GESTON, Mark S(ymington)

(1946-)

   US writer and attorney whose remarkable first novel Lords of the Starship (1967) was published while he was still a student at Kenyon College. This work, which establishes the dark mood of all his fiction and is like its immediate successors set in a weary, war-torn FAR-FUTURE Earth, describes a dilapidated, decadent, centuries-long attempt toconstruct an enormous SPACESHIP whose completion would transform the fortunes of everyone involved and mark a phase of rebirth. The project is, however, a shambles and a sham, and the novel closes in ENTROPY and despair. Out of the Mouth of the Dragon (1969) conveys the same mood, introducing prosthetic weaponry that turns many of his characters virtually into CYBORGS without making them any more capable of transforming ancient ways, ancient obsessions. Cultures, weapons, ideas and their embodiments in doom-ridden characters and decaying cities also permeate his third novel, The Day Star (1972), and his fourth, The Siege of Wonder (1976), in which all the themes of his previous books are wrapped up in the perversion and death of a magical unicorn. MSG then fell silent for nearly 20 years: Mirror to the Sky (1992)Mirror to the Sky (1992) - a rare sf examination of the ARTS, in which certain paintingscrafted by visiting ALIENS enforce their vision on human viewers - may mark, however, his welcome return to active work.

   JC

   See also: MAGIC; MYTHOLOGY.