James K. Morrow
James Morrow (born 1947) is a fiction author. A self-described "scientific humanist", his work satirises organized religion and elements of humanism and atheism.
He lives in State College, Pennsylvania with his wife, Kathryn Smith Morrow, his son, Christopher, and their dogs.[1] His cousin is the journalist Lance Morrow.
Bibliography
Godhead Trilogy
- Towing Jehovah (1994), in which the corpse of God (a two-mile long white male with a grey beard, as he has often been depicted) is discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The captain of a supertanker is dispatched by the Vatican on a secret mission to tow the Divine Corpse to a tomb carved out of the Arctic ice. A group of atheist extremists plan on destroying the body, as although God is dead, his corpse proves that they were wrong and he existed at some point in time. An extended subplot deals with the evolution of a character's views on ethics and morality as he faces the idea of a post-theistic world. Towing Jehovah won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1995.;[2] was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1994;[3] and received Hugo, Clarke, and Locus Fantasy Award nominations in 1995.[4] Terri Windling selected it as one of the best fantasy books of 1994.[5]
- Blameless in Abaddon (1996), in which God's body is now part of a religious theme park. A small-town magistrate, who has suffered many personal troubles, including the death of his wife and prostate cancer, decides to literally put God on trial for crimes against humanity. God's defense lawyer is a parody of C. S. Lewis. Other biblical figures including Satan and Jesus Christ appear in this book. "Abaddon" is a small fictional township in Pennsylvania and an obscure Biblical word for Hell.
- The Eternal Footman (1999), in which the absence of God, save for his skull orbiting the Earth, results in a plague of death-awareness. The Eternal Footman was nominated for a Locus Fantasy Award in 1997.[6]
- A special limited run (26 copies) leather-bound set was published by Dimension House and contained a fourth book that contains previously unpublished material containing short stories and plays by James Morrow. This volume is called "Reflections and Refractions", and contains three plays purportedly written by a character within the main novels. Two of these have appeared in short-story collections by Morrow, while the third is available on the author's web site.
Other novels
- The Wine of Violence (1981) - First published novel. A space expedition crash lands on an undiscovered planet. Landing in a veritable utopia the survivors discover a dark and viscous secret that is the source of the murky moat that surrounds the walled Utopia and fends off the cannibalistic hordes that threaten its tranquility
- The Adventures of Smoke Bailey (1983) - novelization of the computer game In Search of the Most Amazing Thing.
- The Continent of Lies (1984) - Dealing with the future medium of "Dream Apples" entertainment that is eaten so that the experience of the entertainment goes straight into the viewers mind. A "Dream Apple" reviewer is lured into a dark and horrific world akin in many ways to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
- This Is the Way the World Ends (1985) - deals with Nostradamus, a nuclear war, and the trial which sees the survivors of the war prosecuted by "the Unadmitted", or those who would have existed had the Protagonist of the novel never signed away his complicity of the nuclear arms race that lead to Mutually Assured Destruction -- nominated for a Nebula Award in 1986,[7] and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1987.[8]
- Only Begotten Daughter (1990) - in which Jesus' half sister, the daughter of God, is born into contemporary society—winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1991;[9] nominated for a Nebula Award in 1990;[10] nominated for Campbell and Locus SF Awards in 1991.[9]
- City of Truth (1990) - a dystopian novel about a society (Veritas) in which everyone is conditioned to tell only the literal truth. The story revolves around an art critic whose son is infected by a rare illness after being bitten by a rabbit at Camp Ditch-the-Kids. The protagonist comes to believe that his son's only hope is for him to come to (falsely) believe that he will recover. With the help of subversives from "Satirev", he must learn how to deceive again.
