The main section of the book is an author list, each author entry annotated with years of birth/death, nationality, pseudonyms used, genre and sub-genre classifications, and notable fictional characters created. Authors come from a list of those most borrowed according to PLR records, and these are supplemented by authors chosen 'by a small team of volunteer advisors'. For inclusion, authors must have published a minimum of three novels. For each author a list of no more than nine other authors who write like that author is given: for popular authors this list can have up to twelve entries. Literary prizes won and websites are also given for authors that have them. A new feature is the labelling of some authors as 'bridge' writers, writing fiction suitable for youngsters crossing over (hence the 'bridge') into adult fiction. Following the author entries are listings of authors by genre/sub-genre. Three new genres have been included since the last edition: historical romance, paranormal and mature chick lit. Finally, the book contains literary prize winner listings from 2000 on, a useful character/family/series index linked to owning author and websites for more author information.

Not being an expert in all genres, but knowing a lot about science fiction it makes sense for me to approach this book through what I know. Inclusiveness is good for active British science fiction authors, much less so for American authors. There are around a dozen authors whose inclusion seems to come from writing media-tie ins. Coverage of 'classic' science fiction authors is extremely weak but then this guide is intended for currently available books.

How useful are individual author entries in leading to similar writers? I found all those that I looked at did indeed link to some strongly similar authors but that strong links were usually outnumbered by weakly ones. To a certain extent, this was a result of having a reduced pool of science fiction authors to use. Take Brian Aldiss, who came to the fore in the 1960s 'New Wave'. There are three strong links to Harlan Ellison, Kurt Vonnegut and John Wyndham and seven weak links. Potential strong links would be to J.G.Ballard,Michael Moorcock, Robert Silverberg, Tom Disch, John Sladek, Samuel Delany, M. John Harrison and Barrington J. Bayley. The last five authors are not included in this book. Brian Aldiss is also listed as a 'bridge' author. He certainly deals (in graphic detail) with adolescence and growing up in certain works but generally though he writes for an adult audience.

The final thing I noticed about the author entries was the paucity of links leading to science fiction authors from mainstream authors who had used science fiction themes and vice versa. It is a shame though that a 'who writes like' guide does not try harder to make genre boundaries more porous. ( )