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Jakubowski, Maxim

Entry updated 23 October 2023. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.

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(1944-    ) UK critic, publisher, bookseller, translator, anthologist and author. He was educated in France and writes in both French and English. After some time as a company director in the flavour industry, he turned to publishing, becoming Managing Director of Virgin Books (1980-1983) and then taking up directorships of Zomba and Rainbird. Between 1988 and his retirement in 2009 he ran the Murder One bookshop, in central London, which specialized in mysteries; between 1991 and 2005 this incorporated the New Worlds sf outlet. As an author he has published about thirty books, those in English mostly concerning rock music and the mystery field. Generally more at ease in short-story length, in both French and English, he began publishing fiction of genre interest in English with "Lines of White on a Sullen Sea" for New Worlds, September/October 1969. This took place in the Jerry Cornelius Shared World opened by Michael Moorcock for contributors to the magazine. Jakubowski's sf has tended to be marginal, and his preoccupation with doomed love, music, Sex and death has more often been expressed in mainstream fiction, mostly erotic thrillers, the most interesting of these in terms of the fantastic being American Casanova: The New Adventures of the Legendary Lover (2006), in which Casanova is reborn into twenty-first-century Venice.

He has edited several Anthologies for the French market, perhaps the most interesting being the two volumes of the Galaxies Intérieures ["Interior Galaxies"] sequence, beginning with Galaxies intérieures: une anthologie de science-fiction moderne britannique ["Interior Galaxies: An Anthology of Modern British Science Fiction"] (anth 1977), the title being a play on Inner Space and appropriately selecting stories almost exclusively from the British New Wave. He has also edited several English-language anthologies: Travelling towards Epsilon: An Anthology of French Science Fiction (anth trans Beth Blish and Jakubowski 1976), Twenty Houses of the Zodiac: An Anthology of International Science Fiction (anth 1979), Lands of Never: An Anthology of Modern Fantasy (anth 1983) and Beyond Lands of Never: A Further Anthology of Modern Fantasy (anth 1984), the latter two being Original Anthologies of fantasy. Most of his later anthology releases have been in the mystery field as part of the Mammoth series of anthologies by various hands, though The Mammoth Book of Erotica (anth 1994) contains material of genre interest, as do The Mammoth Book of On the Road (anth 2002) and The Mammoth Book of Future Cops (anth 2003).

With Malcolm Edwards Jakubowski wrote The Complete Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Lists (1983; rev vt The SF Book of Lists 1983), and with Edward James he edited The Profession of Science Fiction: Sf Writers on Their Craft and Ideas (anth 1992), a selection of pieces taken from the journal Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction. He was at one point erroneously recorded as author of Cheon of Weltanland: The Four Wishes (1983), as by Charlotte Stone; this was in fact written by Charles [ie Charlotte] Nightingale and Dominique Roche [ie Stone], for whom Jakubowski acted as agent. [MJ/PN/JC]

Maxim Jakubowski

born London: 1944

works

works as editor (selected)

series

Galaxies Intérieures

Lands of Never

individual titles as editor

nonfiction

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