John Whitbourn
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John Whitbourn (born 1958) is an author and tenth-generation (at least) inhabitant of southern England's Downs Country.
Whitbourn is an archaeology graduate and published author since 1987. His first book, A Dangerous Energy, won the BBC/Victor Gollancz Fantasy Novel Prize (judged by, amongst others, Terry Pratchett) in 1991. In 1562, Elizabeth I suffered from a near-fatal bout of smallpox. In our world, she recovered, but that did not occur in the world of A Dangerous Energy and its sequels. Instead, Elizabeth I died from that infection, and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots succeeded to the English throne, leading to a second and permanent Catholic Counter Reformation in England and Scotland.
Popes and Phantoms and To Build Jerusalem are other novels located in his own preferred - and wildly skewed - version of history, and followed that success. A Dangerous Energy was reviewed as "the first Counter-Reformation science fiction novel" and To Build Jerusalem furthers the story of that particular alternative history. A third volume in this trilogy, The Two Confessions, is now complete. Popes and Phantoms was also published in Russia by Mir Fantastiki.
At the same time Whitbourn has published a steady stream of short stories, including the extensive Binscombe Tales series of supernatural stories set in his ancestral homeland. They were published in two volume collected form as Binscombe Tales - Sinister Saxon Stories and More Binscombe Tales - Sinister Sutangli Stories by Ash-Tree Press in 1998 and 1999.
His fifth book, The Royal Changeling, (described as the first work of Jacobite propaganda for several centuries) was published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster's Earthlight imprint.
Subsequent years have seen the release by the same company of his trio of books which he insists on calling The Downs-Lord triptych (not "trilogy"), including Downs-Lord Dawn (1999), Downs-Lord Day (2000) and Downs-Lord Doomsday (2002).
This depicts the adventures of a 17th Century down-at-luck curate who crosses into an alternate Earth where - though all physical features are similar to ours - the hapless local humans are little more than food animals of the monstrous life-form known as Null.
He appoints himself their liberator, goes back for 17th century weapons, and manages to defeat the Null (at least in that world's version of the British Isles) and in the process makes himself a God-Emperor. But further complications arise from the interference of a power-hungry 19th Century American professor, extraterrestrial creatures known as "Angels" - which is rather a misnomer - and the exploits of the Emperor's Corps of diplomats who refine Machiavellism to unprecedented subtlety...
A rare interview with Whitbourn in 2000 was revealingly entitled 'Confessions of a Counter-Reformation Green Anarcho-Jacobite'...
[edit] Complete Works
[edit] Novels
| Title | Publisher | Year |
|---|---|---|
| A Dangerous Energy | Victor Gollancz | 1992 (paperback 1993) |
| Popes & Phantoms | Victor Gollancz | 1993 (paperback 1994) |
| To Build Jerusalem | Victor Gollancz | 1995 (hardback & paperback) |
| The Royal Changeling | Earthlight - Simon & Schuster | 1998 |
| Downs-Lord Dawn - Vol. 1 The Downs-Lord Triptych | Earthlight -Simon & Schuster | August 1999 |
| Downs-Lord Day - Vol. 2 The Downs-Lord Triptych | Earthlight - Simon & Schuster | December 2000 |
| Downs-Lord Doomsday - Vol. 3 The Downs-Lord Triptych | Earthlight - Simon & Schuster | February 2002 |
[edit] Short stories
| Title | Published in | Publisher | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Waiting For A Bus" | Third Book of After Midnight Stories | William Kimber | 1987 |
| "Roots" | Fourth Book of After Midnight Stories | William Kimber | 1988 |
| "Waiting For A Bus" (full version) | The Year's Best Fantasy Stories 14 | DAW (USA) | 1988 |
| "His Holiness Commands" "It Has Been Said" "No Truce With Kings" "Let The Train Take The Strain" |
Binscombe Tales | Haunted Library | 1989 |
| "Rollover Night" "I Could A Tale Unfold" "The More It Changes" "Appendix: A Complete List of Binscombe Tales" |
Rollover Night | Haunted Library | 1990 |
| "Every Little Breeze" | All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No 2. | -- | 1990 |