- The Last Witchfinder (2006) - a historical novel in which Jennet Stearne, daughter of England's last Witchfinder General, sets out to end the persecution of witches by proving that witchcraft is not logically possible. The book addresses the shifting of world view from the medieval/renaissance viewpoint to the Enlightenment. The story travels from England to America during the late 17th and early 18th century, and features fictional portraits of Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, the young Ben Franklin, and the Salem Witch Trials. In a metafictional twist, the novel is narrated by Newton's Principia Mathematica, which asserts that books are often the authors of other books (albeit with unwitting human assistance). The Last Witchfinder was nominated for a BSFA Award in 2006,[11] as well as the Campbell and Locus Fantasy Awards in 2007.[6]
- The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008) formerly titled Prometheus Wept - (taken from Amazon.co.uk book description) The Philosopher's Apprentice tells the story of Londa Sabacthani, a celebrity saint who is determined to change society for the good - whatever it takes. And whatever it takes includes building a utopian metropolis, hijacking a reconstructed Titanic, and subjecting its wealthy passengers to a very steep learning curve. After crashing and burning during his PhD viva, Mason Ambrose is offered a large amount of money to come to the Isla de Sangre to instruct the daughter of wealthy Edwina Sabacthani. He is to use his skills and knowledge as a philosopher to instil a conscience, a moral compass, in Edwina's daughter Londa following a diving accident which has supposedly destroyed her sense of right and wrong. Mason happily instructs her in schools of thought, from the Stoics to the Epicureans. But it is when he introduces her to the Beatitudes that the seeds of a rampaging sense of justice are sown and Londa becomes determined that the meek really shall inherit the Earth!
- Shambling Towards Hiroshima (2009) - In the tradition of Godzilla as both a playful romp and a parable of the dawn of the nuclear era, this original satire blends the destruction of World War II with the halcyon pleasure of monster movies. In the summer of 1945 war is reigning in the Pacific Rim, while in the U.S., Syms Thorley continues his life as a B-movie actor. But the U.S. Navy would like to use Thorley in their top-secret Knickerbocker Project, putting the finishing touches on the ultimate biological weapon: a breed of gigantic, fire-breathing, mutant iguanas. Thorley is to don a rubber suit that will transform him into the merciless Gorgantis and star in a film that simulates the destruction of a miniature Japan—if the demonstration succeeds, the Japanese will surrender, sparing thousands of lives; if it fails, the mutant lizards will be unleashed. Godzilla devotees and history buffs alike will be fascinated by this conspiratorial secret history of a war, a weapon, and an unlikely hero who will have to give the most convincing performance of his life.
Selected short stories
- "Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks" (1987) On a planet populated by robots who worship Charles Darwin, two 'science missionaries' have a hard time convincing them that they did not in fact evolve, but were intelligently designed at Harvard University.
- "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge" (1988) - Nebula Award Winner.[12] The tale of the Flood, told from the perspective of one of the sinners.
- "Abe Lincoln in McDonald's" (1989) A time-travelling Abe Lincoln gets the opportunity to visit present-day America if the Civil War had never happened.
- "Daughter Earth" (1991) A man and woman must learn to care for a most unusual offspring.
- "City of Truth" (1991) - Nebula Award Winner.[12] A novella which pursues the premise of a future "utopian" society in which people are incapable of lying, and of a protagonist who, to save his terminally ill son's life, must somehow learn to not tell him the truth.
Short story collections
Anthologies
- Nebula Awards 26 (1992)
- Nebula Awards 27 (1993)
- Nebula Awards 28 (1994)
- The SFWA European Hall of Fame: Sixteen Contemporary Masterpieces of Science Fiction from the Continent, with Kathryn Morrow (2007)
Popular misconceptions
- Sláinte is a novel authored by a neurologist who lives in Northern Ireland, not by the James Kenneth Morrow discussed here who was born, and still lives, in the USA.
References
External links
- James Morrow at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- James Morrow's Homepage
- The Passionate Rationalist, James Morrow's Live Journal.
- War of the World-Views: A Conversation with James Morrow by Fiona Kelleghan, Science Fiction Studies, #89, Volume 30, Part 1, March 2003.
- Excerpts from an interview with James Morrow, LOCUS Magazine, 2006.
- Interview with James Morrow by Faith L. Justice, Strange Horizons, 2001.
- Interview with James Morrow by Nick Gevers, SF Site, 2000.
- interview in 2000 et interview in 2003 sur Actusf.com (in French)
- Interview on the SciFiDimensions Podcast
- Interview: From Dead Gods to Guys in Lizard Costumes, Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2009
- Interview by Michael A. Ventrella, October '09
| Persondata |
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Morrow, James |
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| Date of birth |
1947-03-17 |
| Place of birth |
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Date of death |
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| Place of death |
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