HODDER-WILLIAMS, (John) Christopher (Glazebrook)

(1926-)

   UK writer, pilot, composer and sound engineer. His first novel, The Cummings Report (1957) as by James Brogan, was not sf. He began publishing sf with Chain Reaction (1959), which concerns itself, as does almost all of his fiction, with the relationship between Man and the machine technology he has created, in this case through a mystery plot about radiation sickness spread by food. His next three novels were aviation stories, sharing the same general theme, but since The Main Experiment (1964) he has written only sf, almost always in the form ofnovels with NEAR FUTURE scenarios. These include Fistful of Digits (1968), which introduces self-programming computers to an obsessive tale about loss of individuality, and The Silent Voice (1977), about the human brain's capacity to receive radio waves directly - to potentially ominous effect. The Chromosome Game (1984), set 200 years after a nuclear HOLOCAUST, grimly argues that human nature will soon, once again,disastrously express itself in the old way. CH-W's novels combine social and cultural concerns typical of UK post-WWII writers with somewhat melodramatic plotting and stiff characterization of a rather male-chauvinist variety; the effect is sometimes sharp, but more often uneasy.

   JC

   Other works: The Egg-Shaped Thing (1967; the UK hardcover edition is definitive); 98.4 (1969); Panic O'Clock (1973); Cowards' Paradise (1974; UK paperback slightly rev); The Prayer Machine (1976); TheThinktank that Leaked (1979).

   See also: GENETIC ENGINEERING; PARANOIA.