James Alan Gardner | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | Canadian |
Occupation | Science fiction writer |
James Alan Gardner (born January 10, 1955) [1] is a Canadian science fiction author.
Born in Simcoe, Ontario, [1] [2] he attended the University of Waterloo, where he published his first story, "The Phantom of the Operator", in 1984. [2]
Gardner has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories .
He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe in which humans encounter highly advanced aliens define murderers as "dangerous non-sentients" and kill them if they try to leave their solar system. [2]
He has also explored themes of gender in novels including Commitment Hour in which people reaching adulthood must choose their gender, [2] and Vigilant , in which group marriages are traditional.
Gardner is also an educator and technical writer, and published the textbook Learning UNIX in 1991. [3]
In 1989, Gardner's short story "The Children of Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won a Prix Aurora Award. His "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream" won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards.
Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction focused on such feminist themes as: gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, reproduction, and environment. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
Alastair Preston Reynolds is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in hard science fiction and space opera.
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
Spider Robinson is an American-born Canadian science fiction author. He has won a number of awards for his hard science fiction and humorous stories, including the Hugo Award 1977 and 1983, and another Hugo with his co-author and wife Jeanne Robinson in 1978.
Michael Swanwick is an American fantasy and science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s.
Robert Silverberg is a prolific American science fiction author and editor. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand Master of SF since 2004.
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian and American science fiction writer. He has had 25 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and numerous anthologies. He has won many writing awards, including the best-novel Nebula Award (1995), the best-novel Hugo Award (2003), the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2006), the Robert A. Heinlein Award (2017), and more Aurora Awards than anyone else in history.
John Joseph Vincent Kessel is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. He is a prolific short story writer, and the author of four solo novels, Good News From Outer Space (1989), Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997), The Moon and the Other (2017), and Pride and Prometheus (2018), and one novel, Freedom Beach (1985) in collaboration with his friend James Patrick Kelly. Kessel is married to author Therese Anne Fowler.
Mark W. Tiedemann is an American science fiction and detective fiction author. He has written novels set in Isaac Asimov's Robot universe, and within his own original universe, known as the Secantis Sequence.
Jack Dann is an American writer best known for his science fiction, as well as an editor and a writing teacher, who has lived in Australia since 1994. He has published over seventy books, the majority being as editor or co-editor of story anthologies in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He has published nine novels, numerous shorter works of fiction, essays, and poetry, and his books have been translated into thirteen languages. His work, which includes fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism, and historical and alternative history genres, has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, J. G. Ballard, and Philip K. Dick.
Commitment Hour is a science fiction novel by Canadian writer James Alan Gardner, published in 1998. The novel is set in Gardner's "League of Peoples's" futuristic universe, and plays out in the small, isolated village of Tober Cove. Set on post-apocalyptic Earth, Tober Cove most resembles a rural, seventeenth century fishing village, with one exception: every year, everyone below the age of 21 changes gender. At the age of twenty-one, the people of the village must "commit" to being male, female or both in the form of a Hermaphrodite, forever. Commitment Hour follows the day leading up to the main character's hour of commitment.
Karen Joy Fowler is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and social alienation.
Lisa Gracia Tuttle is a British science fiction, fantasy, and horror author. She has published more than a dozen novels, seven short story collections, and several non-fiction titles, including a reference book on feminism, Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986). She has also edited several anthologies and reviewed books for various publications. She has been living in the United Kingdom since 1981.
Alan Brennert is an American author, television producer, and screenwriter. Brennert has lived in Southern California since 1973 and completed graduate work in screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Hunted is a science fiction novel written by Canadian author James Alan Gardner, and published in the year 2000 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. The novel is the fourth in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series, after Expendable (1997), Commitment Hour (1998), and Vigilant (1999).
Trapped is a science fiction novel written by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner and published in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. The book is the sixth installment in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series of novels, set in the mid-25th century. While the majority of the novels in the series take place in outer space, Trapped is set on "Old Earth", and does not feature the series' continuing character Festina Ramos.
Vigilant is a science fiction novel written by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner, published in 1999 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. The book is the third volume in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series, after Commitment Hour (1998).
Radiant is a science fiction novel by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner. It was published in 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers under their Eos Books imprint. It is the seventh novel in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series. Like the six preceding novels, Radiant is set in the middle of the 25th century; like most of them, it takes place in outer space and on alien planets, and features the continuing character Festina Ramos.
Aurora: Beyond Equality is an anthology of feminist science fiction edited by Vonda N. McIntyre and Susan Janice Anderson and published in 1976.