with H. G. Wells) have/had the emphasis on the fiction (fantasy?) part, which enables them to write social and political statements and critics wrapped up in nice allegories (IMHO this is the main theme in the literary section called Science Fiction Literature).
Regarding humanoid aliens: Niven had its Pak Protectors to deliver a pretty good explanation of the similarities of races in Known Space (but he also came up with some pretty weird aliens :-) like Piersons Puppeteers, Outsiders, Slavers and Trinoks). |
