News about Ian Watson

MOCKYMEN published

 

Ian's newest novel, Mockymen, was somewhat delayed by surreal publishing mishaps in England -- such as, amongst others, Virgin Books wanting Mockymen as the lead title for a new SF line, but the Managing Editor of Virgin being sternly told by the Sales Department that he already had three titles lined up and couldn't have a fourth one; consequently the new line was launched with three titles by unknown writers, and promptly collapsed.

However, Golden Gryphon Press have now (October 2003) published Mockymen in America in a beautiful edition with stunning jacket art by Steve Montiglio featuring a swastika of naked human bodies -- for this novel is about Nazis, drugs, black magic, and aliens, as Anna Sharman, a member of the intelligence service, tries to discover the true motives of enigmatic aliens who have brought gifts to Earth.
 

New Collection

 


The Great Escape has been published by Golden Gryphon Books. As the publisher says, “Ian Watson combines science fiction and fantasy into an eclectic mix that includes stories about fallen angels in Hell rebelling and mounting a breakout, about the inconvenience of keeping aging parents in your brain instead of a nursing home, about Jesus’ immortal brother as solo passenger on the first starship, about alien coffins bombarding the solar system, about right-wing U.S. militias stealing a quantum computer to commit nuclear blackmail, about a computer-games designer haunted by the cyber-ghost of his murdered wife, about frozen heads and strange mind-changes, and how a cake decorator defeats a vampire with a sweet tooth. De-evolution, treasure-hunting via hang-glider, dark animal fantasies, humanity as a hive-entity, Hercules Poirot on a starship—Watson takes the strange, the eerie, the weird, mixes in his seasoned writing skills, and produces a potpourri of the fantastic. These nineteen stories are sure to amuse, bemuse, and entertain.”

New editions

Immanion Press have just released Whores of Babylon, a Clarke Award finalist when first published in 1988 but now much revised by Ian.  Immanion will also publish a British edition of Ian’s most recent novel Mockymen (Golden Gryphon Press, 2003) to coincide with him being Guest of Honour at Novacon 34 in Walsall, UK, 5th to 7th November 2004.  

 

BenBella of Dallas, Texas have republished Ian’s popular trilogy from the 1980s, The Book of the River, The Book of the Stars, and The Book of Being, in an omnibus volume entitled Yaleen after the heroine, with a specially written introduction by Stephen Baxter.

 

Games Workshop have released an omnibus of Ian’s Warhammer 40K fiction entitled The Inquisition War, comprising the novels Draco (formerly Inquisitor), Harlequin, and Chaos Child, and two stories, “Warped Stars,” and “The Alien Beast Within,” although excluding the controversial Space Marine (old copies of which trade on E-Bay for significant sums!).  The Inquisition War contains an introduction by Ian specially written for the omnibus which weighs in at 762 pages.

 

Peter Crowther’s PS Publishing will bring out Ian’s next collection of recent stories, Butterflies of Memory, towards the end of 2005 with an introduction by Paul McAuley and mini-introductions by Ian to each of the stories.  Meanwhile, also with mini-introductions by Ian to each story, Cosmos Books are issuing three volumes of The Best of Ian Watson, the first two (in July and September 2004) containing SF, the third (in November 2004) containing Horror and Fantasy.

H.G. Wells's double

The speech which Ian delivered as the Ghost of Honour of H.G. Wells in Timisoara, Romania, during The 2nd International Week of Science Fact and Fiction from 19th to 25th May 2003 will be appearing in the Newsletter of the H.G. Wells Society (of the Americas) probably in February 2004, illustrated by some photos of Ian as Bertie Wells dressed in an ancient frock coat borrowed from the Timisoara Opera House. While in Romania Ian was invited to Hungarocon, consequently...

Ian in Hungary

Ian was a Guest of Honour at the Hungarian National SF Convention (July 3rd to 5th 2003) held in Salgotarjan [[this should have acute accents on the "o" and the final "a"]] near the Slovak border. Breakfast in a mysterious hotel half way up a forested hill with the Master of Ceremonies, Italian surrealist SF writer Roberto Quaglia, resulted in a story collaboration, "The Grave of My Beloved," newly finished in September 2003. Roberto is author of the wondrously mad surrealist SF novel Bread, Butter And Paradoxine (see www.robertoquaglia.com & www.delos.fantascienza.com/international/) In Salgotarjan and Budapest Ian met publishers, and his novel The Flies of Memory will soon appear in Hungarian, to be followed by other works.

