HOLLAND, Cecelia

(1943-)

   US writer whose numerous historical novels, beginning with The Firedrake (1966), have explored with striking vividness many of the genuine "alternate worlds" on Earth. One of these, still-born as a tale set in Mongol China, became the sf novel Floating Worlds (1976), a formidably long and complex SPACE OPERA involving conflict in the Solar System between Inner and Outer Planets. A wide range of contrastingsocieties, on an anarchist Earth and on the OUTER PLANETS themselves, provide a convincing background for the presentation of characters of unusual complexity. The protagonist is a woman, subtly drawn, ambivalent in her motivations, highly believable; on the Outer Planets, the description of the floating cities (GRAVITY) is likewise believable, and involving.Though not sf, Home Ground (1981), which puts an sf writer into a UTOPIAN commune, makes its points in the RECURSIVE mode which has become familiar within the genre. Pillar of the Sky (1985) combines historical research and fantasy in a story centred on Stonehenge.

   JC

   See also: WOMEN SF WRITERS.