The Big 3 (Sci-fi Writers)

As a Baby Boomer, most of the Sci-fi I grew up reading as a kid was written by either Greatest Generation 1901 to 1926. Remember the Great Depression & fought in WW2 or Lost Generation 1883 to 1900. Called that for WW1 casualties. with a few Silent Generation writers 1927 to 1945. Basically, those too young for WW2 & too old for Vietnam. like Harlan Ellison or Larry Niven and some older writers like Mary Shelley, Lord Dunsany or Frank Baum.

But, of all the Sci-fi writers Asimov, Clarke, & Heinlein were thought to be the best. So, what did they do that was all that? Why were they the best?

I regret that I can't post links with just a cellphone but these stories might help
"Little Lost Robot" Asimov
Basically, a pissed off researcher tells a robot "Get lost!". It hid itself in a group of identical model robots. It was necessary to find it. (ICRY if they had to find it they couldn't just tell it to reveal itself. )

A dumbed down version of this was in the movie I Robot.

"Superiority" Clarke
It starts "We were defeated by the inferior science of our enemy.". A cautionary tale still relevant 60+ years later.

"By His Bootstraps" Heinlein
If 20,000 words is too long, either "All You Zombies" His other time travel story. Definitely grimdark or "- And He Built A Crooked House" An architect builds a home in the shape of an unfolded tesseract. An earthquake folds it up.

Contributions to the genre.
Asimov
3 Laws of Robotics in order of priority
1) A robot may not harm a human nor allow one to come to harm through inaction
2) A robot must obey orders
3) A robot must preserve his own existence

A 0 Law was added later. "The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few or the one." As Spock put it. Basically, you can kill some people to save more.

He also developed the idea of Psychohistory (Foundation stories) & the Human Only Galaxy He said he got tired of arguing with editors about how he portrayed aliens.

Clarke's 3 Laws
1) If a distinguished (but elderly) scientist says "Something is possible" he is very probably right. If he says "It is not possible." he is quite probably wrong.
2) The only way to determine the limits of the possible is to go past them.
3) A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

He also said "The future will not only be stranger than we imagine it will be stranger than we can imagine."

Heinlein's biggest contribution was to popularize the idea of a shared background for a large body of stories even if they're not directly related. The soldiers in Starship Troopers look like a pretty good prediction of where modern armies are going.

Some of his more famous epigrams
"The most expensive luxury in the world is the second best military. The one that's good -but not good enough to win." plus a diatribe against the idea that "Violence never solved anything." He also said "If they continue writing long enough every writer starts writing like a bad parody of themselves."

IMO, he started writing like a good parody of himself.
Basically, he wrote until he got bored then finished the novel any-old-how in one chapter. First novel he had this problem with was Stranger In A Strange Land (1961). The last he didn't was The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (1966). (Although, the last chapter was definitely an anticlimactic ending the novel had pretty much already wrapped up, it was just a bit of "what did the hero do with the rest of their life?"

Fair Warnings

Social attitudes were VERY different back then. VERY FEW of the stories they wrote back then had women in charge.

Heinlein had a ton of important women characters but basically took the attitude "A woman without a man is looking for one." Even Star in Glory Road (absolute ruler of 20 universes) married Oscar.

Asimov had some stories with women in charge but his heroes were disproportionately male.

IIRC, NONE of Clarke's stories had a woman in charge of anything whatsoever. There were a couple characters who were stewardesses, etc.

Heinlein served active duty 1933-1934 then Invalides out from tuberculosis. He was unabashedly pro military. (The movie version of Starship Troopers BUTCHERED it.)

Asimov served active duty post WW2. He very nearly wound up an Atomic Soldier but the military very fortunately screwed up his wife's allotment & he got sent back to the USA to deal with it. In his stories the military is usually present but offscreen (so to speak).

Arthur C Clarke was in England during WW2. Some of his stories involved the military.

None of their stories were anti military. They had some corrupt or incompetent government officials but over all they were pro government & pro business.

Some very prominent movies were made of their stories but back then Sci-fi was considered a small genre & most of their stories were not made into movies.

Finally, a heck of a lot of their novels were originally published as short stories. When enough related stories were published, they were grouped into a novel because novels sold better than random anthologies.