STEPHEN KING

[MorningLightMountain]

Dan Simmons, Horror and SF writer....and also some misc...

(Hyperion "Cantos" SF serious is AWESOME....and has a creepy "horror" edge to it)....

love the "Gideon Starship Drive"

Gideon Drive

A Core-provided starship drive that allows near-instantaneous travel between any two points in human-occupied space. The drive's use kills any human on board a Gideon-propelled starship; thus, the technology is only of use with remote probes or when used in conjunction with the Pax's resurrection technology.

PS: the deathwands aren't that shabby either:

Deathwands: Weapons given to humanity by the AI TechnoCore. These are the ultimate "clean" weapon: capable of killing people while leaving property intact. Deathwands burn out all the synapses in a human brain, causing almost instantaneous death; thus they would kill humans but not damage physical property (compare neutron bomb). These weapons were normally handheld, though with a wide dispersal beam. Just before the Fall of the Hegemony (in The Fall of Hyperion), the TechnoCore introduced a large scale deathwand variant which it claimed would kill the entire population of a planet, as well as any other world in a 1.5 light year radius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Cantos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Simmons