FARREN, Mick

(1943-)

   UK writer and ex-rock musician, first active in a band, the Deviants, 1967-70; he then edited the underground paper IT 1970-73 and founded the underground comic Nasty Tales-prosecuted for obscenity in a well known trial - in which, with Chris Rowley and Chris Welch, he produced a comic strip with sf content, Ogoth the Wasted. His first sf novel was The Texts of Festival (1973), set in a surrealistic post- HOLOCAUST England; this novel and his subsequent Jeb Stuart Ho trilogy -The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (1976), Synaptic Manhunt (1976) and The Neural Atrocity (1977)-radiate a late-1960s aura of apocalyptic, hip hyperbole, sometimes effectively. The Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys (1989) is a loose sequel. The world of the trilogy especially is almost deliriously polymorphic, full of images out of Westerns and other genres and references to dope, rock and the hippy subculture generally, and can be seen as a clear precursor of CYBERPUNK, though without COMPUTERS, and laced throughout with the kind of drug use which later writers like William GIBSON were able to avoid through the various delights ofCYBERSPACE.MF's next novels were similar in texture. Both The Feelies (1978; rev 1990 US), a left-oriented SATIRE whose premise resembles that of John D. MACDONALD's "Spectator Sport" (1950), and the dithery The Song of Phaid the Gambler (1981; rev vt in 2 vols as Phaid the Gambler 1986 US and Citizen Phaid 1987 US) seemed paralysed by their 1960s provenance. After Protectorate (1984) his work began to seem derivative of thecyberpunk writers who had followed him. Corpse (1986; vt Vickers 1988 US), The Long Orbit (1988 US; vt Exit Funtopia 1989 UK) and Armageddon Crazy(1989 US) have in common violent action, desolate NEAR FUTURE venues and spiritual malaise. Their Master's War (1988 US) concerns the ruthless use of helpless species in an unending interstellar conflict.

   JC

   Other works: Mars - The Red Planet (1990 US); Necrom (1991).