MORAN, Daniel Keys

(1962-)

   US writer who began publishing sf with, for IASFM in 1982, "All the Time in the World", a tale which on expansion became his first novel and the first volume of his projected Tales of the Great Wheel of Existence series, The Armageddon Blues (fixup 1988). The story begins inan unremarkable post- HOLOCAUST USA and features a not unusual mutant barbarian female who hunts for a living; but, on her discovery of a time machine left by aliens, the plot soon begins to move in complicated leaps through time and space, engaging both the protagonist and an entropy-reversing long-lived SUPERMAN (whom she discovers in 1968) in a long arduous campaign to prevent the end of civilization. A second series, Tales of the Continuing Time, is projected to extend to 33 vols, althoughonly 3 have appeared to date, Emerald Eyes (1988),The Long Run (1989) and The Last Dancer (1993). They feature the campaign - which again might bedescribed as long and arduous - of a group of genetically engineered telepaths (ESP) to maintain their existence in a world of hostile normals. The sequence as a whole is planned to deal with the descendants of the last telepath still to be alive at the close of The Last Dancer. A singleton, The Ring * (1988), tied to a projected film version of Wagner's Ring cycle, places its GODS (rationalized as genetically engineeredsuperbeings) in a SPACE-OPERA venue. DKM displays very considerable energy and some humour, shows a fine VAN VOGT-style recklessness with superman plots, and has demonstrated a copious ambition.

   JC