BOSTON, Bruce

(1943-)

   US poet (POETRY) and short-story writer whose early work tended to the surreal, but who began - with stories like "Break" for New Worlds 7 (anth 1974) ed Hilary BAILEY and Charles PLATT - to invoke fantasy and sf themes. His early poetry - much of it not genre at all, and almost all of it couched in a classically lucid voice - can most easily be approached through The Bruce Boston Omnibus (omni 1987), which assembles various early chapbooks; titles of interest include Jackbird: Tales of Illusion \& Identity (coll 1976 chap). Later poetry appears in The Nightmare Collector (coll 1989 chap) ,Faces of the Beast (coll 1990 chap), Cybertexts (coll 1992 chap), the impressive Chronicles of the Mutant Rain Forest (coll 1992), this last volume with Robert FRAZIER, Accursed Wives (coll 1993 chap) and Specula: Selected Uncollected Poems (coll 1993 chap). Because his prose fictions tend to the densely surreal and to FABULATION, it is not easy to know when his work first began to merge with FANTASY and sf, though "Break" (noted above) may come close to being his first of genre interest. Collections and prose works include She Comes when You're Leaving \& Other Stories (coll 1982 chap), Skin Trades (coll 1988 chap), Hypertales \& Metafictions (coll 1990 chap),Short Circuits (coll 1990 chap dos), Houses \& Other Stories (coll 1991 chap) and Night Eyes (coll 1993 chap); independent tales include Der Flusternde Spiegel (1985 chap Germany; trans and rev as After Magic 1990 chap) and All the Clocks are Melting (1991 chap).

   JC