...& like Lazaras, it rises! (read: SF never died)

[Monte Davis]

Alfred Bester wrote "The Stars My Destination" ("Tyger! Tyger!" in the UK)
and "The Demolished Man"... probably on more best-SF lists than any other
novels, for sheer exuberant invention and a Pynch-y playfulness that blew
away the reigning masters Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.

"The Starmaker" was Olaf Stapledon (also "Odd John" and "Sirius"), in the
1930s -- grand cosmic-history scope, Big Ideas, but oh, what leaden prose.