favorite science fiction/fantasy authors - what are yours?

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Alla wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/38950>:

<<  I read part of LOTR in Russian translation back home, could not finish and thought it was too boring lol. When I read it in the original, I realized it was just a very bad translation. >>

Yes, books are at the mercy of their translators. But I wonder if the translation of LOTR was only allowed because of perestroika? God and archangels and kings and vassals and noble knights and respectful peasants and a dislike of any technology more complicated than one blacksmith can do with a couple of hammers and tongs and one anvil, and a deep hatred of mass production ... it seems to me that Tolkien's ideology is totally antithetical to Soviet ideology; even the parts they agreed on (peasants should respectfully obey their betters) were not things that the Soviet Union wanted to verbally praise. Tell me how wrong I am.