Famous British Science Fiction Writers

H. G. Wells was an English writer. Although he was prolific in many genres, he is best remembered for his work on sci-fi novels, for which he is often referred to as the father of science fiction. His 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon became so influential that a lunar impact crater is named after him.

English author, screenwriter, and essayist, Douglas Adams, is most remembered for his comedy science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As a screenwriter, he wrote two stories for the TV series Doctor Who. He advocated for environmentalism and spoke about environmental issues in his non-fiction radio series Last Chance to See.

William Golding was a British playwright, novelist, and poet whose novel Rites of Passage earned him the Booker Prize in 1980. In 1983, Golding was honored with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1988, William Golding was knighted for his contributions to literature. In 2008, he was mentioned in The Times' list of 50 greatest British writers since 1945. 

Russell T Davies is a Welsh television producer and screenwriter who contributed immensely to the success of the popular science fiction television show Doctor Who. When Davies was working for the show, Doctor Who received five successive National Television Awards starting from 2005. He has also won prestigious awards, such as the British Academy Craft Award and the Cymru Award.

John Wyndham was an English writer best remembered for writing science fiction stories set in post-apocalyptic landscapes, such as The Day of the Triffids. His books have inspired other works of art like movies and radio. John Wyndham’s 1957 science fiction novel The Midwich Cuckoos was filmed twice under the title Village of the Damned.

Jeffrey Archer is an English author and former politician whose books have sold over 320 million copies around the world. Archer has been a controversial figure; he was convicted of perjury in 2001 after which he was sent to Belmarsh Prison from where he was later transferred to Wayland Prison. His conviction ended his political career.

A reputed English author, Michael John Moorcock began his writing career as a teenager, selling fictions to various British pulp magazines. He became the editor of New World magazine by his mid-twenties. Concurrently, he continued to write, primarily science fictions and fantasies, and received multiple awards and honors for them.  

J. G. Ballard was an English novelist, satirist, short story writer, and essayist. Renowned for his uniqueness, Ballard's style of fiction is referred to as Ballardian in the literary world. Many of his works have inspired movies, such as Crash and High-Rise. J. G. Ballard’s work has also inspired other popular writers like John Gray, Terry Dowling, and Lee Killough.

Stephen Hawking was an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, who despite being afflicted motor neurone disease that severely limited his physical abilities, was able to build a phenomenally successful career. He was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. Hawking was ranked 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, in 2002.

Will Self is an English author, political commentator, journalist, and broadcaster. Apart from writing novels and short stories, Self also contributes to major publications like The New York Times, Harper's, The Guardian, and the London Review of Books. Over the years he has also contributed as a columnist for publications like The Times, Observer, and the Evening Standard. 

Martin Amis is a British novelist, memoirist, screenwriter, and essayist whose memoir, Experience, earned him the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2000. Martin Amis' works have influenced several other British novelists like Zadie Smith and Will Self. In 2008, he was mentioned in The Times' list of 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

Warren Ellis is a novelist, screenwriter, and comic-book writer. He is credited with co-creating many original comics series like Red, Transmetropolitan, and Global Frequency. Red was adapted into a couple of movies titled Red and Red 2. He has also written many Marvel series, including the six-issue story arc Extremis which formed the basis for the movie Iron Man 3.

Diana Wynne Jones was an English writer who is known for  fantasy and speculative fiction novels for children and young adults.. She began writing stories for her siblings at the age of thirteen. However, she was actually introduced to children's literature while reading out to her sons, starting to write on her own once her children started going to school, authoring more than forty books in her lifetime.

Peter F. Hamilton is a British author best known for writing space opera novels, such as The Chronicle of the Fallers, the Void Trilogy, and the Night's Dawn Trilogy. Having sold over two million copies worldwide, Peter F. Hamilton has been one of the most popular science fiction authors from England over the last two decades.

Richard Adams was an English novelist who became part of an elite group of writers after winning the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize as well as the Carnegie Medal—two of the most acclaimed British children's book awards—for his book Watership Down. He also wrote a charity book titled Gentle Footprints in order to raise money for the Born Free Foundation.

Lady Margaret Lucas Cavendish was an English poet, philosopher, playwright, fiction writer, and scientist. Margaret, who had the audacity to publish her works without using a pen name at a time when female writers remained anonymous, was ahead of her time. Not surprisingly, she was considered eccentric and earned the nickname Mad Madge. Her works gained popularity in the 1980s.

