George RR Martin putting sex into mainstream fantasy. Edgar Rice Borroughs for Tarzan. EE Doc Smith for the Lensman and Skylark series. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman for showing me how not to write. Orson Scott Card, Quentin Tarantino, Joss Whedon, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Harry Harrison, Robert Heinlein, Stan Lee, Joe Shuster and hundreds of others. However Bernard Cornwell is my biggest influence, I met the man about two years ago and since then have moved from essays to fiction. He hides nothing in his books making them very human, and very gritty.