Simon Morden

Gateshead-based Dr Simon Morden trained as a planetary geologist, realised he was never going to get into space, and decided to write about it instead. His writing career includes an eclectic mix of short stories, novellas and novels which blend science fiction, fantasy and horror, a five-year stint as an editor for the British Science Fiction Association, a judge for the Arthur C Clarke Awards, and regular speaking engagements at the Greenbelt arts festival. Simon has written sixteen novels and novellas. The wonderfully tentacular Another War (2005), was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award, and 2007 saw the publication of The Lost Art, which was shortlisted for the Catalyst Award. The first three books starring everybody's favourite sweary Russian scientist, Samuil Petrovitch (Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, Degrees of Freedom) were published in three months of each other in 2011, and collectively won the Philip K Dick Award - the fourth Petrovitch, The Curve of the Earth, was published in 2013. In a departure to the usual high-tech mayhem, 2014 saw the arrival of Arcanum, a massive (and epic) alternate-history fantasy, which not only has flaming letters on the cover, but the story inside is "enthralling", "intelligent", "impeccably rendered" (Kirkus), and "engrossing", "satisfying" and "leaving the reader craving for more (Publishers' Weekly). Which was nice. The Books of Down were next, a very different fantasy where what you are is what you become: Down Station was the first, The White City the second, chronicling the trials and triumphs of Down's latest refugees on the run from a disaster that might just have destroyed all of London. Hard SF under the pen-name SJ Morden followed: One Way, and the sequel No Way, telling the story of Frank Kittridge, murderer and astronaut, on Mars, and Gallowglass (set in the same timeline), where Jack van der Veerden tries his hand at being a starship navigator on a less-than-routine mining mission. The Flight of the Aphrodite will be next in the series. Special mention for Bright Morning Star, too - probably Simon's most hopeful book and firmly in the solarpunk genre, about the little robot who could, and did, change the world.