T. H. White was an English author whose works have influenced other famous writers like Michael Moorcock, J. K. Rowling, Gregory Maguire, Ed McBain, Neil Gaiman, and Helen Macdonald. Rowling has stated that the Harry Potter books were strongly influenced by White's writing. Gaiman admitted that both Harry Potter and his own character Timothy Hunter were inspired by White's characters.

Jeanette Winterson is an English writer whose novels have explored issues pertaining to sexual identity, conventional values, gender polarities, and the relationship between technology and humans. Over the years Jeanette Winterson has received several awards including a Whitbread Prize and St. Louis Literary Award. In 2016, she was mentioned in BBC's list of 100 Women.

Charles Stross is a British writer who specializes in writing space opera and hard science fiction. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also a major contributor to the magazine, Computer Shopper. Over the years, Charles Stross has won several awards, such as the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, the Hugo Award, and the Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

British-Australian novelist Nevil Shute was also an aeronautical engineer and had fought in World War I. Of the 25 books he had penned throughout his lifetime, On the Beach remains one of the most notable. Most of his works reflected his cynicism regarding humanity in a war-ravaged society.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was an English anthology editor and writer whose short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long formed the basis for Spielberg's science-fiction movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. In 2004, Aldiss was inducted into thee Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of two Hugo Awards, one John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and one Nebula Award.

Philip Reeve is a British author and illustrator of children's books, who began his career writing for and performing in comedy sketch shows. Later he started providing illustrations for books, written by other authors, before publishing Mortal Engines, the first in a quartet of the same name. He followed it with Buster Bayliss series for children and Larklight trilogy for young adults.  

Robert Conquest was a British poet and historian whose works earned him the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. In his illustrious career Conquest also won other prominent awards like Richard Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters, Michael Braude Award for Light Verse, Dan David Prize, and the Antonovych prize.

Born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, to a Chinese father and an English mother in Singapore, Leslie Charteris later changed his name and ventured into writing. He is best remembered for his iconic character Simon Templar from the Saint series that was later adapted for both the big and the small screens.

British philosopher and sci-fi author Olaf Stapledon had been part of the Friends’ ambulance unit during World War I and had also won the Croix de Guerre. He was initially gearing up for an academic career but stepped into full-time writing after his novel Last and First Men became a success.

Welsh novelist and screenwriter Terry Nation was the man behind the Daleks, the monstrous villains of Doctor Who, which he claimed he had modeled on the Nazis. He also created the BBC sci-fi shows Survivors and Blake's 7. He was also Tony Hancock’s scriptwriter for the ITV series Hancock.

John Brunner was a British author whose 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar earned him the 1969 BSFA Award as well as the prestigious Hugo Award. He won another BSFA Award in 1970 for his work The Jagged Orbit. He also contributed as a screenwriter for the 1967 science fiction movie The Terrornauts.

Sam Youd, better known by his pseudonym, John Christopher, was a sci-fi author who gained fame for novels such as The Death of Grass and The Tripods trilogy. The Guardian Prize-winning writer wrote under other pseudonyms, too. He is remembered as the pioneer of young adult dystopian fiction genre.

Edwin Abbott Abbott was a theologian, schoolmaster, and Anglican priest. He is remembered for writing the 1884 novella Flatland. He served as the principal of the City of London School where he supervised the education of H.H. Asquith, who would go on to serve as the prime minister of the UK. Abbott is also credited with writing educational text books.

Once a researcher at the Australian Defence Department, British-born author John Birmingham later also studied law for a while, before ditching it and becoming a full-time writer. He is best known for his military sci-fi and urban fantasy novels such as the Axis of Time trilogy.

Born to a Scottish factor, mathematician Eric Temple Bell spent most of his life in the U.S. The Stanford alumnus contributed to the analytic number theory and also taught math at institutes such as Caltech. He also penned sci-fi novels such as The Time Stream as John Taine.

Apart from being a botanist, Paul J. McAuley is also a popular sci-fi author, who loves writing on themes such as space travel and alternate reality. Known for his award-winning novels such as Four Hundred Billion Stars and Fairyland, he has also penned a few short stories.

Daniel Carney was a Rhodesian novelist. Some of his novels, namely The Whispering Death (1969), The Wild Geese (1977), and The Square Circle (1982), were adapted into successful films. Daniel Carney is also credited with co-founding a couple of estate agents in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1968.