Paul J. McAuley (born 23 April 1955) is a British botanist and science fiction author. A biologist by training, McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction. His novels dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternative history/alternative reality, and space travel.
McAuley began with far-future space opera Four Hundred Billion Stars , its sequel Eternal Light, and the planetary-colony adventure Of the Fall . Red Dust, set on a far-future Mars colonized by the Chinese, is a planetary romance featuring many emerging technologies and SF motifs: nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, personality downloads, virtual reality. The Confluence series, set in an even more distant future (about ten million years from now), is one of a number of novels to use Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory (that the universe seems to be evolving toward a maximum degree of complexity and consciousness) as one of its themes. [1] About the same time, he published Pasquale's Angel , set in an alternative Italian Renaissance and featuring Niccolò Machiavegli (Machiavelli) and Leonardo da Vinci as major characters.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings: Fairyland describes a dystopian, war-torn Europe where genetically engineered "dolls" are used as disposable slaves. Since 2001 he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. [2] Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award [3] and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel. [4] "The Temptation of Dr. Stein", won the British Fantasy Award. Pasquale's Angel won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (Long Form).
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Year | Title | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
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2000 | Making History | Making History. Harrogate: PS Publishing, 2000. ISBN 9781902880082 | Novella | |
2003 | The Eye of the Tyger | The Eye of the Tyger. Tolworth, Surrey: Telos Publishing, 2003. ISBN 9781903889244 (a Doctor Who novella) | Novella | |
2011 | The Choice | "The Choice". Asimov's Science Fiction. February 2011. | The Jackaroo series | |
2012 | Antarctica Starts Here | "Antarctica Starts Here". Asimov's Science Fiction. 36 (10&11): 48–56. October–November 2012. | ||
2015 | Wild Honey | McAuley, Paul (August 2015). "Wild Honey". Asimov's Science Fiction. 39 (8): 36–45. | ||
2023 | Gravesend, or, Everyday Life in the Anthropocene | Gravesend, or, Everyday Life in the Anthropocene (2023) | Novella |
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