[owlcroft]

"To celebrate the opening of the British Library's science fiction exhibition Out of this World, we [The Guardian, British newspaper] asked leading SF writers to choose their favourite novel or author in the genre."

I don't know that Margaret Atwood really qualifies as a "leading SF writer", but it's all interesting. The article title is "The stars of modern SF pick the best science fiction", but clearly they opted for "favorite" over "best", in some cases saying so expressly.

[Chekhov]

In Canada, people (especially newspapers) never shut up about Margaret Atwood. I'm not sure how much of a SF author she is either, though.

[Ropie]

[I]"To celebrate the opening of the British Library's science fiction exhibition Out of this World

I shall go to that!

[psikeyhackr]

The stars of modern SF pick the best science fiction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choice

psik

[Hitmouse]

...and the Guardian books blog follows up:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/may/16/favourite-sf-novel#start-of-comments

Actually the Guardian Review last saturday was a SF special with some good stuff, worth checking out.