Spend any time looking at blogs, and you’ll see that Top 10 lists are very popular. You see them all the time (and even more so on a Tuesday). I’m not a huge fan of the format, because ten, while satisfyingly round, is an arbitrary number. Why not a top five? Or a top twelve? What if you start a top ten list, and find you can’t reach the desired number?

At the same time, there’s no denying that people will scroll through top ten lists like nobody’s business. I toyed with the idea of doing a one-off top ten for my favourite books, but never got round to it. Instead I’ve decided to have some fun with the format. Instead of listing my ten favourite authors, I’ve compiled my data and found the results for every author to have at least ten books in my library.

Some caveats here. Firstly, I’ve only counted as book towards the total if I’ve given it a rating from 1-5. I’m still going back through my shelves and rereading older books, so maybe this list will see an update one day. Until then, there are a few notable omissions. James S. A. Corey and George Mann are wholly absent, while John Scalzi, Alastair Reynolds, and a few others have more books on my shelves than are shown here, I simply read them before I started rating my books.

Secondly, I’ve only counted books from my main science fiction shelves. That means Star Trek, Warhammer 40,000, and other tie-in novels are not included in the final scores. I have some plans for an article on why I draw these distinctions, but that’s for another time.

Thirdly, I have included solo works and collaborative partnerships separately. Thus Kevin J. Anderson’s rating is distinct from his work co-authored with Brian Herbert, Isaac Asimov’s collaborations with Robert Silverberg have not been factored into Asimov’s end score, and so forth. I considered making an exception for Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, but ultimately decided to divide their works according to the credited author on the cover of the book.

Before I get into the final list, I want to make two observations. The first is that I have been phenomenally lucky to discovery authors who are both prolific and suited to my tastes. The second is that having one good series is no guarantee of longevity. This latter though might be expanded on another time, but it’s worth noting how many authors have released a series of perfect five-star reads, only to drop off the radar in the aftermath.

Without further ado, here are my top authors to have published more than ten science fiction books, starting with the highest rated of them all:

Jack Campbell
22 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.83

Ben Bova
13 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.69

Marko Kloos
11 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.55

Philip Reeve
10 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.50

Kevin J. Anderson
17 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.18

Adrian Tchaikovsky
18 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.17

H. Beam Piper
11 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.00

Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
21 Books Rated
Average Rating 4.00

Stephen Baxter
19 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.95

John Scalzi
11 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.82

Isaac Asimov
54 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.76

David Weber
18 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.61

Alastair Reynolds
12 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.50

David Drake
14 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.36

Elizabeth Moon
14 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.21

H.G. Wells
10 Books Rated
Average Rating 3.10

Agree, disagree, or simply have thoughts on my rankings? I’d love to here from you. You can drop a comment below or contact me via email or socials.