TATE, Peter

(1940 -)

   Welsh journalist and author who began publishing sf with "The Post-Mortem People" for NW in 1966; this was assembled with his other short fiction as Seagulls under Glass and Other Stories (coll 1975 US). His first novel, The Thinking Seat (1969 US), began a loose sequence oftales featuring the charismatic and guru-like Simeon; it was followed by Moon on an Iron Meadow (1974 US) and Faces in the Flames (1976 US). Alldemonstrate an interest in POLITICS, and Moon on an Iron Meadow in particular shows a deep concern about biological weapons - it also manifests the extent to which PT had been influenced by Ray BRADBURY, the bulk of the story taking place in Bradbury's imaginary Green Town, Illinois. PT published 3 other novels: Gardens 12345 (1971; vt Gardens Oneto Five 1971 US), Country Love and Poison Rain (1973), probably the first sf novel about Welsh Nationalism - it concerns the political repercussions of the discovery of a secret NATO cache of deadly nerve gas in the Brecon Beacons-and Greencomber (1979 US), a surly and metaphor-choked tale of abattered NEAR FUTURE UK rather reminiscent of the work of Keith ROBERTS, but without that writer's shaping power.

   MJE

   See also: POLLUTION.