TURNER, Frederick

(1943-)

   UK-born writer, in the USA from 1967, best known for his POETRY, though his first book of sf interest, A Double Shadow (1978), is a novel. Set on a FAR-FUTURE terraformed MARS, it depicts in dying-Earth flavoursthe conflicts of two characters who represent deeply contrasting classes of evolved humans; their strife leads them to transcend their volatile human condition. THE NEW WORLD: AN EPIC POEM (1985) more daringly takes the form of a book-length narrative poem. In a 24th-century balkanized USA 3 men vie to marry the heroine, herself stubbornly attached to an earlierlover. After much adventuring and a series of disquisitions on the UTOPIAN lifestyle achieved by the heroine's rural culture, the long tale ends in the mass-suicide of the villainous fundamentalists who have been threatening this society and with the resumption of her sanctioned relationship. Cumbersome at certain points, the book works in the end as an advocacy of and paean to the good life. Genesis: An Epic Poem (1988) is perhaps less successful but, in its successful presentation of a believable MARS, demonstrates its author's very considerable gifts.

   JC