John Barnes (author)

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For other persons of the same name, see John Barnes.

John Barnes (born 1957) is a prolific American science fiction author, whose stories often explore questions of individual moral responsibility within a larger social context. Social criticism is woven throughout his plots. The four novels in his Million Open Doors series pose serious questions about the effects of globalization on isolated societies. Barnes holds a doctorate in theatre and for several years taught in Colorado, where he still lives.

Contents

[edit] Personal Life & His Work

He has been married twice; his second wife was author Kara Dalkey. In the second and third books of the Million Open Doors series, the protagonist Giraut Leones endures difficult marital tensions. It has been widely claimed that these reflect the author's own frustration with the disintegration of his second marriage, but the following statement appears in the acknowledgments of The Armies of Memory, the fourth book in the series (April 2006).

"Acknowledgment and a Word about the Usual Autobiographical Note:
My habit of dropping bits of autobiography into the acknowledgments has had one effect that needs immediate correction, since it has resulted in something silly which touches the reputation of an innocent person. The fact that I went through a painful second divorce two years after the publication of Earth Made of Glass (which depicts, among other things, a painful divorce) has led to confusion resulting in a frequent online, and increasingly frequent in print, assertion that Earth Made of Glass is somehow 'about' that divorce. This is improbable, at the least, since I don't seem to have the foresight to plan till the end of the week, and for Earth Made of Glass to have been about my second divorce would require about four years of foresight: Earth Made of Glass was substantially complete in late August of 1996 (from an outline written in 1995), given a final revision in the spring of 1997, and first published in April, 1998. The events that led to my real-world divorce did not occur until the spring and summer of 2000 (the divorce was final in May 2001).
Nor do the facts of either my first or second divorce much resemble those of Giraut's, nor does either of my ex-wives much resemble the fictional Margaret. (For one thing, they're both very attractive, and for another thing, neither of them is a ruthless killer, as my continued presence attests).
It is probably charitable of many readers and reviewers to assume that I was expressing or venting something I needed to bring out, rather than exploring something ugly for its own sake, in Earth Made of Glass and The Merchants of Souls, but in fairness to everyone, particularly to my ex-wives, I must admit that the books were written to explore something ugly, and some things of great beauty, for their own sake. The ugliness in those books is there because I was interested in that flavor of ugliness; I have since moved on to other flavors." (Barnes, The Armies of Memory, copyedited ms. in preparation for publication, August 2005, manuscript pages 435-436)]]

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Man Who Pulled Down the Sky (1987)
  • Sin of Origin (1988)
  • Orbital Resonance (1991) (Century Next Door series)
  • Wartide (1992) (Time Raider series)
  • Battle Cry (1992) (Time Raider series)
  • Union Fires (1992) (Time Raider series)
  • A Million Open Doors (1993) (Million Open Doors series)
  • Mother of Storms (1995)
  • Encounter With Tiber, with Buzz Aldrin (1996)
  • Kaleidoscope Century (1996) (Century Next Door series)
  • One For the Morning Glory (1996)
  • Patton's Spaceship (1997) (Timeline Wars series)
  • Washington's Dirigible (1997) (Timeline Wars series)
  • Caesar's Bicycle (1997) (Timeline Wars series)
  • Timeline Wars (1997) (omnibus volume)
  • Apostrophes and Apocalypses (1998)(collection)
  • Earth Made of Glass (1999) (Million Open Doors series)
  • Finity (1999)
  • Candle (2000) (Century Next Door series)
  • The Return, with Buzz Aldrin (2001)
  • The Merchants of Souls (2002) (Million Open Doors series)
  • The Sky So Big and Black (2002) (Century Next Door series)
  • Duke of Uranium (2002) (Jak Jinnaka series)
  • A Princess of the Aerie (2003) (Jak Jinnaka series)
  • In the Hall of the Martian King (2003) (Jak Jinnaka series)
  • Gaudeamus (2004)
  • The Armies of Memory (2006) (Million Open Doors series)

[edit] Awards

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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