WATSON, Ian

(1943-)

   UK writer and teacher who lectured in English in Tanzania (1965-7) and Tokyo (1967-70) before beginning to publish sf with "Roof Garden Under Saturn" for NW in 1969; he then taught Future Studies for 6 years at Birmingham Polytechnic, taking there one of the first academic courses in sf in the UK; he has been a full-time writer since l976.IW has published over 100 short stories, at a gradually increasing tempo and with visibly increased mastery over the form; his collections are The Very Slow Time Machine (coll 1979), Sunstroke (coll 1982), Slow Birds (coll 1985),The Book of Ian Watson (coll 1985 US), Evil Water (coll 1987), Salvage Rites (1989), Stalin's Teardrops (coll 1991) and The Coming of Vertumnus (coll 1994). It is as a novelist, however, that he remains best known. His first novel, THE EMBEDDING (1973) won the Prix Apollo in 1975 in its French translation, L'enchassement; although it is not necessarily hisfinest work, it remains the title by virtue of which his stature as an sf writer of powerful intellect - the natural successor to H.G. WELLS - is most generally asserted. Through a complex tripartite plot, the book engages in a searching analysis (COMMUNICATIONS; LINGUISTICS; PERCEPTION) of the nature of communication through language; the Whorfian hypothesis that languages shape our perception of reality - a hypothesis very attractive, for obvious reasons, to sf writers - is bracingly embodied in at least two of the subplots: one describing a cruel experiment in which children are taught only an artificial language, and the other showing the ALIENS' attempt to understand Homo sapiens through an analysis of ourmodes of communication.Again and again, IW's novels reveal themselves to be very much of a piece, a series of thought experiments which spiral outwards from the same central obsessions about the nature of perception, the quest for what might be called the True Names that describe ultimate realities, and the terrible cost to human beings - in betrayals and self-betrayals - of searching for transcendence. The Jonah Kit (1975), which won the BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD for 1978, describes the imprinting of human consciousness into whales, and the transcendental whiffs of alien INTELLIGENCES to which those consciousnesses become heir. The Martian Inca (1977) reverses the operation, as a transformative virusinvades Earth. Alien Embassy (1977) foregrounds a constant IW preoccupation - his concern with the control of information and perception by the powers-that-be, generally governments - in a tale about the frustrated transformation of the human race. Miracle Visitors (1978) again combines speculations about perception and transcendence, in this case suggesting that UFOs work as enticements to focus human attention on higher states of communication. God's World (1979) reworks IW's ongoing concerns in yet another fashion, describing another ambivalent alien incursion, this time in the form of the "gift" of a stardrive which will take a selected team to the eponymous world, where they will undergo dangerous transfigurations.IW's first 6 novels, then, comprised a set of virtuoso variations on his central themes. His next, The Gardens of Delight (1980), conflates sf and fantasy to step sideways from the earlywork, describing a world whose transformative energies have resulted in an environment which precisely replicates the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch (1460-1516). Under Heaven's Bridge (dated1980 but 1981), with Michael BISHOP, shows the flavour of the latter writer's mind as its protagonist investigates an alien culture in terms more relevant to ANTHROPOLOGY than IW would alone have been inclined to employ; from 1980 on, his novels tended to show a greater inventiveness in plot and style, and some even attempted humour, though the impatience of his quick mind does not often make for successful light moments. Deathhunter (1981) suggests that humans give off a pheromone-like signalat the point of death, which attracts Death himself in the form of a mothlike insect (ESCHATOLOGY). Chekhov's Journey (1983), perhaps his least enticing novel through its entanglement in too large a cast (IW has never been a sharp delineator of character), revolves around the Tunguska explosion of 1908. The Black Current trilogy-The Book of the River (fixup 1984), The Book of the Stars (1984) and The Book of Being (1985), allassembled as The Books of the Black Current (omni 1986 US) - was his major 1980s effort; in a world divided by a mysterious and apparently sentientriver into two utterly opposed halves, the heroine Yaleen suffers rites of passage, uprootings, rebirths and transcendental awakenings as she becomes more and more deeply involved in a final conflict between the Worm and the Godmind, the latter's intentions being deeply inimical to the future ofhumanity. More expansive, and easier than his earlier books, the Black Current sequence has been, except for a tie (see listing below), IW'sclosest attempt to gain a wide readership.Subsequent books are if anything even more varied. Converts (1984) is a brisk comedy about EVOLUTION and the misuse of power. Queenmagic, Kingmagic (1986) is a slightly over-perky FANTASY based on chess and other board games. The Power (1987) and Meat(1988) are horror. Whores of Babylon (1988) is set in what may be a VIRTUAL-REALITY version of Babylon reconstructed in the USA, and details its protagonists' suspicions that a COMPUTER is generating them as well as the city. The Fire Worm (1988) is a complex and gripping tale in which the medieval Lambton Worm proves to be the alchemical salamander of Raymond Lully (Ramon Lull; c1235-1316). THE FLIES OF MEMORY (1988 IASFM; exp 1990)dazzlingly skates over much of the thematic material of the previous 20 books, as the eponymous aliens memorize bits of Earth so that the Universe can continue remembering itself, while various human protagonists embody linguistic concerns and dilemmas of perception. Space-opera antics continue en passant.IW's intelligent, polemical pieces about the nature of sf - many of which appeared in SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES, FOUNDATION (for which he served as features editor 1976-91, sitting on the Council of the SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION for the same period) and VECTOR - throw somelight on the intentions of his sometimes difficult fiction, and is also, in a sense, of a piece with it. As a whole, his work engages vociferously in battles against oppression - cognitive or political-while at the same time presenting a sense that reality, so far as humanity is concerned, is subjective and partial, created too narrowly through our perception of it. The generation of fuller realities - though incessantly adumbrated bymethods ranging from drugs through linguistic disciplines, focused meditation, radical changes in education from childhood up, and a kind of enhanced awareness of other perceptual possibilities - is never complete, never fully successful. Humans are too little, and too much, for reality. IW is perhaps the most impressive synthesizer in modern sf; and (it maybe) the least deluded.

