Ableman, Paul
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1927-2006) UK author and playwright who remains best-known for his first, non-fantastic novel, I Hear Voices (1958), though his first work of sf interest – "The Prophet Mackenbee" for Lucifer in 1952, about an sf author who surrounds himself with disciples in an absurd world – came earlier. The Twilight of the Vilp (1969) is not so much sf proper as an informed and sophisticated playing with the conventions of the genre in a Fabulation about the author of a work and his relation to its components. Distractingly, therefore, the galaxy-spanning Alien Vilp of the title cannot be taken literally. The Secret of Consciousness: How the Brain Tells "The Story of Me" (1999), which is nonfiction, radically challenges dualist mind/brain assumptions about the nature of consciousness, arguing instead that consciousness operates in the intersections between stored and incoming data. [JC]
Paul Victor Ableman
born Leeds, West Yorkshire: 13 June 1927
died London: 25 October 2006
works
- The Twilight of the Vilp (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979) [hb/Graham Bishop]
- The Secret of Consciousness: How the Brain Tells "The Story of Me" (London: Marion Boyars, 1999) [pb/Isia Leviant]
links
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