POYER, David C(harles)

(1949-)

   US writer who has published non-genre work as David Poyer, and sf variously as David C. Poyer, D.C. Poyer and David Andreissen. The Shiloh Project (1981) is set in the near future of an ALTERNATE WORLD inwhich the South had won the Battle of Gettysburg 120 years before. Star Seed (1982) as Andreissen places within a context of exceeding grimness -ALIENS have irrevocably poisoned Earth in an attempt to "terraform" it for their own needs - a tale of almost exuberant action: a surviving team composed of one human, one mutant and one dolphin subverts the eponymous starship to revolt against the "terraformers", then sets off to find another planet. In DCP's third and most interesting novel, Stepfather Bank (1987), set in a post- HOLOCAUST world dominated by a paternalist bank, arogue poet hornswoggles and destabilizes the entire AI-controlled system, which has in fact been working to preserve humanity as well as to control it.

   JC

   See also: UNDER THE SEA.