HINZ, Christopher

(1951-)

   US writer who made a considerable impact with the Paratwa sequence: Liege-Killer (1987) - which won the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall AWARD for Best First Novel - Ash Ock (1989) and The Paratwa (1991). Fromthe first, the sequence has given off a sense of professional polish and hurry, densely packing a wide variety of 1980s adventure-sf conventions into an intensely realized post- HOLOCAUST setting dominated by SPACE HABITATS which contain those who escaped before the end of life on Earth.Technology is controlled, but pressure is building; and when the Paratwa - pre-holocaust, genetically primed assassins - begin to reappear, CH soon engages a large cast in violent action, as the villains are hunted down and their masters (the Ash Ock) are exposed. It could not be claimed that the second and third volumes of the sequence show any deep originality, but the impersonal vigour of the narrative strikes a responsive note. A singleton, Anachronisms (1988), also demonstrates CH's canny adherence to demanding genre models in the tale of a corporation-owned survey ship - packed with CYBORGS, ESPERS, obsessed SCIENTISTS, a paramilitary cadre, and Realpolitik-driven AIs - which must face the threat of a seemingly undefeatable ALIEN which assaults them from an about-to-be-exploited planet. The parallels with the movies ALIEN (1979) and ALIENS (1986) are too explicit not to have been meant as a homage, and demonstrate that the sophisticated models of action in space deployed by those films had become necessary to high-quality, cutting-edge written adventure sf. CH is an alert follower.

   JC