J. K. Simmons

On 'Oz' one day, I got a chunk of a camera embedded in my head, and I was passed out on the floor geysering blood while the set medic stood over me, freaking out. No help whatsoever. I ended up going to the ER and getting nine stitches in my head - real Frankenstein stitches.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.