2) Fritz Leiber, for instance, so far ahead of his time in so many ways. (And someone really needs to make a streaming series of Fafhrd and the Mouser, and just as slyly comic as needs be.)
Oh, I think you might really like Leiber. He originated so many of the tropes of sword and sorcery that some of it seems incredibly cliche, but then you're cruising along and you hit the German time traveler who needs a two-headed sea serpent for his time zoo.