Curated playlist
English science fiction writers
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
- Mary ShelleyMary Shelley conceived Frankenstein in a waking dream after Lord Byron proposed a ghost story contest.
- Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling turned down both a knighthood and the Poet Laureateship. He won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- H. G. WellsH. G. Wells described atomic bombs in a 1914 novel. Physicist León Szilárd later said reading it stayed with him.
- Neil GaimanNeil Gaiman is the first author to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for the same book.
- Arthur C. ClarkeArthur C. Clarke never patented his satellite idea. He called a patent "a licence to be sued."
- Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died the same day as John F. Kennedy, and almost nobody noticed. C. S. Lewis died that afternoon too.
- Stephen HawkingDoctors gave Stephen Hawking two years to live at age 21, but he died at 76.
- Samuel Butler (novelist)In 1863, a newspaper called The Press printed a letter signed only with the pen name Cellarius. The author was Samuel Butler, an English novelist and critic, and the letter was titled "Darwin among the Machines". It appeared four years…
- Cavan ScottCavan Scott wrote Skylanders novels under the pen name Onk Beakman. The first was The Machine of Doom in 2012.
- Michael MoorcockMichael Moorcock created Elric as a reversal of the comfort fantasy that followed Tolkien.
- Colin WilsonColin Wilson finished his book The Outsider while sleeping rough on Hampstead Heath.
- Gary WhittaGary Whitta once stayed on camera for 24 hours straight. In October 2011 he co-hosted a live-streamed edition of the show This is Only a Test with Tested creators Will Smith and Norman Chan. The marathon raised over $50,000 for Child's…