MacLEOD, Sheila

(1939-)

   Scottish writer, married for several years to actor and pop singer Paul Jones (PRIVILEGE), an experience reflected in her first novel, The Moving Accident (1968). Her second, The Snow-White Soliloquies (1970), is a FABULATION with surprisingly firm sf underpinning, describingin technological terms the SUSPENDED ANIMATION of its eponymous heroine as the search for a Prince continues in a grey world. Xanthe and the Robots (1977), set in an Institute for Advanced Robotic Research, explores thecreation of "Philophrenics" (ROBOTS of near-human capability) and the problems their all-too-human designers face in deciding how far to attempt to exploit their development; it is an intelligent and sophisticated novel. Circuit-Breaker (1978) entertainingly mixes INNER SPACE and outer, describing an astronaut's attempts to use his PSI POWERS to save his ship - assuming the hero is indeed an astronaut and not a mental case or an sfwriter: the ending is ambiguous.

   MJE/PN/JC