BETANCOURT, John Gregory

(1963-)

   US editor and writer who became involved in SMALL-PRESS publishing in his teens, his first professional sf sale-"Vernon's Dragon" for 100 Great Fantasy Short-Short Stories (anth 1984) ed Isaac ASIMOV, Terry CARR and Martin H. GREENBERG - being a reprint from a fan magazine. In the early 1980s he worked with editor George SCITHERS at AMZ, soon founding a literary agency with Scithers and Darrell SCHWEITZER; in 1987 the three of them relaunched WEIRD TALES. In 1989 JGB became an editor for Byron PREISS Visual Publications, Inc., an important sf packager. His first novel, Starskimmer * (1986), is a game tie. Rogue Pirate (1987) is fantasy, as is the more impressive The Blind Archer (1988), in whose ornate venue - the vast city of Zelloque - the CLUB STORIESassembled in Slab's Tavern and Other Uncanny Places (coll 1990 chap) are also set. His first book of direct sf interest, Johnny Zed (1988), embeds a somewhat desultory political analysis of revolutionary movements in a portrait of a NEAR FUTURE USA whose Congress has become a hereditary gift of the rich, and whose populace has become lassitudinous. The sf devices of his second novel of interest, Rememory (1990), include brain-scans and the bio-engineering of humans into animal shapes, but the mystery plot that sends the cat-person protagonist down the mean streets of a corrupt government does not, in itself, generate much interest. JGB seems an author of very ample skill but limited perspective - a sense of his career which, given his clear intelligence and ambition, could change overnight.

   JC

   Other works: A tied instalment in the Dr Bones enterprise, Dr Bones \#4: The Dragons of Komako * (1989).As Editor: Issues of Weird Tales, all with George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer, are Weird Tales: Spring 1988, Weird Tales: Winter 1990 and Weird Tales \#290 (1988) through Weird Tales \#299, Winter 1990/1991 (1991); contributions to the Bryon PREISS Ultimate sequence, includingThe Ultimate Frankenstein (anth 1991) and The Ultimate Werewolf (anth 1991), both with David Keller, Megan Miller and Byron Preiss, and The Ultimate Zombie (anth 1993) and The Ultimate Witch (anth 1993), both with Preiss alone; Letters of the Alien Publisher (coll 1991) with Charles C. RYAN; Performance Art (coll 1992 chap).As Jeremy Kingston: A tied contribution to the Time Tours sequence, Robert Silverberg's Time Tours \#6: Caesar's Time Legions * (1991).