The 10 Most Famous Science Fiction Authors

Category: Books

By Currie Jean

The best way to start a journey into science fiction literature is by perusing what’s most famous. While the popularity of its authors doesn’t necessary reflect the best a genre has to offer, a famous author’s work can be trusted, above all, to be intellectually and thematically accessible. Once you start reading the famous authors, you’ll most likely find yourself drawn to a sub-niche that closely fits your interests.

Listed below are the ten most widely famous science fiction authors, names that you most likely have heard before, no matter what you’re used to reading. You may not even have realized their work falls into the science fiction category.

Mary Shelley

Born in London, England in 1797 to a pair of well-known and innovative philosophers (sadly, her mother died just after she was born), Shelley entered a world that provided her with a great deal more education than most women received at the time, amply preparing her to write a great masterpiece.

Shelley’s classic novel, “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” (later shortened to just “Frankenstein”), was inspired by a nightmare and published anonymously in 1818. Before writing the work, Shelley’s interest was snagged by a scientist’s ability to animate frog legs with electricity. She was led to conceive of a story in which something similar was done to a human, and thus, the first science fiction story was born.

The story discusses the consequences of creating life from matter, the power of loneliness, and clashes between morality and science. Interpretations of the work still vary to this day. Don’t pass this one up as cheesy – it’s the common inaccurate conception of the Frankenstein monster with green with bolts in his neck that’s to blame for assumed tackiness.

Jules Verne

Born in 1828 to a lawyer father, Jules Verne became nothing less than a revolutionary, writing fantastical stories about forms of travel and exploration that were impossible, and to many, inconceivable, at the time. He wrote in French, and took a while to gain popularity in English culture due to poor translations of his books.

Along with being a great storyteller, Verne is credited with impressive predictions. His anticipations of the future included the moon landing, the jukebox, the helicopter, air conditioning, automobiles, and even the Internet!

Verne’s most famous works include ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth,’ ‘From the Earth to the Moon,’ ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,’ and ‘Around the World in Eighty Days.’ While all of these titles may sound familiar to you, you may not have known that they make up only a small portion of Verne’s fifty-four-part ‘Voyages Extraorinaires’ series.

Edgar Allan Poe

Poe was born in 1809, and is known historically as a morbidly depressed and sickly alcoholic. He married his cousin when she was thirteen. Her early death likely contributed to the dark themes of his work.

Although Poe is best known for Gothic horror stories like ‘The Black Cat,’ ‘The Masque of the Red Death,’ and ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ he can be credited with some good science fiction as well. ‘The Balloon Hoax’ is a story about the first transatlantic balloon voyage; ‘The Power of Words’ is a post-apocalyptic and philosophical exploration of the meaning of happiness; and ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’ is about a sea adventure. Poe also dabbled in the sciences directly: ‘Eureka: an Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe’ is a fascinatingly puzzling look at Poe’s direct interpretations of the astronomical knowledge of his time.

H. G. Wells

Wells was born in 1866 to a shopkeeper and a domestic servant – ‘lowly’ beginnings for such an influential science fiction writer. Wells is credited with giving today’s popular science fiction themes their original footing.

Wells is best known for his early works. His novella ‘The Time Machine’ popularized vehicle-based time travel, although in this case, the vehicle moved through time alone, and not space. The idea of vehicular time travel was cemented in the cultural consciousness by this story.

‘The War of the Worlds’ was the first story of hostile alien invasion ever written, so old that giant tripod robots were described attacking horses and carriages. This is also the story that caused mass panic when a rewritten version was aired on American radio in 1938. ‘Independence Day,’ ‘Mars Attacks,’ and ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ can be considered creative rewrites at best.

‘The First Men in the Moon,’ ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau,’ and ‘The Invisible Man,’ are three slightly less popular, but no less fascinating, works by this author.

Arthur C. Clark

Moving on to more modern authors, we reach Arthur C. Clark (1917-2008), most well known for collaborating with Stanley Kubrick on the ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ film, and writing the accompanying novel. The film was based on one of Clark’s short stories, then expanded into novel form and released a short time after the move. While ‘Odyssey’ is a supremely popular science fiction title, it and its sequel, ‘2010,’ are the only novels Clark is especially famous for.

George Orwell

Orwell was born Eric Blair in 1903, in British India. His early work was highly political, mostly in essay form, and while prolific, isn’t what presently carries his fame.

Under the pen name Orwell, Blair wrote two fictional political commentaries: ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ The former was an allegory to Stalinism, and reads like a fairy tale. The latter is his most popular work – a dystopian demonstration of totalitarianism in action.

‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ follows a man living in one of the world’s three totalitarian super-states, headed by the ‘Big Brother’ figurehead who stands behind statements like ‘Ware is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.’ The story chillingly demonstrates how powerfully fear can be used as a tool of control.

Douglas Adams

To lighten things up, it’s time to recommend one of the most popular, brilliant, and hilarious writers of the latter 20th century: British author Douglas Noel Adams.

Adams is best known for combining comedy with science fiction in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: the trilogy of four,’ which actually has five, not four, parts: ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,’ ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,’ ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything,’ ‘So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish,’ and ‘Mostly Harmless.’

If anyone ever tells you that the question of the meaning of life can be answered by the number forty-two, look no further than Adams’ work for an explanation.

Ray Bradbury

In 1932, after an inspiring run-in with a carnie, Ray Bradbury devoted himself to writing and hasn’t stopped since, claiming to be driven by a desire for immortality. The man writes every single day, and has written for many genres in addition to science fiction, namely mystery, fantasy, and horror.

Bradbury has written and published eleven novels. The most famous of these is ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ a dystopian piece about censorship which, while similar in some ways to Orwell’s work, is much more fantastical, fun, and creative. He wrote the first draft in under a week, popping dimes into a pay-typewriter, but his speed in no way detracts from the quality of his writing: expect this book to keep you glued to your chair until you’ve finished.

Along with is novels, Bradbury has published more than a hundred short stories in magazines and bound collections, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

Isaac Asimov

This Russian-born American published in a very wide variety of genres, his work spanning both fiction and non-fiction. Philosophically, he held a humanist-rationalist position, which was often reflected in his work.

Asimov is most recognized for his Robot Series, his Galactic Empire Series, his Original Foundation Trilogy, and his Extended Foundation Series. Thematically, Asimov discussed paternalism, artificial intelligence, time travel, collective consciousness, and rational thought.

Michael Chrichton

Chrichton just may presently be the most popular author of this top ten list. Born in Illinois in 1942, he’s also a relative newcomer, but he’s definitely no newbie. Not only is he a popular author, but a medical doctor, television producer, director, and screenwriter. He’s also very tall.

Chrichton’s novels, of which there are many, including ‘Jurassic Park’ and its sequel, ‘The Lost World,’ ‘Sphere,’ ‘Congo,’ ‘Timeline,’ and ‘The Andromeda Strain,’ usually center their conflicts around the consequences of technology going awry, sometimes with widely disastrous consequences.

Compared to the work of more classic writers, Chrichton’s stories are easy to read – teens and pre-teens gobble them up. They’re more exciting and suspenseful than philosophical, and sometimes use cliched plot twists, but the scientific ideas Chrichton has are marvelous. These books are definitely recommended for someone just getting into the science fiction genre.

By no means are the authors described here the best authors in the field – some are better, and more widely acclaimed, than others. Some of the best authors have even been left out, just because they aren’t terribly popular. If you plan to use this list as a guide, only do so at the start of your science fiction journey. Far more awaits your discovery.