Bock, Dennis
Entry updated 31 July 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1964- ) Canadian teacher and author, active from the late 1990s, most of whose work has been nonfantastic. His first novel, Going Home Again (2013), is an analysis of the consequences of World War Two through the interwoven stories of its three afflicted protagonists. He is of specific sf interest for The Good German (2020), an Alternate History tale whose Jonbar Point is the successful assassination of Hitler in 1939; it is not technically a Hitler Wins story, but Germany is indeed victorious: Hermann Göring reaches an accommodation with the American president Joseph Kennedy (1888-1969) in 1944, and London suffers nuclear devastation later the same year. Canada becomes a client state of the Soviet Union. In 1960, fitting the Scientific Romance tone of the narrative, a young man attempts to understand the nature of the world through conversations with Hitler's assassin who, having been blinded during the destruction of London, lives in a Toronto hospice. Bock's balanced but unswerving clarity as an author, and his lack of interest in figures at the very moment they have changed the world on their own hook, mark him as a Canadian of the new century. [JC]
Dennis Bock
born Belleville, Ontario: 28 August 1964
works (selected)
- Going Home Again (Toronto, Ontario: HarperCollins, 2013) [hb/]
- The Good German (Toronto, Ontario: HarperCollins, 2020) [pb/]
links
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