Paul McAuley

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Paul McAuley at Worldcon 2005 in Glasgow

Paul McAuley (born April 23, 1955), a British botanist, award-winning author, and self-described science junkie.

By training a biologist, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.

McAuley started out writing far-future space opera with Four Hundred Billion Stars, its sequel Eternal Light, and the planetary-colony adventure Of the Fall. Red Dust, set on a far-future Mars colonised by the Chinese, is a planetary romance filled with all the latest SF ideas: nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, personality downloads, virtual reality. The Confluence trilogy, set in an even more distant future (about ten million years ahead), is one of a number of novels to use Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory as part of its machinery. In the middle of this, he published Pasquale's Angel, set in an alternate Italian Renaissance and featuring Niccolò Machiavegli (Machiavelli) and Leonardo da Vinci in prominent roles.

McAuley has also used biotech and nanotech themes in near-future settings: Fairyland describes a dystopian, war-torn Europe where genetically engineered "dolls" are used as disposable slaves. Since 2001 he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.

Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel. "The Temptation of Dr. Stein," won the British Fantasy Award. Pasquale's Angel won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (Long Form).

Also known as Paul J. McAuley.

[edit] Bibliography

Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988) ^[1]
Of the Fall (vt Secret Harmonies, 1989)
Eternal Light (1991) ^[1]
Red Dust (1993)
Pasquale's Angel (1994)
Fairyland (1995)
The Confluence Series:
- Child of the River (1997)
- Ancients of Days (1998)
- Shrine of Stars (1999)
Making History (2000)
The Secret of Life (2001)
Whole Wide World (2002)
The Eye of the Tyger (2004) (a Doctor Who novella)
White Devils (2004)
Mind's Eye (2005)