MILAN, Victor (Woodward)

(1954-)

   US writer who has written under his own name and, it is understood, under more than just his one acknowledged pseudonym, Richard Austin. He began publishing sf with "Soldatenmangel" for Dragons ofDarkness (anth 1981) ed Orson Scott CARD. His first books were in the War of Powers sequence of fantasies with Robert E. VARDEMAN (whom see for titles) from 1984, but the next year he started publishing in his own right with The Cybernetic Samurai (1985); it and its sequel, The Cybernetic Shogun (1990), comprise the complicatedly and intriguingly toldstory of the embodiment and education of an AI given the bodily form of a samurai, and the subsequent warfare, which severely damages the entire world, between its/his two "children". Runespear (1987) with Melinda M. SNODGRASS is a fantasy set in 1936 in which the Nazi rulers of Germanyattempt to gain the eponymous spear and thus become invincible. As Richard Austin, VM has been responsible for the Guardians sequence of post-HOLOCAUST military-sf adventures: The Guardians (1985), \#2: Trial by Fire (1985), \#3: Thunder of Hell (1985), \#4: Night of the Phoenix (1985), \#5: Armageddon Run (1986), \#6: War Zone (1986), \#7: Brute Force (1986), \#8: Desolation Road (1987), \#9: Vengeance Day (1987), \#10: Freedom Fight (1988), \#11: Valley of the Gods (1988), \#12: The Plague Years (1988), \#13: Devil's Deal (1989), \#14: Death from Above (1989), \#15: Snake Eyes (1990) and \#16: Death Charge (1991).Subsequent work - which includes a Star Trek tie, From the Depths * (1993), a Wild Cards tie, Turn of the Cards* (1993), a Battletech tie, Close Quarters *(1994), and a lonely singleton,Red Sands (1992) - has not demonstrated any dauntingly explorative tendency. A fuller sense of VM's career awaits a better sense of its range and possible depths.

   JC

   See also: CYBERNETICS; LIBERTARIAN SF.