Nasir, Jamil
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1955- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Darkness Beyond" for Aboriginal Science Fiction (May-June 1988); his first novel, Quasar (1995), establishes a sometimes foggy relationship between lucid dream states and the external Perception (and manipulation) of reality. As usual in tales of this sort, Metaphysics tends to complicate the various quests undergone by protagonists whose worlds have become irreal at the hands (see Paranoia) of mysterious beings, and – typically of sf written to convey environments somehow distinguished from the First World that underlies most traditional sf venues – dream states as modes not only of perception but of Transportation as well are found in his work. Quasar (1995) is set in a Ruined Earth environment caused by Climate Change and War, in a Keep-like City where the protagonist must shuttle between real world and Virtual Reality in a family-romance, discovering Monsters Underground en passant. The Higher Space (1996) feeds higher Mathematics and Physics into a similar mix, climaxing in an Equipoisal rendering of the admixture of Buddhism, chaos theory and shamanism into something here called Thaumatomathematics. Further novels explored adjacent and overlapping regions of fictional discourse, though without any one title establishing the kind of mastery over this disparate material that might contribute significantly to the flow of sf intuitions in the new century. The Houses of Time (2008), which explores conundrums of Identity, is perhaps less strong than his earlier tales. Tunnel Out of Death (2013) focuses on a vividly described, Genetically Engineered private investigator as a dubious commission takes him through various Dimensions and/or Virtual Reality worlds. [JC]
Jamil Nasir
born Chicago, Illinois: 18 December 1955
works
- Quasar (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1995) [pb/Bruce Jensen]
- The Higher Space (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1996) [pb/Bruce Jensen]
- Tower of Dreams (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1999) [pb/Bruce Jensen]
- Distance Haze (New York: Bantam Spectra, 2000) [pb/Yook Louie]
- The Houses of Time (New York: Tor, 2008) [hb/Veer and Getty]
- Tunnel Out of Death (New York: Tor, 2013) [hb/Getty Images]
links
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