R. A. Lafferty 
The Ugly Sea 

The Sea is ugly and monotonous, with only four or five faces, and all of them coarse, but mankind has just decided to deny this ugliness for subconscious reasons. Lafferty was the winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award and a six time Nebula Award Nominee. His quirky style made his work hard to pigeonhole and market, but he still managed to influence a wide array of today’s best writers. Simply on of the best writers the science fiction and fantasy field has ever produced.