Slice of PIE: The Big 4 Are Gone -- Where Are We Going?

'92, '94, '00, '08...

While there are many who are writing great SF today, there don't seem to be many writing in a classic mode. By 'classic', I mean SF that points in new directions. Absolutely there are those intent on RE-creating the genre -- witness the revival of space opera. But where are the writers who are creating the GRAND countercultural ideas?

Who created and codified planet-wide ecoengineering and religio-engineering? Frank Herbert, in the original single book, DUNE did that.

Who created humaniform robots and explored their impact on human society? Isaac Asimov did in the ROBOT books.

Who wondered about the effect of aliens and alien environments on child-rearing? Robert A. Heinlein did in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

Who created artificial satellites and space towers and set them free from the imagination to become reality? Arthur C. Clarke did in WIRELESS WORLD (February 1945) and in FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE.

What allowed them to imagine and express their mind images? Besides pure genius, I put before you the possibility that it might have been their Judeo-Christian roots. While all repudiated those roots in adulthood, pehaps those roots nurtured a rebellion against "what is" and encouraged them to look for alternatives to tradition and canon.

Today, with the slippery relativism that passes for philosophy and religion, tradition and canon are non-existent and there are few monoliths to rebel against. With nothing to reject, where will classic SF blossom and how will it shift the direction of the genre?