   JC/PN

   Other works: Japan: A Cat's Eye View (1969 Japan), a juvenile; Orgasmachine (1976 France) with Judy Watson, a fable (never published in English) about the manufacture of custom-built girls; Japan Tomorrow (coll 1977), linked stories set in various projected Japanese futures; Kreuzflug ("Cruising") (coll 1987 Germany, in German trans); 3 Warhammer 40,000 ties (GAMES WORKSHOP): Inquisitor * (1990),Space Marine * (1993) and Harlequin * (1994); Nanoware Time (1991dos US); the Books of MANA sequence, elaborately intricate tales based on the Finnish Kalevala saga and set on a colony planet, comprising Lucky's Harvest (1993) and The Fallen Moon (1994). As Editor: Pictures at anExhibition (anth 1981); Changes: Stories of Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction about Startling Metamorphoses, both Psychological and Physical (anth 1983 US) with Michael Bishop; Afterlives: An Anthology of Stories about Life After Death (anth 1986 US) with Pamela SARGENT.

   About the author: The Work of Ian Watson: An Annotated Bibliography \& Guide (1989) by Douglas A. Mackey.

   See also: ANTIMATTER; ARTS; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; COSMOLOGY; CYBERNETICS; DEVOLUTION; GAMES AND SPORTS; GAME-WORLDS; HISTORY IN SF; INTERZONE; MACHINES; MARS; METAPHYSICS; NEW WAVE; NEW WORLDS; NEW WRITINGS IN SF; PASTORAL; PHYSICS; PSYCHOLOGY; RELIGION; SF IN THE CLASSROOM; SEX; SOCIOLOGY; SUPERMAN; TIME TRAVEL; UFOS; UNDER THE SEA; WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST.