Litt, Toby
Entry updated 28 April 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1968- ) UK author, mostly of nonfantastic work, though some of the stories assembled in Adventures in Capitalism (coll 1996) apply metafictional estrangements (see Postmodernism and SF) to a world clearly porous to manipulation (see Media Landscape), including the presence of an Avatar of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) in "When I Met Michel Foucault". Deadkidsongs (2001) similarly presses against thematic material – in this case an anticipated Russian Invasion – in a manner conspicuously close to allegory; and there are fantasy elements in Finding Myself (2003).
Of direct sf interest is Journey into Space (2009), a Generation Starship tale remarkably obedient to the conventions of this subgenre, including rebellious adolescents and a paternalistic AI that, nominally in charge of the crew and/or passengers, does not understand Homo sapiens very well; only a certain abstractedness in nomenclature and setting betrays the Mainstream Writer of SF. Behind them, Earth is almost totally destroyed; in the meantime – in obedience to a turn of plot introduced by A E van Vogt in "Far Centaurus" (January 1944 Astounding) – Technology has created a faster ship, which will reach the destination planet decades before the Armenia, which turns back to the already devastated home planet and crashes, rendering it lifeless, though distracted hints of an Adam and Eve scenario beyond the final page may give some hope. [JC]
Toby Litt
born Ampthill, Bedfordshire: 20 August 1968
works
- Adventures in Capitalism (London: Secker and Warburg, 1996) [coll: hb/Button Design Company]
- Deadkidsongs (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2001) [hb/]
- Finding Myself (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2003) [hb/]
- Journey into Space (London: Penguin Books, 2009) [pb/Chris Moore]
- Notes for a Young Gentleman (London: Seagull Books, 2018) [hb/]
links
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