Koestler is a fascinating character, very prolific writer on all sorts of topics. I always thought of the two of them together, devouring their works as a teenager. One interesting thing, they were personally total polar opposites. One was English through and through, the other was a multilingual cosmopolitan who deliberately became “more English than the English,” like many other deracinated middle Europeans of his generation. Others that spring to mind are Stefan Zweig and Elias Canetti. And like Canetti, Koestler was personally an evil and repellant person. (Serial rapists and abusers both.)

Koestler and Zweig both committed suicide, and both caused their wives to also die in suicide pacts. Canetti, for his part, encouraged more than one woman to commit suicide. Iris Murdoch was in an abusive relationship with him for many years, in which she consented to be abased and humiliated by him in public etc..

By comparison, George Orwell was by all accounts a considerate & decent man and treated his friends well.

Interesting. I read Day of the Triffids, Chrysalids, and Kraken Wakes as a youngster. I don’t think I knew he died relatively young. I feel in that generation, there’s quite a genre of science or engineering-based novels - whether fantasy or reality based. These were often men who had worked as scientists or in intelligence during the war. Two others I’m thinking of are Nigel Balchin and Nevil Shute. Many of his novels are set in WWII, often RAF settings.