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Boffard, Rob

Entry updated 29 January 2024. Tagged: Author.

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(1984-    ) South African author also resident in London and Vancouver, who has also published sf as by Jackson Ford (see below). His Near Future Outer Earth sequence, beginning with Tracer (2015), is set partly on Earth and partly on an enormous Space Station in near-Earth orbit. Containing the remnants of Homo sapiens after the desecration and depopulation of Earth, this Space Habitat serves as a Keep to preserve the species, though the protagonists of the final volume of the trilogy, Impact (2016), having heard what seems to be a signal that the planet may be inhabitable after all, do return home. The Ruined Earth they find there may contain some hope.

Boffard's first singleton, the novel Adrift (2018), begins in another space habitat reachable via Wormhole, once a mining station but now a vast resort hotel in interstellar space, where a group of tourists and guides assemble to visit the seemingly nearby Horsehead Nebula. But the habitat is destroyed by enemy action, and their shuttle (see Ship of Fools) is severely damaged; the survivors are left to cope, under increasing stress. Eventually the challenge is met.

The Frost Files sequence beginning with The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind (2019) as by Jackson Ford is a very mildly gonzo exercise in adventure sf featuring a protagonist whose Psi Power of Telekinesis gets her into and out of trouble. In the first instalment, murder complicates matters in the present-day Los Angeles setting (see California); in the second, Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air (2020), the City of Los Angeles comes under threat from a fellow "psychokinetic" capable of causing earthquakes. [JC]

Rob Boffard

born Johannesburg, South Africa: 1984

works

series

Outer Earth

  • Tracer (London: Orbit, 2015) [Outer Earth: pb/]
  • Zero-G (London: Orbit, 2016) [Outer Earth: pb/Nico Taylor]
  • Impact (London: Orbit, 2016) [Outer Earth: pb/]
    • Outer Earth (London: Orbit, 2018) [omni of the above three: Outer Earth: pb/]

The Frost Files

individual titles

  • Adrift (London: Orbit, 2018) [pb/]

links

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