J.G. Ballard, most famous for the novels Crash and Empire of the Sun, has died aged 78 after a long illness.  According to the BBC, his agent Margaret Hanbury said the author had been ill "for several years" and died on Sunday morning.

Empire of the Sun, a fictionalised account of his childhood, was based on his time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in China and was made into a film by Steven Spielberg. Director David Cronenberg also adapted Ballard’s novel Crash into a feature film. The book explored the sexual desires stimulated by car crashes. Both book and film caused a stir when first released.

I’ve long been a big fan of the British author John Wyndham, most famous for The Day of the Triffids (1951), a tale of aggressive plants that roam the Earth after almost everyone has been struck blind by what appears to be a botched military experiment. He wrote some of my favourite science fiction novels, including The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955),The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) and Trouble with Lichen (1960).

Arthur C. Clarke, author of over 100 fiction and non-fiction books, has died at age 90. Regarded as one of science fiction's leading lights, Clarke is perhaps best known for the ground breaking 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on Clarke's short story The Sentinel.

"Sir Arthur passed away a short while ago at the Apollo Hospital," said Rohan de Silva, Clarke's personal assistant. "He had a cardio-respiratory attack."

China Mieville has written some of the most profound and imaginative dark fantasy since Mervyn Peake and, perhaps more successfully than anyone writing in (or out) of genre, has captured the sheer size and multi-layered complexity of the Big City from London in King Rat to the unforgettable sprawl of New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station. Successful author and academic, Mieville is also a political activist, member of the British Socialist Workers Party, and occasional contributor to The Socialist Review.

American writer Kurt Vonnegut has died aged 84. Vonnegut is best know for his science fiction classics Slaughterhouse 5, The Sirens of Titan, and Player Piano.

His unconventional style and savage wit appealed to many. He started writing after witnessing the firebombing of Dresden in 1945 as a prisoner of war in the closing stages of World War II. His war experiences were used extensively in the novel Slaughterhouse Five. He would go on to write 14 novels.