Pressfield, Steven
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1943- ) Trinidad-born screenwriter and author, in US from early childhood; of his several screenplays, those filmed include King Kong Lives (1986) directed by John Guillermin, a Monster film; and Freejack (1992), which is sf. His first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life (1995), which was unsuccessfully filmed as The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) directed by Robert Redford, hints at a supernatural structuring of the golf match that climaxes it. He then concentrated on historical novels, though Last of the Amazons (2002) features Theseus and the eponymous female warriors. The Profession (2011) is a Near Future Military SF tale set mostly in the middle east, and revolving around the control of oil production. In 36 Righteous Men (2019), the kind of mythological underpinning of story that informed The Legend of Bagger Vance here shapes a Near Future thriller whose protagonist discovers that the fulfilment of an ancient Jewish legend – that as long as at least one of the world's thirty-six righteous men still lives, then God will not destroy us – threatens the End of the World. The action is vivid. [JC]
Steven Pressfield
born Port of Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies: September 1943
works (selected)
- The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life (New York: William Morrow, 1995) [hb/Jerry LoFaro]
- Last of the Amazons (New York: Doubleday, 2002) [hb/]
- The Profession (New York: Crown, 2011) [hb/]
- 36 Righteous Men (New York: W W Norton and Company, 2019) [hb/]
links
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