Barnes, Jonathan
Entry updated 20 February 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1979- ) UK author who also writes as J S Barnes; the Somnambulist sequence beginning with The Somnambulist (2007) is a complex detective thriller set in a Steampunk version of Late Victorian London, congenially evoking some of the affirming affect created by Tim Powers in The Anubis Gates (1984) and other tales. The stage magician Edward Moon and his giant mute assistant, who is known as The Somnambulist, are drawn into the darker side of the great City. In the second volume, The Domino Men (2008), years later, London seems to have been sold to the Devil by Queen Victoria. The eponymous Mysterious Stranger who crops up throughout the nineteenth century in Cannonbridge (2015) is seemingly a famous author, but may not exist.
Barnes has produced a number of audio adaptations of various authors and series, and has written two Sequels by Other Hands. Dracula's Child (London: Titan Books, 2020) as J S Barnes, taking off the Bram Stoker's original, focuses on the son of Jonathan and Mina Harker some years later; darkness soon threatens his life. The City of Dr Moreau (2021) as J S Barnes similarly shift H G Wells's novel some years hence, where the subtext assault on Imperialism is intensified as the Beast People become migrants at the same time a new virus (see Pandemic) is imported into the West. [JC]
Jonathan Barnes
born UK: 1979
works
Somnambulist
- The Somnambulist (London: Gollancz, 2007) [Somnambulist: hb/W H Phillips/Blacksheep]
- The Domino Men (London: Gollancz, 2008) [Somnambulist: hb/]
individual titles
- Cannonbridge (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Solaris, 2015) [pb/Erik Mohr]
- Dracula's Child (London: Titan Books, 2020) [pb/]
- The City of Dr Moreau (London: Titan Books, 2021) as J S Barnes [pb/]
collections and stories
- On the Twelfth Night (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Rebellion Publishing/Abaddon Books, 2016) [story: ebook: William Shakespeare: na/Sam Gretton]
links
previous versions of this entry