Irvine, Alexander C
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1969- ) US author who often writes as Alex Irvine; he began to publish work of genre interest with "Rossetti Song" for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in March 2000, assembling this and other short work of interest in Rossetti Song: Four Stories (coll 2002 chap), Unintended Consequences (coll 2003) and Pictures from an Expedition (coll 2006). Irvine's main impact in the fields of the fantastic has been as an author of densely imaginative fantasies, including A Scattering of Jades (2002), One King, One Soldier (2004) and The Narrows (2005), the latter verging at points on sf in its depiction of life in Detroit during World War Two in an Alternate World containing worker golems.
Of more direct sf interest are his later sf novels. In The Life of Riley (2005), a Forerunner race of Aliens attempts to retrofit through Genetic Engineering a salvational eco-consciousness into the human race, though vivid sequences set in a drowned New York hint that Climate Change has become irreversible. Buyout (2009) is a Satire with noir overtones set a century hence in a world locked into an intensely invasive electronic environment: the tale is as savagely ambivalent about the corrosive loss of privacy in the new world as David Marusek's Counting Heads (2005). And Anthropocene Rag (2020), set in a desolated surrealized distant Near Future America, traces the Fantastic Voyage of an AI in search of some meaning in the fragments of the stories once told and perhaps believed, in the days of empire.
Also of sf interest are three Ties: Asimov's Have Robot, Will Travel (2004), tied to the Asimov Robots Shared World; Batman: Inferno (2006), tied to the film; and Iron Man: Virus (2010), tied to the Comic. [JC]
Alexander Christian Irvine
born Ann Arbor, Michigan: 22 March 1969
works
series
Iron Man
- Iron Man: Virus (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2010) [tie to the Marvel Comics universe: Iron Man: pb/uncredited]
- Iron Man 2 (New York: Grand Central, 2010) [tie to the Marvel Comics universe film: Iron Man 2: Iron Man: pb/uncredited]
Transformers
- Transformers: Exodus (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2010) as Alex Irvine [tie to the Transformers universe: Transformers: hb/John van Fleet]
- Transformers: Exiles (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2011) as Alex Irvine [tie to the Transformers universe: Transformers: hb/John van Fleet]
individual titles
- A Scattering of Jades (New York: Tor, 2002) [hb/John Jude Palencar]
- One King, One Soldier (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2004) [pb/Evan Gaffney]
- Asimov's Have Robot, Will Travel (New York: ibooks, 2004) [tie: Asimov's Robots: hb/Luis Royo]
- The Life of Riley (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2005) [hb/Patrick Arrasmith]
- The Narrows (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2005) [pb/David Stevenson]
- Batman: Inferno (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2006) [tie to the film: pb/John van Fleet]
- Against All Enemies (New York: Pocket Star, 2007) [tie to the Comic: pb/John van Fleet]
- Buyout (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2009) [pb/Larry Rostant]
- Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal (New York: HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2009) [tie to the Shared World series: Supernatural: hb/James Iacobelli]
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Seal of Karga Kul (Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast, 2010) [tie to the Role Playing Game: Dungeons & Dragons: pb/Wayne Reynolds]
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The Official Movie Novelization (London: Titan Books, 2014) [tie to the film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: pb/]
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (New York: Marvel, 2014) [tie: hb/]
- Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars (New York: Marvel, 2015) [tie to the Marvel Comics universe: hb/Mick Zeck/Tom Smith]
- Pacific Rim (New York: Titan Books, 2018) [tie to the film: Pacific Rim: pb/]
- Tom Clancy's The Division: Broken Dawn (New York: Berkley, 2019) [pb/Abrar Khan & Alexander Zwolski]
- Anthropocene Rag (New York: Tor.com, 2020) [pb/Drive Communications]
collections and stories
- Rossetti Song: Four Stories (New York: Small Beer Press, 2002) [coll: chap: pb/]
- Down in the Fog-Shrouded City (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Wormhole Books, 2002) [story: chap: hb/Steve Rasnic Tem]
- Unintended Consequences (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2003) [coll: hb/Patrick Arrasmith]
- Two Tales (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2005) [coll: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
- Pictures from an Expedition (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2006) [coll: pb/Patrick Arrasmith]
- Mystery Hill (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2009) [novella: chap: first appeared January 2008 F&SF: hb/Ben Baldwin]
- Mare Ultima (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2012) [novella: chap: hb/Ben Baldwin]
links
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