John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Kenneth Macrae MacLeod is a Scottish science fiction writer. His novels The Sky Road and The Night Sessions won the BSFA Award. MacLeod's novels have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Campbell Memorial awards for best novel on multiple occasions. A techno-utopianist, MacLeod's work makes frequent use of libertarian socialist themes; he is a three-time winner of the libertarian Prometheus Award. Prior to becoming a novelist, MacLeod studied biology and worked as a computer programmer. He sits on the advisory board of the Edinburgh Science Festival. MacLeod has been chosen as a Guest of Honor at the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow.
Paul J. McAuley is a British botanist and science fiction author. A biologist by training, McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction. His novels dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternative history/alternative reality, and space travel.
Alastair Preston Reynolds is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in hard science fiction and space opera.
Gene Rodman Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and novelist, and won many literary awards. Wolfe has been called "the Melville of science fiction", and was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Alan Lee is an English book illustrator and film conceptual designer. He is best known for his artwork inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels, and for his work on the concept design of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
Christopher Mackenzie Priest was a British novelist and science fiction writer. His works include Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972), The Inverted World (1974), The Affirmation (1981), The Glamour (1984), The Prestige (1995), and The Separation (2002).
The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work. The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that he is sometimes seen as the "father" of the entire genre of high fantasy.
Do not laugh! But once upon a time I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story... The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.
Ian McDonald is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.
Robert Paul Holdstock was an English novelist and author best known for his works of Celtic, Nordic, Gothic and Pictish fantasy literature, predominantly in the fantasy subgenre of mythic fiction.
Mythago Wood is a fantasy novel by British writer Robert Holdstock, published in the United Kingdom in 1984. Mythago Wood is set in Herefordshire, England, in and around a stand of ancient woodland, known as Ryhope Wood. The story involves the internally estranged members of the Huxley family, particularly Stephen Huxley, and his experiences with the enigmatic forest and its magical inhabitants. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
Lavie Tidhar is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tidhar has lived in London. His novel Osama won the 2012 World Fantasy Award—Novel, beating Stephen King's 11/22/63 and George R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons. His novel A Man Lies Dreaming won the £5000 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, for Best British Fiction, in 2015. He won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2017, for Central Station.
Keith Brooke is a British science fiction author, editor, web publisher and anthologist from Essex, England. He is the founder and editor of the infinity plus webzine. He also writes children's fiction under the name Nick Gifford.
Douglas Allen Anderson is an American writer and editor on the subjects of fantasy and medieval literature, specializing in textual analysis of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is a winner of the Mythopoeic Award for scholarship.
Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings, alternatively subtitled A joyous exploration of Tolkien's classic trilogy and of the glorious tradition from which it grew is a 1969 non-scholarly study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien by the science fiction author Lin Carter. The original version of the book was among the earliest full-length critical works devoted to Tolkien's fantasies, and the first to attempt to set his writings in the context of the history of fantasy.
J. R. R. Tolkien's bestselling fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings had an initial mixed literary reception. Despite some enthusiastic early reviews from supporters such as W. H. Auden, Iris Murdoch, and C. S. Lewis, literary hostility to Tolkien quickly became acute and continued until the start of the 21st century. From 1982, Tolkien scholars such as Tom Shippey and Verlyn Flieger began to roll back the hostility, defending Tolkien, rebutting the critics' attacks and analysing what they saw as good qualities in Tolkien's writing.
Hannu Rajaniemi is a Finnish American author of science fiction and fantasy, who writes in both English and Finnish. He lives in Oakland, California, and was a founding director of a commercial research organisation ThinkTank Maths.
Gareth Lyn Powell is a British author of science fiction. His works include the Embers of War trilogy, the Continuance series, the Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy, Light Chaser, and About Writing, a guide for aspiring authors. He has also co-written stories with authors Peter F. Hamilton and Aliette de Bodard.
Dave Hutchinson is a science fiction writer who was born in Sheffield in England in 1960 and read American Studies at the University of Nottingham. He subsequently moved into journalism, writing for The Weekly News and The Courier for almost 25 years. He is best known for his Fractured Europe series, which has received multiple award nominations, with the third novel, Europe in Winter, winning the BSFA Award for Best Novel.
