DANIEL, Tony

(1963-)

   US writer who began publishing sf with "For the Killed Astronauts" for IASFM in 1990, and who has been fairly prolific in the 1990s. His first novel, Warpath (1991 IASFM as "Candle"; exp 1993), was admired for its ambitious scope, though it seems at points overloaded with material, and slides (at points uncontrolledly) from sf to MAGIC REALISM to myth (mostly based on Native American material) to and outright fantasy. The premise is romantic: centuries past, Mississippi Native Americans have learned to convey their canoes on interstellar voyages, and have settled the planet Candle. The inevitable arrival of technology-dominated human civilizations provides the engine of a plot which incorporates god-like bear-shaped companions, demon-like sorcerers, weather-manipulation governed the sentience of a dead lover, and much else. None of it works as a whole; but the parts are enough to establish TD as a significant new writer of the 1990s.

   JC