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David_Gerard comments on May 2013 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Olaf Stapledon is little-known these days, but is a fine example of just how well-written British science fiction could be at the same time as Gernsback was just starting American science fiction. (Hence Aldiss in Billion Year Spree having a bit of a rant about how Gernsback ruined SF for decades, and it took until the New Wave for American SF to rediscover any sense of literary value.) Have you got to Odd John and Last Men In London yet?
Stapledon's philosophy background probably helped, among other things. Word is that Arthur C. Clarke was directly influenced by reading his stuff too.
I honestly found Odd John rather tiresome at times (too pseudo-Nietzche plus tired early-twentieth-century myth of progress, the combination seems to rub me the wrong way), though it's got some great... Stapledonisms (?) sprinkled around. I also liked Sirius. The books Last Men in London and Death into Life are on my reading list with a pile of other things.