TURNER, George (Reginald)

(1916-)

   Australian writer and sf critic. His connection with sf came quite late in life, long after the publication 1959-67 of his first 5 (mainstream) novels. (There has since been a 6th, Transit of Cassidy [1978].) He became well known for somewhat stern sf criticism in the 1970s, published in SF COMMENTARY, FOUNDATION and elsewhere, and ed The View from the Edge (anth 1977), stories from a major Australian sf workshop; GT then began writing sf himself. His first sf novel was Beloved Son (1978 UK), in which an interstellar expedition returns to Earth inAD2032 to find a diminished post- HOLOCAUST population with very few old people, and a radically changed and somewhat merciless culture; the scenario is complicated by developments in GENETIC ENGINEERING. The book is perhaps ponderous, but was well received for its careful exploration of some plausible moral problems of the NEAR FUTURE. The other novels in this Ethical Culture series - different protagonists but a common background -are Vaneglory (1981 UK) and Yesterday's Men (1983 UK). They are serious and interesting, but the characteristic solemnity of their presentation has alienated some. The first piece in the series was the story "In a Petri Dish Upstairs" (1978), one of 8 stories collected in Pursuit ofMiracles (coll 1990).Astonishingly, for he was now in his 70s, GT then changed gear. His next 2 novels are more fluid and spirited than his earlier work, though sharing with them a (this time different) 21st-century setting. The Sea and Summer (1987 UK; vt Drowning Towers 1988US), closely related to the earlier story "The Fittest" (1985), marked his breakthrough into the US market, with a genuinely distinguished and deeply imagined story of life in an overpopulated city in a future where Australia and the world's littorals are being drowned by the slowly risingocean, a result of greenhouse-effect global warming; it won the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD in 1988. Brain Child (1985 in Strange Attractors, anth edDamien BRODERICK, as "On the Nursery Floor"; much exp1991 US) is a thriller whose narrator slowly uncovers the story of a scientific experiment in genetic manipulation designed to enhance INTELLIGENCE (of which he is in part a product) and learns of the superhumans that may have resulted. This study in the ethics of superiority (SUPERMAN) incorporates the story "On the Nursery Floor" (1985). In the autobiographical In the Heart or In the Head (1984), GT describes his relationship with sf, anddisplays a certain waspishness. He may be his country's most distinguished sf writer.

   PN

   Other works: Genetic Soldier (1994).

   See also: AUSTRALIA; CHILDREN IN SF; ECOLOGY; ECONOMICS; FASTER THAN LIGHT.