FISK, Nicholas

   Pseudonym of UK author David Higginbottom (1923-), who writes exclusively for children. His first sf tale was Space Hostages (1967), in which his tastes for HARD-SF backgrounds and realistically flawed protagonists were competently expressed. The former reaches full expression in tales like Trillions (1971) and Antigrav (1978). A Rag, a Bone, and a Hank of Hair (1980), on the other hand, gravely and movinglyconcentrates on its emotionally torn protagonist, a young genius in an arid far-future DYSTOPIA commanded to observe a small family of reconstructed "primitives", who have been drugged into repeating the same fake 1940 day over and over again, so that he may garner experimental data about raw humans. In the end, both family and protagonist are killed by the masters of the terrible world. NF is a smooth writer, but the world he envisages - as demonstrated in A Hole in the Head (1991), a harrowing tale of the Earth at the brink of ecological catastrophe - is fraught.

   JC

   Other works: Grinny (1973); High Way Home (1973); Little Green Spacemen (1974 chap); The Witches of Wimmering (1976); Wheelie in the Stars (1976 chap); Time Trap (1976); Escape from Splatterbang (1978 chap; vt Flamers 1979 chap); Monster Maker (1979); the Starstormers sequence, comprising Starstormers (1980), Sunburst (1980), Catfang (1981), Evil Eye (1982) and Volcano (1983); Robot Revolt (1981); Sweets from a Stranger(coll 1982); On the Flip Side (1983); You Remember Me! (1984); Dark Sun, Bright Sun (1986); Living Fire (coll 1987); Mindbenders (1987); Backlash (1988); The Talking Car (1988 chap); The Telly is Watching You (1989); The Worm Charmers (1989); The Back-Yard War (1990 chap); The Model Village (1990); Extraterrestrial Tales (omni 1991) assembling Space Hostages, Trillions and On the Flip Side; Pig Ignorant (1991); The Puffin Book of Science Fiction (anth 1993).

   See also: CHILDREN'S SF; RADIO.