DICKINSON, Peter (Malcolm de Brissac)

(1927-)

   UK writer, born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge; for 17 years assistant editor of the humorous magazine Punch. PD is best known for his detective stories, but he has written one adult sf novel, The Green Gene (1973), an amusing SATIRE on many issues including racial prejudice, set in an ALTERNATE-WORLD UK, where all Celts possess a gene that gives them green skin. It was runner-up for the JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD. An adult detective novel, King and Joker (1976), is set in an alternate England where George V's elder brother Clarence did not die of pneumonia but lived to become King Victor I; its belated sequel was Skeleton-in-Waiting (1989). Two other adult thrillers have ambiguously fantastic elements, Sleep and his Brother (1971) and Walking Dead (1977).PD's most important contribution to sf is his Changes trilogy for children: in order of internal chronology the novels are The Devil's Children (1971), Heartsease (1970) and THE WEATHERMONGER (1968; with chapters 10 and 11 rev, 1969 US), all assembled as The Changes (omni 1975; vt The Changes Trilogy 1985; vt The Changes: A Trilogy 1991 US). They deal with an inexplicable change in English life when the population suddenly turns against MACHINES and adopts medieval superstitions. The Devil's Children, where a 12-year-old girl is adopted by a band of travelling Sikhs, is the most sensitive, and THE WEATHERMONGER, which features Merlin, the most fantastic and baroque. There are minor inconsistencies in the world picture from book to book.In 1972 the BBC presented a six-episode sf serial for children, Man Dog, written by PD, and novelized as Mandog * (1972) by Lois LAMPLUGH. Escapees from the 26th century transfer their leader's mind into a dog belonging to one of a group of children in the present. They are pursued by future police.Many of PD's other juveniles have fantastic elements: Emma Tupper's Diary (1971) is a Loch Ness Monster story; The Dancing Bear (1972) is a fantasy set in the 5th century; The Gift (1973) has a telepathic boy in a thriller with mythic overtones; The Blue Hawk (1976), which won the Guardian Award for Best Children's Book of the year, is set in an imaginary ancient kingdom, where the gods are withdrawing their magic from the world; Chance, Luck and Destiny (coll 1975) contains an sf story, "Mr Monnow"; Annerton Pit (1977) features an ambiguous presence - it may be sciencefictional rather than fantastic - lurking in a mineshaft of ill repute; Tulku (1979) has fantastic happenings in Tibet; Healer (1983; vt The Healer 1985 US) has a girl with special powers; and Eva (1988) has a girl's personality transferred to a chimpanzee after a car accident - much social adjustment is necessary.PD's juveniles are uneven, but at their best they are among the finest in the genre: various, nonconformist and vivid, often giving old themes new life by thinking them through afresh from the beginning, rather than accepting them as givens.

   PN

   Other works (all juveniles): The Iron Lion (1972 chap US; rev 1983 chap UK); The Flight of Dragons (1979), nonfiction; The Seventh Raven (1983); Giant Cold (1984 chap); Hundreds and Hundreds (anth 1984);A Box of Nothing (1985); Merlin Dreams (coll of linked stories 1988); AK (1990); A Bone from a Dry Sea (1992); Time and the Clockmice, Etcetera (1993); Shadow of a Hero (1994).

   See also: APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); CHILDREN'S SF; MAGIC.