DENTON, Bradley (Clayton)

(1958-)

   US writer who began publishing sf with "Music of the Spheres" in FSF in 1984, and who caused some impact in the field with his first novel, Wrack and Roll (1986), a contemporary ALTERNATE-WORLD tale which portrays heavy-metal musicians as the HEROES they might dream of being in a world absolutely divided between the "straight" majority and the anti-authoritarian "wrackers", who are defined by their MUSIC. BD displays an impressive feel for the sustaining myths of heavy metal in his depiction of the wrackers, whose random violence and passion for life are set against the sterility and genocidal tendencies of the straight world as nuclear war approaches. BUDDY HOLLY IS ALIVE AND WELL ON GANYMEDE (1991) deploys the same range of knowledge with more feeling, deeper nostalgia, and an improved control of narrative; and Blackburn (1993), a horror novel featuring a serial killer with whom it is possible to empathize (though not to defend), is a maturely controlled fable of America. BD's short stories are generally contemporary fantasies with a moral twist, like the 1988 title story of The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians(coll 1994) in 2 vols, a fable which attacks the sterile blindness of many Christian conceptions of heaven.

   NT