Born 1948, Brian Stableford is a prolific author of novels and short stories, popular science and
literary criticism. He began writing at the age of 17. His early works were mostly colorful adventure stories,
which take place in outer space or the far future and remarkable for their exotic and imaginative settings.
They include the
"Daedalus" sequence, about the crew of a spaceship surveying lost human colonies
and encountering biological mysteries and peculiar societies, and the
"Hooded Swan" series, featuring the cynical and pacifistic space pilot Grainger. The
first of the "Hooded Swan" series, "Halycon Drift", is his only book translated to
Hebrew so far.
During the 80's, Stableford concentrated on non-fiction, for example producing an important book on the history of early SF, "The Scientific Romance in Britain: 1890-1950". Other SF-related nonfiction includes books on the future of war, genetic engineering, and many entries contributed to the "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction", but perhaps the most important with regards to his later work is "The Third Millenium: A History of the World, 2000-3000 AD" (1985), which he wrote with his frequent collaborator (and neighbour), David Langford.
Throughout the 90's Stableford produced a formidable stream of SF short stories, mostly involving the ramifications of biotechnology and set in the future history developed in "The Third Millenium". Some of these stories are gathered in his collection "Sexual Chemistry".
Stableford's Biotechnological SF describes a future where genetic engineering is used to radically transform humanity, and in particular to provide a form of limited immortality (which he has dubbed "emortality"). He is notable among SF writers in his generally positive (although clear-minded) attitude towards these developments.
In addition to his futuristic SF, Stableford has published some of his best novels the last decade, frequently drawing on his background in history and historical literature. These include "The Empire of Fear" (SF about an alternate world ruled by Vampires) and the trilogy comprised of the books "The Werewolves of London", "The Angel of Pain" and "The Carnival of Destruction", a blend of Fantasy and Horror about a struggle between fallen angels set in London at the turn of the century. Despite their colorful settings, what makes these works stand out is not violent action or metaphysical fireworks, but a clear presentation of rational thinking and the scientific world view as man's best weapons against not only evil, tyranny and human suffering, but also insane cosmic forces and death itself.
Brian Stableford's latest book in "Inherit the Earth", a conspiracy thriller set in a future transformed by the development of life-prolonging biotechnology.
Some Stableford resources available on the web are:
Born 1943, Ian Watson is
one of SF's premier surrealists, an author of keen intelligence and over 30 books and
150 or so short stories. Ian Watson is the writer other SF writers
describe as "fiendishly imaginative" and "truely weird". He studied 19th century french literature before spending several
years teaching in East Africa and in Japan. After returning to Britain, he published his
first SF novel, "The Embedding" in 1973. The book which won the Prix Apollo was one of the
first works to examine the role of language in shaping conciousness, based on current ideas
in the field of psycholinguistics.
Watson's continued to explore subjects such as human conciousness, communication, altered perception, the evolution of the mind, nonhuman intelligences, and social and cultural constructs, in works such as "The Jonah Kit" (1975) (which was translated into Hebrew), "The Martian Inca" (1977), "Miracle Visitors" (1978), "God's World" (1979), "The Gardens of Delight" (1980), "Deathhunter" (1981), "Chekov's Journey" (1983), "The Book of The River" (1984) and its two sequels, which form his "Black Current" trilogy and "the Flies of Memory" (1990)
In the past decade, Watson has experimented with a variety of genres, producing Horror ("The Fire Worm" (1988)), Fantasy (The books of Mana, a Fantasy/SF epic based on Finnish mythology, consisting of "Lucky's Harvest" (1993) and "The Fallen Moon" (1994)), Technothrillers ("Hard Questions", published recently in a Hebrew translation) and Gaming Tie-ins (3 novels about the "Warhammer 40,000" game setting). In addition, he has kept up a steady output of surreal short fiction, while still finding time for the hobbies of gardening and local politics.
About his upcoming visit to Israel, Watson is reported to have said in the October 1998 issue of Dave Langford's newsletter Ansible that he is is `Off to Israel [this] month to snack on sheep's stomachs and turkey's testicles.' Our hospitality committee takes note.
Some Ian Watson resources available on the web include: