| Jon Courtenay Grimwood | |
|---|---|
| Born | Valletta, Malta |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1990s–present |
| Genres | Science fiction & fantasy |
|
www.j-cg.co.uk |
|
Jon Courtenay Grimwood is a British science fiction and fantasy author.
He was born in Valletta, Malta, grew up in Britain, Southeast Asia and Norway in the 1960s and 1970s. He studied at Kingston College, then worked in publishing and as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers including The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent. He now lives in London and Winchester and is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, with a son, Jamie, from a previous marriage.
Much of his early work can be described as post-cyberpunk. He won a British Science Fiction Association award for Felaheen in 2003,[1] was short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Pashazade the year before,[2] and won the 2006 BSFA award for Best Novel with End of the World Blues.[3] He was short-listed for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2002 for Pashazade.[2] His fourth book is loosely based on Stanley Weyman's Victorian novel Under the Red Robe (ISBN 5-552-05128-9). End of the World Blues was also short-listed for the 2007 Arthur C Clarke Award.[4] The following were nominated in the SF novel category in the Locus Awards - Felaheen, The Third Arabesk, 2004; Stamping Butterflies, 2005; 9Tail Fox, 2006; End of the World Blues, 2007
Grimwood's work tends to be of a quasi-alternate history genre that could be dubbed "alternate future"; whilst set in an alternate universe, they are still set in the future. In the first four novels, set in the 22nd century, the point of divergence is the Franco–Prussian War of 1870, where Grimwood posits a reality where Napoléon III's France defeats Otto von Bismarck's Prussia, causing the German Empire never to form and the Second French Empire never to collapse. In the Arabesk trilogy, the point of divergence is in 1915, with Woodrow Wilson brokering an earlier peace so that World War I barely expanded outside of the Balkans; the books are set in a liberal Islamic Ottoman North Africa in the 21st century, mainly centring around El Iskandriya (Alexandria). By contrast, there is little in Stamping Butterflies, 9tail Fox or End of the World Blues to suggest that the books are not set in our reality; although the possibility of alternate futures in Stamping Butterflies suggests one must involve a time line not our own. The Fallen Blade is the first of three novels set in an alternative 15th Century Venice where Marco Polo's family have been hereditary dukes for five generations and the Mongol emperor Tamberlaine has conquered China, making him the most powerful ruler in the world.
Grimwood was guest of honour at Novacon in 2003, at Kontext (in Uppsala, Sweden) in 2008, and at Eastercon LX (the 60th British National Science Fiction Convention) in 2009.
He was a judge for the 2010 Arthur C Clarke Award presented to China Mieville for The City & the City. He is also a judge for the 2011 award.
Contents |
Grimwood's style has two main features. Firstly, his central characters often have a somewhat unusual form of (often artificial) inner monologue; the lead character of the Arabesk trilogy has an internal AI generally referred to as "the fox" or Tiriganiaq (Inuktitut for Arctic fox), which acts as a pseudo-conscience to some extent, in addition to giving him often flawed and self-evident advice; another character talks to his ever-present military commander; and most notably, in redRobe, the lead character (an assassin) talks to his sentient gun. In Stamping Butterflies, as well as some of the protagonists having a mental link (across several centuries in both directions), one character has conversations with an alien AI known as "the Library".
Secondly, he frequently alternates the main narrative with either a continuous story or a series of discontinuous flashbacks, often to the childhood of a central character. He uses this to explain events in the past in such a way that their connection to the plot only becomes evident later in the book, at around the point its effects are felt in the main storyline.
| Name | Published | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| neoAddix | 1997 | ISBN 0-340-67472-5 | |
| Lucifer's Dragon | 1998 | ISBN 0-7434-7827-4 | |
| reMix | 1999 | ISBN 0-671-02222-9 | |
| redRobe | 2000 | ISBN 0-671-02260-1 | British Science Fiction Award nominee, 2000[5] |
| Pashazade | 2001 | ISBN 0-7434-6833-3 | First in the Arabesk trilogy British Science Fiction Award nominee, 2001;[6] John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 2002;[2] Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2002[2] |
| Effendi | 2002 | ISBN 0-671-77369-0 | Second in the Arabesk trilogy British Science Fiction Award nominee, 2002[2] |
| Felaheen | 2003 | ISBN 0-671-77370-4 | Third in the Arabesk trilogy British Science Fiction Award winner, 2003;[1] British Fantasy Award nominee, 2004[7] |
| Stamping Butterflies | 2004 | ISBN 0-575-07613-5 | British Science Fiction Award nominee, 2004[7] |
| 9tail Fox | 2005 | ISBN 0-575-07615-1 | British Science Fiction Award nominee, 2005[8] |
| End of the World Blues | 2006 | ISBN 0-575-07616-X | British Science Fiction Award winner, 2006;[3] Arthur C. Clarke nominee, 2007[4] |
| The Fallen Blade | 2011 | ISBN 0-316-07439-X |