Recommend some sci-fi authors

[Silver]

Battlefield Earth is actually a pretty good book.  If you like long stories and can stand a basic level of prose, that is.  He was a complete loon by the time he wrote it, and it's scientology through and through.  It's almost as if BE is the book he was trying to write when he came up with the religion.  It's a bet I'd put money on if we could resurrect his lucid self and have him read it, and then opine.  

I actually did read Battlefield Earth back before I realized who the author was. I was into reading bigger books back then than I am now.