Status Updates From Nothing Special

Growing up a teenager in the 60s, the science fiction quartet were Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and Bradbury, and at the time, for me the pinnacle of speculative fiction.
The title denies its own naming, the irony running from the 'real world' through the narrative world and into the title.
Today, Casey Cox is in my MM-MM/Preg quartet of inspiring writers of a popular but denigrated genre (your turn will come...).