Other Stories and Essays

Other recent stories by Ian include "The Butterflies of Memory" in The Third Alternative (Summer 2003) and "Barking Mad" (due in Interzone).

Forthcoming in Spring 2004 will be "An Appeal to Adolf" in Pamela Sergeant's anthology Conqueror Fantastic from DAW, and "The Navigator's Tale" in Peter Crowther's anthology Constellations also some time from DAW.

Ian contributed a scathing essay on "The Matrix as Simulacrum" to Exploring the Matrix: Visions of the Cyber Present edited by Karen Haber (ibooks, May 2003) and an essay on "The Aims of Artificial Intelligence"

to Intelligent Systems magazine (March/April 2003) which led to a Meeting of Minds in Oxford on 20th August 2003 between Ian and philosopher of science Nick Bostrom (www.nickbostrom.com & www.simulation-argument.com)and artificial intelligence researcher Chris Altman (www.umsl.edu/~altmanc/.

Award Looming?

Ian’s poem "True Love" (WEIRD TALES #324 Summer 2001) has been nominated for the Rhysling Award (Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2001).  It is also in The Lexicographer's Love Song collection (see below).

Recent Developments                                 

Once Ian was no longer a full-time carer and his life had so totally changed, he travelled widely during the Summer and Fall of 2001.  To northern Spain in July for the Semana Negra ("Black Week") in Gijon, Asturias, a mammoth popular culture fiesta, after which he visited Madrid. In August to Aachen in Germany for a "Poetenfest," where curiously there were no other poets present, but where Ian at last bought full thujone-strength Absinthe and slotted spoons (the subject of his upcoming story in Asimov's Science Fiction, "A Speaker for the Wooden Sea") and saw 102 full-size painted horses in the streets -- although not because of the Absinthe; Aachen was holding a horse festival too.  In September he spent 10 wet, cold, windy days in Poland as Guest of Honour at the Polish National SF Convention in Katowice, and also explored Warsaw and Cracow -- before flying to Trieste, Italy, for an SF film festival, to do interviews about A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).  In October he went to the National Irish SF Convention in Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary as in Timothy Leary), and afterwards visited Dublin for the first time.      

Games Workshop to Reissue Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor Trilogy

The Black Library of Games Workshop have told Ian that they intend to reissue his Warhammer 40,000:Inquisitor trilogy probably starting in Summer 2002.  Inquisitor will very likely be retitled Draco, after its main character, because a game now exists called Inquisitor.  This will be followed by Harlequin, then by Chaos Child.  All with newly commissioned cover art.  Republication of Ian's other Warhammer 40,000 novel, Space Marine, remains uncertain because of the changes that have occured in the Space Marine game since Ian wrote his novel.

Ian’s First Poetry Collection Is Published

The Lexicographer's Love Song is now available from DNA Publications, P.O. Box 2988, Radford, VA 24143-2988, for $5.00 + $1.50 postage and handling. Credit cards accepted.  The chapbook, edited by Mike and Anita Allen of Mythic Delirium, with handsome color cover and internal artwork by Tim Mullins, contains 21 poems in 60 pages with such titles as "The Quantum Stalker Woos Miss Jones," "The Time Traveller Instructs and Implores," and "Marsupials in Our Midst." Three poems are original to the collection. Others previously appeared in such magazines as Weird Tales, Star*Line (the journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association), and Mythic Delirium.

Spielberg’s A.I. gives screen credit to Watson

Ian Watson’s name is featured prominently in the publicity for A.I., the science fiction epic directed by Steven Spielberg. The poster (see http://aimovie.warnerbros.com/cmp/poster.html) states that A.I. is "Based on a screen story by Ian Watson."

Ian’s treatment was written when the film was in development by Stanley Kubrick. At his death, the rights passed to Spielberg.

The plot concerns a boy robot, played by Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) in a future world where the polar ice cap has melted and New York is underwater. A character Ian is particularly proud of inventing is Gigolo Joe, a sex-android, played by Jude Law.

The movie was released in the U.S. on June 29, 2001.

