DVORKIN, David

(1943-)

   UK-born author, long in the USA, whose first novel of strong interest, after the unremarkable The Children of Shiny Mountain (1977; vt Shiny Mountain 1978 UK) and The Green God (1979), was Time for Sherlock Holmes * (1983). This RECURSIVE tale takes the detective, who has found the secret of eternal youth, through a tortuous plot (much TIME TRAVEL is involved) from the time of H.G. WELLS (concerned at Professor Moriarty's theft of the Time Machine to seesaw through the eons, doing evil) to a Martian future where, after a DYSTOPIAN interlude, he prepares to lead humanity to the stars. Unfortunately, the telling is somewhat flat, an ailment of style which afflicted DD through the next several books. Budspy (1987), set in an ALTERNATE WORLD featuring a victorious Germany (HITLER WINS), is greyly half-convincing; and The Seekers (1988) and Central Heat (1988), both set in the same universe, again lack a sense of full conviction, though much of the detail-work is, as usual, applied with considerable intelligence. Central Heat is plotted with all DD's love of intricacy: ALIENS have decided that Earth has failed to breed decent citizens and so abduct the Sun, although ensuring that our planet ricochets into an orbit around Jupiter and Saturn, which have been thrown together; properly instructed as to how to go about igniting the joined gas giants into a tiny new sun, the remnants of humanity begin to learn how to cope. With Ursus (1989) and Insatiable (1993), DD shifted into horror.

   JC

   Other works: Three STAR TREK ties: The Trellisane Confrontation * (1984), Timetrap * (1988) and Star Trek: The Next Generation \#8: The Captain's Honor * (1989) with Daniel Dvorkin (1969-), his son.

   See also: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.