HUGHES, Monica

(1925-)

   UK-born writer, from 1952 in CANADA, where she has won several awards in recognition of her novels for older children, including the Canada Council Children's Literature Prize in 1982 and 1983. Her first sfnovels, Crisis on Conshelf Ten (1975) and its sequel, Earthdark (1977 UK), utilize an UNDER-THE-SEA and a Lunar setting to explore in a humane fashion the crises of adolescents in venues which, typically of her work in general, encompassingly keep them alive, but at a cost. This irony of survival - it is an irony likely to evoke an acute response from young readers - is very much sharpened in the Isis sequence, for which MH remains best known: The Keeper of the Isis Light (1980 UK), The Guardian of Isis (1981 UK) and The Isis Pedlar (1982 UK). The protagonist of the sequence, a deeply isolated orphan teenager, is initially alone on the planet Isis except for a guardian ROBOT. It is only when human settlers arrive that she discovers that she has been bio-engineered into a kind of reptile for survival purposes, and must from this point adjust to her job as warden and to her solitude. Other series include the DYSTOPIAN Arc One sequence - Devil on My Back (1984 UK) and The Dream Catcher (1986 UK) - and Sandwriter (1985 UK) and its sequel, The Promise (1989).Singletons of interest include: The Tomorrow City (1978 UK), which again demonstrates the costs of survival through the story of a young girl who is blinded by the great COMPUTER designed by her father to protect her environment; Beyond the Dark River (1979 UK), a post- HOLOCAUST tale set in theprairies of northern Canada; Ring-Rise, Ring-Set (1982 UK), again set in a threatened Canada; and Invitation to the Game (1990), in which the implicit PARANOIA of some of MH's earlier work becomes frighteningly articulate, as a seemingly benevolent 21st-century government transports unemployable adolescents to an unknown destination, where they will be very happy.

   JC

   Other works: The Beckoning Lights (1982); Space Trap (1983); The Crystal Drop (1992).

   See also: CHILDREN'S SF.