The British have a peculiar bent in ScienceFiction that can only be described as ... cultured. Exemplars include 
* JohnWyndham
* JamesBlish
* FredHoyle
* ArthurCeeClarke
* JohnChristopher
* JgBallard
* HerbertGeorgeWells
* DouglasAdams, for one
* HughWalters (one for the anoraks I think)
* MichaelMoorcock
* EmJohnHarrison
* IainBanks (actually Iain M Banks, but that doesn't WikiWord too well)
* StephenBaxter
* AlistairReynolds
* KenMacLeod

Wasn't Blish American?

''Blish was born in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1921. He emigrated to Britain in 1969 after seeing a bumper sticker that read "A Knighthood for BenjaminBritten", and lived the rest of his life near Henley-on-Thames, between the BritishMuseum and the BodleianLibrary at Oxford. If that's not British enough for you, I don't know what is.''

Not in this context. His fiction does not belong to the British group - it is very different in tone from the typical British SF novel.

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''What some British describe as cultured, some of us others find pompous.''

Speaking as the pompous aussie who applied the term above, I really don't care what some British describe as cultured. I describe these writers as cultured because their layered characterizations, mastery of grammar, sophistication of plot, awareness of cultural context, steeped scientific knowledge, and sheer technological ingenuity warrant the term. This may be more a testament to the standards of British editors than to the quality of their writers, but for those ones above I feel if anything a certain regret at producing the effect of damnation by means of faint praise. -- PeterMerel

Peter, I have certainly changed my mind. After doing some intense reading, it is usually true that ScienceFictionBritish is consistently better, more cultured, and consistently excellent. You are right about the layered characterizations, sophistication of plot, steeped scientific knowledge, and sheer technological ingenuity. I have been reading a lot of InterZone and even the most unknown British authors are consistently better than many of the US veterans in Asimov's and such. And there are no better authors than the British StephenBaxter, GregEgan (Australian?), AlistairReynolds, MichaelMoorcock, and many more.

-- sg

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GregEgan is indeed Australian. And, IMHO, the finest living science fiction writer.

http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/

-- TomAnderson

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Hmm, how about Peter Hamilton? -- JamesYoungman

http://freespace.virgin.net/martin.burcombe/
http://www.theconfederation.co.uk/

''Assuming that's a response to my claim about GregEgan ... Peter F. Hamilton is a very different writer - Egan writes classical Hard SF, which really makes you think, whereas Hamilton writes SpaceOpera, right down to the pitched space-battles and unnecessarily comely anti-heroines. Hamilton tells good stories, but that's not my cup of tea, really. Anyway, since i wrote the above, I have now transferred my loyalties to the even less British TedChiang. -- ta''

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There's also the Scottish KenMacLeod, who has written a number of highly-regarded books, including the best-selling FallRevolution sequence.

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CategoryScienceFiction