Hoyle, Trevor
Entry updated 23 September 2024. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of UK author Trevor Smith (1940- ) who has also written as by Larry Milne and as by Joseph Rance. Most unusually, Hoyle has been able to apply an erudite surrealism to works directed towards a mass market, though he had not, however, yet mastered this technique for his first novel, The Relatively Constant Copywriter (1972), a dourly joky Fabulation which he self-published. He remains best known for his Q series beginning with Q: Seeking the Mythical Future (1977), set in a variety of Parallel Worlds and detailing the work and crises of its overall protagonist, a Myth Technologist located in the Far Future who, in Q: Through the Eye of Time (1977), must cope with the re-creation, on an Alternate World, of an experimental Adolf Hitler whose existence threatens to leak into our own familiar Earth (see Hitler Wins).
Hoyle's mature range was demonstrated by the publication, both in the same year, of Earth Cult (1979; vt This Sentient Earth 1979), an unremarkable sf adventure involving a Living World, and The Man Who Travelled on Motorways (1979), an intensely crafted hegira (see Transportation) through the apocalyptic inscapes of a UK approaching the end. The Last Gasp (1983; rev 1990) is a salutary dreadful-warning tale about terminal Pollution, implying very clearly that humanity's behaviour could be described as lemming-like, though the survivors do manage to establish and inhabit a Space Habitat. Vail (1984), once again focusing on motorways, presents a Near-Future UK in Dystopian terms. K.I.D.S. (1987; vt Kids 1990) is a horror tale which climaxes in nuclear Holocaust. A later tale, Mirrorman (1999) returns to the vertiginous recursions of the Q series, as an assassin is required to kill the same victim in a succession of Parallel Worlds. It may be that, in finding several audiences, Hoyle failed to find any one audience that properly recognizes him; but he retained faithful readers, who continued to look for his work. [JC]
Trevor Smith
born Rochdale, Lancashire: 25 February 1940
works
series
Q
- Q: Seeking the Mythical Future (St Albans, Hertfordshire: Panther, 1977) [Q: pb/Peter Gudynas]
- Q: Through the Eye of Time (St Albans, Hertfordshire: Panther, 1977) [Q: pb/Peter Gudynas]
- Q: The Gods Look Down (London: Panther, 1977) [Q: pb/Peter Gudynas]
Blake's 7
- Terry Nation's Blake's 7 (London: BBC Books, 1977) [tie to the television series: Blake's 7: pb/]
- Terry Nation's Blake's 7: Their First Adventure (New York: Lyle Stuart/Citadel Press, 1988) [tie to the television series: vt of the above: Blake's 7: pb/Norris Burroughs]
- Terry Nation's Blake's 7 #2: Project Avalon (London: BBC Books, 1979) [tie to the television series: Blake's 7: pb/]
- Terry Nation's Blake's 7: Project Avalon (New York: Lyle Stuart/Citadel Press, 1988) [tie to the television series: vt of the above: Blake's 7: pb/]
- Terry Nation's Blake's 7 #3: Scorpio Attack (London: BBC Books, 1981) [tie to the television series: Blake's 7: pb/]
- Terry Nation's Blake's 7: Scorpio Attack (New York: Lyle Stuart/Citadel Press, 1988) [tie to the television series: vt of the above: Blake's 7: pb/]
individual titles
- The Relatively Constant Copywriter (Manchester, England: Northern Writers, 1972) [pb/nonpictorial]
- Earth Cult (London: Panther, 1979) [pb/Peter Elson]
- This Sentient Earth (New York: Zebra Books, 1979) [vt of the above: pb/]
- The Man Who Travelled on Motorways (London: John Calder, 1979) [hb/]
- The Stigma (London: Sphere Books, 1980) [pb/]
- The Last Gasp (New York: Crown Publishers, 1983) [hb/Michael Booth]
- The Last Gasp (London: Grafton Books, 1990) [rev of the above: pb/David O'Connor]
- Vail (London: John Calder, 1984) [hb/]
- Biggles: The Movie (London: Severn House, 1986) as by Larry Milne [tie to the film Biggles (1986): hb/]
- K.I.D.S. (London: Sphere Books, 1987) [pb/]
- Kids (New York: Berkley Books, 1990) [vt of the above: pb/]
- Mirrorman (London: Virgin Worlds, 1999) [pb/]
links
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