DeMARINIS, Rick

(1934-)

   US writer whose first novel, A Lovely Monster: The Adventures of Claude Rains and Dr Tellenbeck (1975), applies a sharply fabulistic eye (FABULATION) to Southern California and to the FRANKENSTEIN myth. Scimitar (1977), set in a similar region, satirically anatomizes the panicky responses of an urban USA to the imploding NEAR FUTURE. Cinder (1978), contrastingly, celebrates an old man's last days, which he spends (in every sense) in the company of a genie, also ageing and also determined to seize the day. The stories assembled in Jack \& Jill (coll 1979) hover at the edge of sf, as do some of the contents of both Under the Wheat (coll 1986) - notably the terrifying title story and "Weeds" - and The Coming Triumph of the Free World (coll 1988). RDM's later novels, The Burning Women of Far Cry (1986) and The Year of the Zinc Penny (1989), do not venture into the fantastic.

   JC