BELL, Clare (Louise)

(1952-)

   UK-born writer, in the USA from 1957; a test-equipment engineer for a computer firm 1978-90. She began publishing sf with Ratha's Creature (1983), the first volume of the Ratha Ya sequence of juveniles - continued with Clan Ground (1984) and Ratha and Thistle-Chaser (1990)-which delineates the lives of an ALTERNATE-WORLD tribe of intelligent cougar-like felines, concentrating on Ratha, a rebel who becomes necessary for the survival of her people. Tomorrow's Sphinx (1986), also an sf juvenile but this time about an intelligent cheetah, is set on an Earth abandoned by the humans who have devastated it. In People of the Sky (1989), for adults, an Amerindian star-pilot discovers a planet inhabited by Pueblos; their relationship to the indigenous insect ALIENS, which they ride like horses, and the puzzle of their existence generate sufficient mystery to keep the competent narrative on the move. CB might choose to inhabit the consciousnesses of sentient animals - as in The Jaguar Princess (1993), a fantasy - or of a member of a culture foreign to her own (such as an Amerindian), but the true "aliens" in her imaginative world are the (human) representatives of technological society. In collaboration with M. Coleman EASTON, with whom she lives, both writing as Clare Coleman, she has published the Ancient Pacific series, Daughter of the Reef (1992), Sister of the Sun (1993) and Child of the Dawn (1994); they are essentially historical in nature.

   JC