James Blaylock | |
---|---|
Born | James Paul Blaylock September 20, 1950 Long Beach, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Writer |
Education | California State University, Fullerton (MA) |
Genre | Fantasy, Science fiction |
Literary movement | Steampunk |
Website | |
sybertooth |
James Paul Blaylock (born September 20, 1950) is an American fantasy author. [1] He is noted for a distinctive, humorous style, as well as being one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre of science fiction. Blaylock has cited Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens as his inspirations. [2]
He was born in Long Beach, California; studied English at California State University, Fullerton, receiving an M.A. in 1974; and lives in Orange, California, teaching creative writing at Chapman University. He taught at the Orange County School of the arts until 2013. Many of his books are set in Orange County, California, and can more specifically be termed "fabulism" –that is, fantastic things happen in our present-day world, rather than in high fantasy, where the setting is often some other world. His works have also been categorized as magic realism.
He and his friends Tim Powers and K. W. Jeter were mentored by Philip K. Dick. Along with Powers, Blaylock invented the poet William Ashbless. Blaylock and Powers have often collaborated with each other on writing stories, including "The Better Boy", "On Pirates", and "The William Ashbless Memorial Cookbook".
Blaylock previously served as director of the Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County High School of the Arts until 2013, where Powers has also been Writer in Residence. [2] [3]
He has been married to his wife, Viki Blaylock, for more than 40 years. They have two sons.
Blaylock's short story "Thirteen Phantasms" won the 1997 World Fantasy Award for best Short Fiction. [4] "Paper Dragons" won the award in 1986. [5] Homunculus won the Philip K. Dick award in 1987. [6]
Whimsical fantasy inspired, according to the author, by The Wind in the Willows and The Hobbit .
Sharing the character of villain Ignacio Narbondo; The Digging Leviathan and its sequel Zeuglodon are contemporary fantasies set in 1960s California, while the remainder are steampunk novels set in Victorian England.
All short fiction (except for the novelette Lord Kelvin's Machine) and two novels have appeared in two collections by Subterranean Press:
Present-day fantasy using Christian elements, such as the Holy Grail and the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas.
Present-day Californian ghost stories.
Kevin Wayne Jeter is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, and has written three sequels to Blade Runner. Jeter coined the term "steampunks".
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American frontier, where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Timothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. His first major novel was The Drawing of the Dark (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was The Anubis Gates (1983), which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages. His other written work include Dinner at Deviant's Palace (1985), Last Call (1992), Expiration Date (1996), Earthquake Weather (1997), Declare (2000), and Three Days to Never (2006). Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare. His 1987 novel On Stranger Tides served as inspiration for the Monkey Island franchise of video games and was partly adapted into the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film.
William Ashbless is a fictional poet, invented by fantasy writers James Blaylock and Tim Powers.
Jeff VanderMeer is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Series. The series' first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was adapted into a Hollywood film by director Alex Garland. Among VanderMeer's other novels are Shriek: An Afterword and Borne. He has also edited with his wife Ann VanderMeer such influential and award-winning anthologies as The New Weird, The Weird, and The Big Book of Science Fiction.
Michael Shea was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author. His novel Nifft the Lean won the World Fantasy Award, as did his novella Growlimb.
The Anubis Gates is a 1983 time travel fantasy novel by American writer Tim Powers. It won the 1983 Philip K. Dick Award and 1984 Science Fiction Chronicle Award. The plot concerns an English professor, who participates in a time travel experiment and ends up trapped in the 19th century. The novel was influenced by Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor and, to a lesser degree, the works of Charles Dickens.
Cheap Street Press was an American small publishing company started up in 1980 and operated by the husband-wife duo, George and Jan O'Nale, in their rural home near New Castle, Virginia. Cheap Street concentrated on publishing limited edition books, signed and numbered, of science fiction and fantasy works. Their books were hand-printed letterpress by George on fine paper and hand-bound in fine cloth and leather with matching drop-back boxes.
Mark V. Ziesing is an American small press publisher and bookseller, founded by Mark Ziesing. Active as a bookseller, from 1972 to present; Ziesing was in publishing, from the mid-1980s into 1998. The Ziesing publishing imprint specialized in science fiction, horror, and other forms of speculative fiction. Originally based in Willimantic, Connecticut and in partnership with his brother Michael, he published two books by Gene Wolfe under the name Ziesing Brothers.
Daniel James Abraham, pen names M. L. N. Hanover and James S. A. Corey, is an American novelist, comic book writer, screenwriter, and television producer. He is best known as the author of The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series, and with Ty Franck, as the co-author of The Expanse science fiction series, written under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey. The series has been adapted into the television series The Expanse (2015–2022), with both Abraham and Franck serving as writers and producers on the show. He also contributed to Wild Cards anthology series shared universe.
Lord Kelvin's Machine is a science fiction novel by American writer James P. Blaylock. It was released in 1992 by Arkham House in an edition of 4,015 copies. The author's first book published by Arkham House, the novel is the third in Blaylock's Steampunk series, following The Digging Leviathan (1984) and Homunculus (1986). The first part of the book was formed of an earlier novelette of the same name, which first appeared in the Mid-December 1985 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
The Digging Leviathan is a science fiction novel by American writer James P. Blaylock. It was first published in 1984 by Ace Books. The source was Blaylock's first novel The Chinese Circus, which was never finished.
Morlock Night is a science fiction novel by American writer K. W. Jeter. It was published in 1979. In a letter to Locus Magazine in April 1987, Jeter coined the word "steampunk" to describe it and other novels by James Blaylock and Tim Powers.
Steampunk (2008) is an anthology of steampunk fiction edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and published by Tachyon Publications. It was nominated in 2009 for a World Fantasy Award.
The Elfin Ship (1982) is a fantasy novel by American writer James Blaylock, his first published book. It is the first of three fantasies by Blaylock about a world peopled by elves, dwarves, goblins, and humans, as well as a smattering of wizards, witches, and other beings. The world has magic as well as pseudo-science. Scientific explanation depends on such tongue-in-cheek concepts as The Five Standard Shapes, The Three Major Urges, and The Six Links of Bestial Sciences. Many of the characters use hyper-polite, conciliatory language.
Homunculus is a comic science fiction novel by American writer James P. Blaylock. It was published in 1986. It was the second book in Blaylock's loose steampunk trilogy, following The Digging Leviathan (1984) and preceding Lord Kelvin's Machine (1992). The book was originally published as an Ace paperback by the Berkeley Publishing Group and is included in the Adventures of Langon St. Ives collection.
The Orange County Science Fiction Club (OCSFC), founded in 1982, is a public club which meets in Orange County, California, and is one of the oldest continuing science fiction and fantasy organizations in Orange County. Membership is open to anyone in the community and includes published authors and actors. The club has also helped organize book signing events of well-known authors and has assisted in organizing local science fiction conventions.
Ty Corey Franck is an American novelist, screenwriter, and television producer. He is best known for co-authoring The Expanse with Daniel Abraham under the pseudonym James S. A. Corey, as well as Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series (2014) and The Expanse: Expanded (2016). The Expanse novels have been adapted into the television series The Expanse (2015–2022), with both Franck and Abraham serving as writers and producers on the show.
"Seventy-Two Letters" is a science fiction novella by American writer Ted Chiang, published in June 2000 in the Ellen Datlow's anthology Vanishing Acts. The novella can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell and Steampunk (2008), edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. It is included in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others (2002).