Charles Sheffield

That was the year that two major novels by British-born expatriate authors popularised the concept.

One was The Web Between the Worlds by Charles Sheffield, and the other was The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke.

The two novels have striking similarities, but Clarke wrote at the time that the publication of the two books reflected not a clear case of plagiarism, but merely an idea whose time has come.

It was The Fountains of Paradise which made the bigger impact.