#5 is not Asimov, nor Staltzi. #6 isn't Vinge. I've never read Godslayer, so it isn't that either.

(the clue I've given for #5 and #6 is pretty large, and I'm not going to expand upon it).

And yeah, the motif (though that's not exactly the one I'm getting at; both parts are a spoiler, not just one part) is one that appears in multiple works; that was actually one of the more fun parts of the exercise; some of the "spoilers" are fairly universal, but most are guessable despite this.