GORDON, Stuart

   Pseudonym of Scottish writer Richard Gordon (1947-), who also writes as Alex R. Stuart and published his first sf story -"A Light in the Sky" for NW in 1965 - as Richard A. Gordon. His first sf novel, Time Story (1972), describes a criminal's attempt to flee retribution via TIME TRAVEL. In his Eyes books - One-Eye (1973 US), Two-Eyes (1974 US) and Three-Eyes (1975US), assembled as The Eyes Trilogy (omni 1978) - the MUTANT One-Eye triggers the forces of chaos in an apocalyptic post- HOLOCAUST land where humanity fights a losing battle against genetic decay; in increasingly elaborated prose (SG's main fault as a writer is an inadequate control over imagery) the trilogy proceeds to a complex self-confrontation of mankind. Smile on the Void: The Mythhistory of Ralph M'Botu Kitaj (1981 US) ponderously guys late-20th-century susceptibilities in the "biography"of an almost certainly fake MESSIAH. Fire in the Abyss (1983 US), though terribly overcrowded, impressively plants the Elizabethan sailor Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1537-1583) via time travel into an apocalypticallydissolving present-day. The Watchers trilogy - Archon (1987), The Hidden World (1988) and The Mask (1988) - is another extremely complextime-travel fantasy, in the opposite direction, as 20th-century personal traumas intersect, in medieval and Reformation France, with the cultural ills of the present and the NEAR FUTURE. SG's language has baroque vigour and his plots are increasingly inventive; he lacks mainly a capacity to moderate and therefore give verisimilitude to the rush of notions.

   JC

   Other works: Suaine \& The Crow-God (1975).As Alex R. Stuart: Several novels, of which The Outlaws (1972), The Devil's Rider (1973) and The Bike from Hell (1973) have fantasy/sf components.