Sandford, John
Entry updated 5 June 2023. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of US journalist and author John Roswell Camp (1944- ), best known for his nonfantastic work, in particular the Prey series of detective thrillers [not listed below]; he won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1986. He is of initial sf interest for the Young Adult Near Future Singular Menace sequence written in collaboration with his wife (since 2013) Michele Cook, beginning with Uncaged (2014), whose young protagonists, involved in animal-rights issues, raid an experimental lab to free its prisoners; the narrative unfolds from other data, involving Genetic Engineering experiments on humans, that they also discover. A sinister alliance between a not unexpectedly rapacious neoliberal corporation, and a Dystopian government masking exploitative manoeuvres with neoliberal pretences, ramifies into violence, perhaps liberating.
In the Near Future Saturn Run (2015) with Ctein Abour, which is a singleton, an Alien artifact is discovered decelerating towards Saturn (see Outer Planets), instigating a space race among various human regimes to gain control over the Technologies that the object, consistent with the assumptions of Hard SF readers in a frame involving First Contact, must almost certainly contain. [JC]
John Roswell Camp
born Cedar Rapids, Iowa: 23 February 1944
works (highly selected)
series
Singular Menace
- Uncaged (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2014) with Michele Cook [Singular Menace: hb/Zmeel]
- Outrage (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2015) with Michele Cook [Singular Menace: hb/Adrian Neal]
- Rampage (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2016) with Michele Cook [Singular Menace: hb/Zmeel]
individual titles
- Saturn Run (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 2015) with Ctein Abour [hb/Tal Goretsky]
links
previous versions of this entry