Sanders, William
Entry updated 11 March 2024. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1942-2017) US editor and author, who has also written as by Will Sundown; co-founder with Lawrence Watt-Evans of Helix SF in 2006. The magazine folded in 2008. During his tenure, Sanders became involved in a controversy over intemperate language about Muslims uttered by him in an email he presumed to be a private communication. His first fiction, as by Sundown, was the Pockets of Resistance sequence comprising Pockets of Resistance (1990) and The Hellbound Train (1990), describing in Survivalist Fiction terms a fight-back against the Invasion of America. Two of his shorter works are set in Alternate History venues: "The Undiscovered" (March 1997 Asimov's), in which a displaced William Shakespeare writes Hamlet in Virginia, and "Empire" (in Alternate Generals II, anth 2002, edited by Harry Turtledove). Each was given a Sidewise Award. His stories have been assembled as re We Having Fun Yet?: American Indian Fantasy Stories (coll 2002) and East of the Sun and West of Fort Smith (coll 2008), the latter containing the two tales mentioned above.
Two of Sanders's novels are also Alternate Histories: Journey to Fusang (1988; text restored 2000), which is set in an America first conquered by Asian rather than European nations, with Muslims in the ascendant; and The Wild Blue and the Gray (1991; rev 2005), in which the independent Confederate States of America come to the aid of Britain in World War One. The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan (1999) Equipoisally combines sf and fantasy elements: the American government has been dumping toxic nuclear waste on a Native American reservation; a Monster is born from the fumes, and must be combatted in traditional ways, one of the protagonists (roused for the task) being a dead Native American sage. In J (2001 ebook), three women from highly contrasted Parallel Worlds begin to occupy each other's worlds, discovering that their lives both intersect and that, in some sense, they are the same person. [JC]
William Sanders
born Arkansas: 28 April 1942
died Tahlequah, Oklahoma: 30 June 2017
works
series
Pockets of Resistance
- Pockets of Resistance (New York: Popular Library, 1990) as by Will Sundown [Pockets of Resistance: pb/Keith Birdsong]
- The Hellbound Train (New York: Popular Library, 1990) as by Will Sundown [Pockets of Resistance: pb/Keith Birdsong]
individual titles
- Journey to Fusang (New York: Popular Library/Questar, 1988) [pb/Jim Gurney]
- Journey to Fusang (Stone Dragon Press, 2000) [rev of the above: original text restored: pb/nonpictorial]
- The Wild Blue and the Gray (New York: Warner Books/Questar, 1991) [pb/Gnemo]
- The Wild Blue and the Gray (Scotts Valley, California: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2005) [rev of the above: pb/]
- The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan (no place given: XLibris Corporation/Yandro House, 1999) [hb/]
- J (no place given: iPublish.com, 2001) [ebook: na/]
collections
- Are We Having Fun Yet?: American Indian Fantasy Stories (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Wildside Press, 2002) [coll: pb/]
- East of the Sun and West of Fort Smith (Winnetka, California: Norilana Books, 2008) [coll: hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry