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Perry, Steve

Entry updated 9 January 2023. Tagged: Author.

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(1947-    ) US author, father of S D Perry, who began publishing sf with "With Clean Hands" as by Jesse Peel in Galaxy for December 1977/January 1978, and whose first novel, The Tularemia Gambit (1981), combines sf with elements of the hardboiled detective genre. After two Ties for the Time Machine sequence produced by the Byron Preiss packaging enterprise – Sword of the Samurai (1984) with Michael Reaves and Civil War Secret Agent (1984) – and an effective sf adventure, Hellstar (1984) with Reaves, Perry finally came into his own with the Matador sequence, beginning with The Man Who Never Missed (1985) and ending with The Musashi Flesh (2006) all set in the Matador universe. Khadaji, the sequence's hero, rebels against a violent military dictatorship using his skill at martial arts to mock the enemy into impotence; in his raffish insouciance, he rather resembles Leslie Charteris's Saint. The first volume takes its title from the fact that Khadaji has stolen a fixed number of non-lethal Poison darts and proceeds to knock out precisely that number of government figures with them, never once missing, and generating a revolt through mirth; the book might be called an exercise in muscular pacifism. Subsequent volumes do not build on the success of the first, but neither do they significantly decline. The Stellar Ranger sequence comprising Stellar Ranger (1994) and Lone Star (1995) are Space Operas specifically couched as Westerns. Of Perry's singletons, Dome (1987) with Reaves makes efficient use of its Post-Holocaust submarine setting, as AIs come gradually to dominate the new world; several, like Thong the Barbarian Meets the Cycle Sluts of Saturn (1998) with Michael Reaves, are spoofs. Perry has never written incompetently, though it may be he has never stretched himself. [JC]

Steven Carl Perry

born Baton Rouge, Louisiana: 31 August 1947

works

series

Time Machine

Matador/Khadaji

Conan

Aliens

Aliens vs Predator

Predator

Venture Silk

Stellar Ranger

Star Wars

Star Wars: Clone Wars

Tom Clancy's Net Force

These works are all Ties to the Tom Clancy concept.

Cutter's War

individual titles

nonfiction

links

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