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SCIFI HIGH FIVE

The creators.

11 CREATORSA–Z BY SURNAME

The people who made the things we can't shut up about.

  1. Margaret Atwood

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    Canadian novelist, poet, and critic best known for The Handmaid's Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy. She often describes her futuristic books as speculative fiction: stories about things that could really happen.

  2. Paolo Bacigalupi

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American science fiction writer known for stories about climate change, resource scarcity, and biotechnology. His novels include The Windup Girl, the young adult novel Ship Breaker, and The Water Knife.

  3. Octavia E. Butler

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American science fiction writer (1947–2006) whose novels, including Kindred, the Parable books, and the Xenogenesis trilogy, explore power, survival, race, and what humans do to each other under pressure.

  4. Becky Chambers

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American science fiction author known for warm, hopeful stories about community, kindness, and ordinary people. She is best known for the Wayfarers series, which begins with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and the Monk & Robot novellas.

  5. Michael Crichton

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American author and filmmaker (1942–2008), trained as a physician, whose techno-thrillers, including The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, took real science one step past the headlines.

  6. William Gibson

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American-Canadian writer whose debut novel, Neuromancer (1984), helped define cyberpunk and popularized the word "cyberspace." His later novels, like Pattern Recognition, moved closer and closer to the present day.

  7. Ursula K. Le Guin

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American author (1929–2018) of science fiction and fantasy, including the Earthsea books, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed. Her work uses invented societies to question gender, power, and what we accept as normal.

  8. Frank Herbert

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American author and former journalist (1920–1986), best known for Dune and its sequels. His fiction is preoccupied with ecology, religion, power, and the danger of charismatic leaders.

  9. George Orwell

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    Pen name of English writer Eric Arthur Blair, author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. His writing on totalitarianism and propaganda gave everyday English words like "Orwellian" and "Big Brother."

  10. Neal Stephenson

    1 WORK ON THE SHELF

    American novelist known for sprawling, idea-packed books including Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and Seveneves. Snow Crash (1992) gave us the "Metaverse."

  11. Andy Weir

    2 WORKS ON THE SHELF

    American novelist and former software engineer whose debut, The Martian, began as a serial on his own website before becoming a bestseller. His books (The Martian, Artemis, Project Hail Mary) are known for problem-solving heroes, real science, and a lot of humor.