[OT] Other authors: Lawrence Miles

(I meant to post on this to the other authors thread a while back, but never got around to it; but better late than never.) While not in Wolfe's league, Lawrence Miles is a very interesting SF writer, and well worth investigating IMO. He'd be a lot better known if it wasn't for the fact that aside from one short story ("Grass," which came out last year iirc and attracted a bit of attention), all his SF afaik has been written for Dr. Who books and offshoots thereof. That sounds terrible, but writers of Dr. Who books seem to have a good deal more freedom than writers of Star Trek books, say; and you don't have to be a Dr. Who fan, or know a lot about Dr. Who (I'm not, and don't) to enjoy his books. All his books are worth checking out, except perhaps for CHRISTMAS ON A RATIONAL PLANET, his first (and THE BOOK OF THE WAR, which I haven't read). But his best are probably DEAD ROMANCE and DOWN (neither of which contain Dr. Who). While DEAD ROMANCE is better, DOWN does a couple of interesting things with unreliable narration; and for fans of Iain M. Banks, it can be seen as a sort of reply to the Culture. For those interested in narrative technique THE ADVENTURESS OF HENRIETTA STREET is also worth noting; it's one of the few novels I've seen which is written almost entirely in the style of a history or biography (e. g. almost no directly quoted dialogue; sometimes providing contradictory versions of an event from different "sources" without saying which is correct). There's also an online sample of his writing at http://www.gallifreyone.com/fppreview1.htm --Adam

It's worth noting, though, that Miles is building on the novel 'The Also People' by Ben Aaronovitch, who introduced the 'People' who feature in 'Down'. Both Aaronovitch and Miles are well worth a look. It was Aaronovitch who originally provided the 'reply' to the Culture. The Doctor Who novels, published first by Virgin, then by the BBC, and now by both Telos and the BBC, are all worth looking at, selectively, because they are afforded far, far more freedom than any other series of 'franchise'-related fiction. And when Virgin was publishing them, they were the only SF publisher in the UK willing to accept unsolicited manuscript submissions. So the Who list was a great place for people to begin writing SF. Paul Magrs has written immensely successful mainstream novels, but began on (and is still writing for) the Doctor Who series...

My problem with 'Henrietta Street' was that it wasn't enough like a history. It needed an Index, a Contents page, and Introduction, and more extensive notes. For the 'trick' of the narrative to work, it needed to become even more absorbed in the whole exercise... I found it a drag, because (for me) it fell between too stools... But 'Interference' is a fantastic novel, at moments, if far too long. And he has also branched out into Audio Drama, Comic writing, and more, no doubt... This http://www.factionparadox.co.uk/ is a treasure-trove. But this is the last place I expected to see Miles mentioned :o) Best, G.