Judy Watson Dies

Ian’s wife Judy died at home on Easter Saturday 2001 of cardiac arrest due to hypoxia due to a sudden severe infectious exacerbation of the emphysema from which she had been suffering progressively for several years.

They were married in 1962 while Ian was still a student at Oxford. Born Judith Jackson, she studied painting at St Martin’s School of Art, London, and worked as a commercial artist and cartoonist in Tanzania while Ian was teaching at University College, Dar es Salaam. When they were living in Tokyo subsequently she had her first painting show. Cartoons by her appeared in New Worlds and in the underground press, in Oz magazine and elsewhere. In Tokyo she also wrote several short pieces of fiction which Ian revised and expanded and integrated into his erotic satire The Woman Factory aka The Woman Plant. Thoroughly rewritten yet again, this novel is to appear in Japanese with artwork by Gentaro Araki and Tadanori Yokoo in June 2001 from the Core Magazine Company of Tokyo.

Because of Judy’s illness Ian had become increasingly a full-time medical carer, and during hospitalisations he would stay on ward with Judy. Here is an account of the most recent hospitalisation.

The Muse and Ian

In addition to "Ode to my Screen Saver" which appeared in Weird Tales (Spring 1999), Ian has recently sold quite a few more poems, some of them fairly long. Weird Tales have bought "The Lexicographer's Love Song," Altair will be printing the magical realist "Marsupials in our Midst" to coincide with the Australian Worldcon, "Good Heavens, Mr Evans" (about a weirdo aquarium owner) will appear in Dreams and Nightmares, and futures issues of Star*Line, the organ of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, will feature "Abductee" (about a sceptical UFO contactee) and "The Time Traveller Instructs and Implores" (about Isaac Newton) and "Fossil Man." Other poems are bubbling forth and floating towards magazines.

Ian in Playboy

A 4000 word memoir by Ian, "My Adventures with Stanley Kubrick," appears in the August 1999 edition of Playboy. Ian worked with Stanley Kubrick in 1990/91, with some subsequent recalls, on story development for the proposed robot-Pinocchio movie A.I. ("Artificial Intelligence"). A shorter piece by Ian, "Memoirs of a Kubrick mind slave," appeared in The New Yorker, March 22 1999.

Watson interviewed in Interzone

The September 1997 issue of Interzone contained a new interview with Ian and the 22,000 word prologue to his forthcoming novel Mockeymen, called "Secrets," which stands as a separate story.

Oracle continues foray into sf thriller genre

Ian's novel ORACLE was published in England by Gollancz in September 1997. Like his previous novel, HARD QUESTIONS, this is a combination of suspense thriller and SF. It is about a Roman centurion inadvertently brought forward through time due to a secret intelligence agency scheme to spy upon the future, and about an IRA plan to assassinate the Queen in Brussels, where the climax takes place.

Recent Stories       

"A Speaker for the Wooden Sea," Asimov's Science Fiction, Apr 2002
"One of Her Paths," Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2001
"Hijack Holiday," Interzone, April 2001
"When Thought-Mail Failed," The New English Library Book of Internet Stories, 2000.
"The Descent," Interzone, Dec 1999
"when thought-mail fails," Nature, 18 Nov 1999
"Three-Legged Dog," Interzone, May 1999
"Caucus Winter," Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan. 1999
"The Bible in Blood," Weird Tales, Summer 1998.
"What Actually Happened in Docklands, Interzone, June 1998.
"The Shortest Night," Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1998.
"The Shape of Murder," Odyssey #4, April 1998.
"Starry Night," Altair, Feb. 1998.
"The Boy Who Lost an Hour, the Girl Who Lost her Life," Fantasy & Science Fiction, Feb. 1988.
"Secrets," Interzone, Oct. 1997.
"A Day Without Dad," in New Worlds, ed. David Garnett (White Wolf, 1997).
"Virtually Lucid Lucy," in Cyberkillers, ed. Ric Alexander (London: Orion, 1997).
"The Last Beast Out of the Box", Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1997.
"The China Cottage," in Destination Unknown, ed. Peter Crowther (White Wolf, 1997).
"My Vampire Cake," Worlds of Fantasy & Horror #4, Winter 1996/97.

Read recent Watson stories online:

"Ahead"

"Early, in the Evening"

"Voyage of the Beagle"

"Caucus Winter" (in Finnish)

Mockymen (excerpt)