I haven't heard of In the Wet and I was looking for his novels (pre-Internet) back in the 70s and 80s. On the Beach has one of the last scenes near my home in Washington and I guess that cemented it's place in my memory. Have you read his Trustee From the Toolroom? Who'd have thought up a story like that?

Years ago I read some of the novels of Jules Verne (in high school) and more recently I read to my son during our bedtime reading time Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus that is probably the earliest science fiction novel. (We may have been an unusual family. We read at bedtime into their high school years, because why stop just because they can read? We covered some great stuff, novels and poetry.) I will admit that Shelley's novel was the last one we read - it was a tough one to get through with such an old fashioned style of writing and expression, but even then, the next time we watched Rocky Horror Picture Show together and some of the exact words turned up in the dialog, my son's head popped up in surprise.