| "Peace On Earth, Goodwill To Most Men" (paperback 1991) | Mystery for Xmas | Michael O'Mara | 1990 |
| "A Partial Cure" | Transactions of the Doppelganger Society | -- | 1990 |
| "Hello Dolly" | Fifth Book of After Midnight Stories | Robert Hale | 1991 |
| "Peace On Earth, Goodwill To Most Men" | Mystery for Xmas | Michael O'Mara | 1991 |
| "Be Assured, He Is Not There" "The Flowering Of The Reformation" |
Popes & Phantoms | Haunted Library | 1992 |
| "The Fall Of A Dictator" | All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No 4 | -- | 1993 |
| "Justice Without Respite" | Ghosts & Scholars. No 15 | Haunted Library | 1993 |
| "Walk This Way" | All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No. 7 | -- | 1994 |
| "Only One Careful Owner" | A Binscombe Tale For Xmas | Haunted Library | 1994 |
| "Here Is My Resignation" | -- | Lychgate | 1995 |
| "Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside ( Within Reason )" | A Binscombe Tale For Summer | The Haunted Library | 1996 |
| "Ingratitude" | All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No. 15 | -- | 1997 |
| "Bury My Heart At Southerham (East Sussex)" | Midnight Never Comes | Ash-Tree Press | 1997 |
| "BINSCOMBE TALES" (collected short stories) | Sinister Saxon Stories. Vol. 1 | Ash-Tree Press | 1998 |
| "In the Name of Allah, the Omnipotent?" | Interzone no 135 | -- | September 1998 |
| Introduction to "Litany of Strange Sorrow" by John Gale | -- | Doppelganger Press | 1999 |
| "MORE BINSCOMBE TALES" (collected short stories) | Sinister Sutangli Stories. Vol. 2 | Ash-Tree Press | 23 April 1999 |
| "In the Name of Allah, the Omnipotent?" | -- | Nowa Fantastyka (Poland) | September 1999 |
| "The Way, the Truth..." | The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction | -- | January 2000 |
| "Culloden II" | All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No. 23 | -- | 2000 |
| "Democracy" (part one of the 'Stalinspace' series) | -- | Nowa Fantastyka (Poland) | March 2000 |
| "Just Hanging Around" | Ghosts & Scholars. No. 31 | -- | 2000 |
| "Excuse Me" | Shadows & Silence | Ash-Tree Press | December 2000 |
| "The Hills Are Alive" | Interzone no 165 | -- | March 2001 |
| "The Sunken Garden" | Acquainted With the Night | Ash-Tree Press | 2004 |
| "A Pillar of the Church" | At Ease With the Dead | Ash-Tree Press | 2007 |
[edit] Articles
| Title | Published in | Year |
|---|---|---|
| "The Day The Cornish Invaded Guildford" (1497 rebellion) | The Surrey Advertiser | June 2, 1989. |
| "The Bones of a Revolutionary" (Tom Paine's remains) | The Surrey Advertiser | September 22, 1989. |
| "A Gift To Woden From Pevensey?" | The Parish Pump No. 65 | Spring 1990. |
| "A Gift To Woden From Pevensey?" | Wiðowinde: Journal of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas No. 88 | August 1990. |
| "What Would Have Happened If..." | The Catholic Times | November 6, 1994 |
| "Taking Fantastic Liberties With Our History" | The Surrey Advertiser | May 29, 1989 |
| "Sticks & Stones" | Wiðowinde: Journal of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas No. 113 | Spring 1998 |
| "Why I Like It Here" | Downs Country Magazine no. 22 | May 1998 |
| "In the Shade of the Typewriter Tree" | Interzone no 135 | September 1998 |
| "'Orrible Massacre in Sussex" | Downs Country Magazine no. 26 | January 1999 |
| "The 'Prehistory' of St. Edmund's - 1534 - 1899" |
Essay in The Catholic Parish of St. Edmund, King & Martyr, Godalming, 1899 - 1999 - A Centenary Commemorative History" | November 1999. |
| "Monmouth's Stalin Organs - or Ingenious Inventions and Annoying Authors" | The So-ho Gazette - Newsletter of the 1685 Society | July 2000 |
| "Confessions of a Counter-Reformation Green Anarcho-Jacobite" (Interview) | Starburst Magazine No. 266 | October 2000 |
| "Whitbourn's Wisdom" (Interview) | SFX magazine no 73 | January 2001 |
| "Angles, Saxons Normans - & Vandals (& Scots)" | Wiðowinde: Journal Of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas No 128 | Summer 2002 |
| "Looking For New England" | 3SF Magazine No 1 | October 2002 |
| "A Hymn To Merrily" | All Hallows: Journal Of The Ghost Story Society No 32 | February 2003 |
| Author Profile - Phil Rickman | SFX magazine no 124 | December 2004 |
[edit] Other
- Publish & Be Damned! The Suppressed/Depressed Edition. Ash-Tree Press. Web publication. 2003.
