SPRUILL, Steven G(regory)

(1946-)

   US writer and psychologist. In his first sf novel, Keepers of the Gate (1977; rev 1978), a complicated adventure tale rather in the mode of Keith LAUMER, the alien Proteps of Eridani turn out to be an advanced form of Homo sapiens, and have been suppressing mankind's urge to the stars for selfish reasons; the generic cues for revelling in such a tale are deployed with some competence. He is best known for his Elias Kane sequence - even the protagonist's name seems to be a homage to Isaac ASIMOV's earlier detective Elijah Bailey - about an intelligently moodydetective and his superpowered sidekick: The Psychopath Plague (1978), The Imperator Plot (1982) and Paradox Planet (1988). The series seemsincomplete; but, although a template interminability attends Kane's repeated assignments, granted him by the current Imperator who rules Earth and several colonies, the passage of time is clearly marked throughout: the woman Kane falls in love with and marries in the 1st vol - whose deadly plague has been induced by aliens - is murdered in the 2nd; and the Imperator who is beheaded, but remains alive, in the 2nd - which concernsthis attempted assassination - has been succeeded in the 3rd, which is set on a heavy-gravity colony planet. A sense of potential interestingness pervades even the most convincingly unambitious of SGS's works.

   JC

   Other works: The Janus Equation (1980 dos); Hellstone (1981); The Genesis Shield (1985); My Soul to Take (1994), a medical sf thriller.