MONTELEONE, Thomas F(rancis)

(1946-)

   US writer active in sf since 1972, first with book reviews in AMZ, then with short stories, beginning with "Wendigo's Child" for Monster Tales (anth 1973) ed Roger ELWOOD. Two of his stories have received NEBULA nominations; nine of them (plus a play) are collected in Dark Stars, and Other Illuminations (coll 1981). These were more ambitious than most ofhis work at novel length, which is undemanding adventure fiction, starting with Seeds of Change (1975 Canada); this is of interest in that, as the first of the LASER BOOKS, it was issued free to libraries and booksellers as a promotional item in order to generate sales of later titles. TFM's subsequent sf novels include The Time-Swept City (fixup 1977), featuring a city-controlling COMPUTER developing sentience; The Secret Sea (1979), with Jules VERNE's Captain Nemo and the Nautilus turning up in one of a set of PARALLEL WORLDS; and the entertaining post- HOLOCAUST Guardian sequence: Guardian (1980) and Ozymandias (1981); in the first volume a pre-holocaust supercomputer is found, and in the second it is incarnated in a human body. The rather derivative Dragonstar sequence with David F. BISCHOFF - Day of the Dragonstar (1983), Night of the Dragonstar (1985)and Dragonstar Destiny (1989) - is about First Contact with a saurian race aboard a vast, alien spacecraft. In 1980 TFM moved to horror/dark fantasy with Night Things (1980), returning to it with Night-Train (1984) and later with others.TFM is a thoughtful editor. His 2 sf theme anthologies are The Arts, and Beyond: Visions of Man's Aesthetic Future (anth 1977) and R-A-M: Random Access Messages of the Computer Age (anth 1984; vt Microworlds: SF Stories of the Computer Age 1985 UK). His 2 horroranthologies are Borderlands (anth 1990),Borderlands II (anth 1991) and Borderlands III (anth 1994).

   PN

   Other works: The Time Connection (1976), sf; Lyrica (1987), The Magnificent Gallery (1987), Crooked House (1987) with John DECHANCIE and Fantasma (1989),The Blood of the Lamb (1992), all horror.

   See also: ARTS.