WINGROVE, David (John)

(1954-)

   UK writer whose career breaks into 2 logical sequences. In the first he concentrated on critical work, the earliest significant example of which - The Immortals of Science Fiction (written 1980) - was printed but never released (although apparently copies have been circulated). Apertures: A Study of the Writings of Brian Aldiss (1984), with BrianGRIFFIN, was both admiring and reasonably comprehensive, and marked a close association with its subject, who introduced The Science Fiction Source Book (1984), which packs into relatively few pages a surprisinglycomprehensive "Consumer's Guide" to sf novels; its main flaw is its sublimely overcomplicated quadripartite rating system. Aldiss then invited DW to participate with him in revising his energetic history of sf,Billion Year Spree (1973); the result, published as Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (1986), with DW listed as co-author, attempts with partial success to sustain the elan of its much shorter parent, but falters in its coverage of the late 1970s and 1980s. It received a HUGO.DW's career then changed direction, being subsequently dominated by the release of the first vols of his enormous Chung Kuo sequence, projected to reach 8 vols, and to date comprising The Middle Kingdom (1989), The Broken Wheel (1990), The White Mountain (1991), TheStone Within (1992), Beneath the Tree of Heaven (1993) and White Moon, Red Dragon (1994). Set in a 22nd- and 23rd-century Earth dominated by a monolithic Chinese hegemony which has successfully stymied all technological development, the sequence elaborately delineates a stalled and static culture, and clearly seems to be preparing the scene for a radical transformation of the world; the early volumes, perhaps consequently, are stronger as dynastic history than as sf.

   JC

   See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; DEFINITIONS OF SF; GOTHIC SF; PROTO SCIENCE FICTION.