Posts Tagged ‘science fiction’

'Out of this World' at the British Library

Last Thursday evening I attended the launch of the Out of this World science fiction exhibition at the British Library. I’ve blogged about the exhibition for work.

The launch night was fun in a peculiarly geeky way as I got to play spot the author/critic/BNF. Some people (Kim Newman to give the obvious example) are easy to spot but far too many fall into the general category of middle aged men with greying beards. In fact I could easily have been looking at the crowd at Salute or @media instead.

At the same time that I was listening to China MiĆ©ville give a speech to open the show, Lettice was at a different exhibition launch with Cilla Black and Ringo Star. There’s probably something profound in that contrast but I’m really not sure what.


A few weeks ago SFX published a SF and Fantasy Books Special which contained a top 100 Favourite SF and Fantasy authors of all time decided by popular vote. The list shows the perils of popular votes… But lets turn it into a meme anyway.

Bold any authors who you have read; italicise any authors who are sitting on your current to-read pile (not literally I hope); strike through any authors you plan to never read/read again.

  1. Terry Pratchett
  2. JRR Tolkien
  3. Neil Gaiman
  4. Douglas Adams
  5. George RR Martin
  6. Isaac Asimov
  7. Iain M. Banks
  8. Philip K. Dick
  9. HG Wells
  10. Robert Rankin
  11. Ursula K. LeGuin
  12. David Gemmell
  13. Peter F. Hamilton
  14. Frank Herbert
  15. Robert Heinlein
  16. JK Rowling
  17. Robert Jordan
  18. Arthur C. Clarke
  19. Ray Bradbury
  20. Stephen King
  21. Robin Hobb
  22. Philip Pullman
  23. John Wyndham
  24. Diana Wynne Jones
  25. CS Lewis
  26. Guy Gavriel Kay
  27. William Gibson
  28. Steven Erikson
  29. Anne McCaffrey
  30. Roger Zelazny
  31. Lois McMaster Bujold
  32. Raymond E. Feist
  33. China Mieville
  34. Gene Wolfe
  35. Stephen Donaldson
  36. Orson Scott Card
  37. Alan Moore
  38. David Eddings
  39. Michael Moorcock
  40. Trudi Canavan
  41. Kurt Vonnegut
  42. Tad Williams
  43. Jim Butcher
  44. Clive Barker
  45. Neal Stephenson
  46. Alastair Reynolds
  47. Jules Verne
  48. Mervyn Peake
  49. H.P. Lovecraft
  50. Sherri S. Tepper
  51. Robert E. Howard
  52. J.G. Ballard
  53. Octavia Butler
  54. Jasper Fforde
  55. Harlan Ellison
  56. CJ Cherryh
  57. Mercedes Lackey
  58. Jennifer Fallon
  59. Stephen Baxter
  60. Richard Morgan
  61. Terry Brooks
  62. Elizabeth Haydon
  63. Dan Simmons
  64. Richard Matheson
  65. Marion Zimmer Bradley
  66. Harry Harrison
  67. Jack Vance
  68. Katharine Kerr
  69. Alfred Bester
  70. Larry Niven
  71. Stanislaw Lem
  72. Susanna Clarke
  73. Robert Silverberg
  74. Edgar Rice Burroughs
  75. Julian May
  76. Charles de Lint
  77. Samuel R. Delany
  78. George Orwell
  79. Simon Clark
  80. Joe Haldeman
  81. Joe Abercrombie
  82. J.V. Jones
  83. Theodore Sturgeon
  84. Kim Stanley Robinson
  85. Jacqueline Carey
  86. M. John Harrison
  87. David Weber
  88. Scott Lynch
  89. Jonathan Carroll
  90. Christopher Priest
  91. Jon Courtney Grimwood
  92. Michael Marshall Smith
  93. Olaf Stapledon
  94. Ken MacLeod
  95. Brian W. Aldiss
  96. Terry Goodkind
  97. Charles Stross
  98. Sara Douglass
  99. Gwyneth Jones
  100. James Herbert