Wednesday 18 June 2008

Result of SFX's 'Top 100 Authors' poll

Thanks to Wert for the heads-up on this one...

UK sci-fi/fantasy magazine SFX have released the results of their 'Top 100 Authors' poll, as voted for by SFX readers/forum members.

As with most polls it's rather subjective and there's no real idea of how many people voted. Still, it's always interesting to see the results.

Here's the top 10:

10. Robert Rankin
9. HG Wells
8. Philip K. Dick
7. Iain M. Banks
6. Isaac Asimov
5. George RR Martin
4. Douglas Adams
3. Neil Gaiman
2. JRR Tolkien
1. Terry Pratchett

To be honest, I'm glad Tolkien didn't come first. As much as I admire LOTR, when you see Tolkien topping similar polls you do wonder whether the genre has moved on at all. It's nice to see Terry Pratchett get some fully-deserved recognition. I'm pleased to see George R. R. Martin at number five as well.

I've only actually read two out of the above ten authors, which perhaps needs to be rectified...

You can check out the rest of the results on Westeros.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I'm surprised GRRM didn't steal the show.

Kendall said...

Interesting. I've read four (Asimov, Adams, Gaiman, & Tolkien). I haven't even heard of Rankin, but I'm very surprised there aren't more names I haven't heard of, since it's a U.K. magazine's poll and I'm in the U.S. The only other two I don't recognize are Simon Clark (#79) and Olaf Stapledon (#93).