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So what do we have to show
for fourteen years of suburban
industry? If the books I listed as
the output of 1965 were, for the
most part, an uninspiring lot, I
think it can be claimed that we
have made amends since. I was
intending to prove the point by
listing a few of the British books
that have appeared between the
two Worldcons, but research has
shown that the task is beyond
either my stamina or your
patience. It's enough to say that
all the following authors have
been active and successful in the
last decade and a half:
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Mark Adlard, Brian Aldiss,
Kingsley Amis, Hilary Bailey,
Brian N. Ball, J. G. Ballard,
Barrington J. Bayley, Chris
Boyce, John Brunner, Kenneth
Bulmer, Anthony Burgess,
Angela Carter, John Christopher,
Arthur C. Clarke, D. G. Compton,
Michael G. Coney (Coney is
British but lives abroad, like
Burgess and Clarke), Edmund
Cooper, Richard Cowper, Peter
Dickinson, David S. Garnett,
Stuart Gordon, Terry Green-
hough, M. John Harrison, Philip
E. High, James P. Hogan (exported to the States), Robert Hold-
stock, Colin Kapp, Garry
Kilworth, Tanith Lee, Charles
Logan, Peter Macey, Donald
Malcolm, Douglas R. Mason,
David I. Masson, Ian McEwan,
J. T Mcintosh, Michael Moorcock,
Dan Morgan, Dick Morland,
BrendaPearceJohnT. Phillifent,
Christopher Priest, Keith
Roberts, Josephine Saxton, Bob
Shaw, Martin Sherwood, Brian
Stableford, Andrew M. Stephenson, Peter Tate, Emma Tennant,
J. R. R. Tolkien, E. C. Tubb, Ian
Watson, James White, and John
Wyndham.
The list is probably incomplete, as all lists are, and open to
interpretation. Amis, Burgess,
Carter, McEwan and Tennant
would probably be horrified to
see themselves listed as sf
writers, yet they all wrote books
which we can claim for sf.
Equally, many of the names in the
same list, whom we know for
their sf, have made successful
forays into the wider world of
general fiction. Perhaps we could
agree, though, that we have
around fifty writers whose
names are not entirely unknown
to the sf world. Not a bad score for
a small country, especially when
you consider that the majority of
these authors are in the prime of
their careers, and at least half are
full-time writers.
But how many of them are
"major" authors? This is something that is not easy to discuss
without seeming sour, but I
believe it is fundamental to an
understanding of where British
writers stand in relation to the
rest. We have no Robert Silver-
bergs here, no Larry Nivens or
Ursula Le Guins. No one, in
effect, who can instantly command the centre of the stage by
simple force of name. John
Brunner, Arthur C. Clarke,
Michael Moorcock and Brian
Aldiss have won major awards,
and J. R. R. Tolkien probably sells
more books than the rest of the
writers in the world added together . . . but these are
exceptions, and exceptional for
the writers. Clarke aside, a new
novel from any of these people
does not automatically attract a
flurry of award-nominations. We
are rarely stricken by award-
fever here, adopting the well-
known British phlegm about
such matters. It is a hidden
strength, albeit a perverse one.
Because we do not have the twin
spotlights of fame and success on
us we are free to grow, free to
develop character-roles in the
dimmer recesses downstage.
Perhaps this is a suburban
attitude, one which is the literary
equivalent of making garden
cultivation or car washing into a
symbol of superiority over the
sordid urban types. Some truth in
that, maybe, but let's not take it
too far. The average British sf
writer, if there is any such thing,
is modest about his work, sure of
his own direction, imitates no one
and is himself inimitable. British
sf keeps its end up, as we say
down here in Brighton.
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