Shippey, Tom
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.
Working name of Indian-born academic and editor Thomas A Shippey (1943- ), in the UK from childhood; Professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Leeds 1979-1993; held the Walter J Ong Chair of Humanities at St Louis University 1993-2008. In essays and reviews, which he has been publishing since the mid-1970s, he takes a clear-headed orthodox view of the central figures of sf and fantasy; Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction (coll 1991) assembles some of this work. The Road to Middle-Earth (1982) and J R R Tolkien: Author of the Century (2000) are studies of J R R Tolkien, the latter featuring a hilarious exposé of the inadequacies of academic critics when they attempt to explain away the author's astonishing success. Shippey also edited The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories (anth 1992), in the Introduction to which he espouses James Bradley's notion that sf is a literature whose central image is "the creator of artefacts" or Homo "fabril"; a second anthology, The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (anth 1994), was more carefully put together. Shippey cowrote the theme entries on Magic and History in SF in this encyclopedia. He has also written short sf under the pseudonym Tom Allen, and the Hammer and Cross sequence, beginning with The Hammer and the Cross (1993), all as by John Holm, with Harry Harrison, who see for details. He won an IAFA Award as Distinguished Guest Scholar in 1996. [JC]
see also: Relativity.
Thomas Alan Shippey
born Calcutta, India: 9 September 1943
works
series
Hammer and Cross
- The Hammer and the Cross (London: Legend, 1993) as by John Holm, with Harry Harrison [Hammer and Cross: hb/Gino D'Achille]
- One King's Way (London: Legend, 1995) as by John Holm, with Harry Harrison [Hammer and Cross: hb/Mick Posen]
- Warriors of the Way (New York: Science Fiction Books Club, 1995) as by John Holm, with Harry Harrison [omni of the above two: Hammer and Cross: hb/Ken Kelly]
- King and Emperor (London: Legend, 1996) as by John Holm, with Harry Harrison [Hammer and Cross: hb/Mick Posen]
nonfiction
- The Road to Middle-Earth (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982) [nonfiction: J R R Tolkien: hb/]
- The Road to Middle-Earth: 2nd Enlarged Edition (London: Grafton, 1982) [nonfiction: exp vt of the above: hb/John Howe]
- The Road to Middle-Earth: Revised and Expanded Edition (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1982) [nonfiction: exp vt of the above: hb/]
- The Road to Middle-Earth: Revised and Expanded Edition (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1982) [nonfiction: exp of the above: hb/Alan Lee]
- The Road to Middle-Earth: Revised and Expanded Edition (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1982) [nonfiction: exp vt of the above: hb/]
- The Road to Middle-Earth: 2nd Enlarged Edition (London: Grafton, 1982) [nonfiction: exp vt of the above: hb/John Howe]
- Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1991) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
- J R R Tolkien: Author of the Century (London: HarperCollins, 2000) [nonfiction: J R R Tolkien: hb/]
- Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press, 2016) [nonfiction: hb/Gray Morrow]
works as editor
- Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia, 1993) with George E Slusser [nonfiction: anth: Cyberpunk: Eaton Conference Papers: hb/Larry Webb]
- The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1992) [anth: hb/Victor Stabin]
- The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1994) [anth: hb/Peter Lyon]
- Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature (Pasadena, California: Salem Press, 1996) with A J Sobczak [nonfiction: anth: published in four volumes: hb/nonpictorial]
- The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005) [nonfiction: anth: hb/uncredited]
links
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