Latimer, Alex
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) South African illustrator and author, initially of self-illustrated tales for younger children beginning with the Boy Who Cried Ninja (graph 2011) [not listed below]; he has also written in collaboration with Diane Awerbuck as Frank Owen. He is initially of sf interest for The Space Race (2013), a Near Future tale focused on the troublesome acquiring by South Africa of a nuclear presence, and also the inadvertent launching of an outmoded Spaceship, which is nuclear-powered but unpiloted. The Divided States sequence comprising South (2016) and North (2018), written with Awerbuck as Owen, is set in a Near Future Alternate History version of North America. The Civil War, long deferred, has splintered the United States, which is now divided in two by a wall entirely incapable of protecting any population, north or south, from the rampant wind-blown viruses we as a species have unleashed upon ourselves, though the northern lands are comparatively safe. There are hints that the End of the World may be averted. Some arguably excessive switches in pace and timing may be due to the contrasting literary back grounds of the two authors. Latimer may be the speedier of the two. [JC]
Alex Latimer
born
works
series
Divided States
- South (London: Atlantic Books/Corvus, 2016) with Diane Awerbuck as Frank Owen [Divided States: hb/]
- North (London: Atlantic Books/Corvus, 2018) with Diane Awerbuck as Frank Owen [Divided States: pb/]
individual titles (highly selected)
- The Space Race (Cape Town, South Africa: Random House Struik/Umuzi, 2013) [pb/Alex Latimer]
links
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