Smale, Alan
Entry updated 25 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) UK-born astronomer and author, in US from 1988 and a US citizen from mid-2000; a NASA scientist and manager from 1988 and for several years Director of the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, a role from which he has since retired with Emeritus status. He began publishing work of genre interest with "The Breath of Princes" as Alan P Smale in A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic (anth 1993) edited by Michael Sterns; like much of his early short fiction, it is Fantasy. He became of sf interest with his Panverse Two Alternate History sequence, initially a Shared World enterprise, his first tale being "A Clash of Eagles" in Panverse Two: Five Original Novellas of Science Fiction and Fantasy (anth 2010) edited by Dario Ciriello; it won a 2010 Sidewise Award. The first full novel in the sequence, Clash of Eagles (2015), begins the Hesperian Trilogy, of which Smale has been the sole author. The sequence is set in a world in which the Roman Empire never fell – the Jonbar Point being the Emperor Caracalla's failure in the early third century CE to assassinate his brother Geta, who succeeds him and creates a wisely run imperium. Clash of Eagles is set in the thirteenth century CE as an expansionist Rome attempts an Invasion of newly-discovered America, but run afoul of the highly organized Cahokian Nation, a real culture which Smale describes with complex exactitude. Eagle in Exile (2016) and Eagle and Empire (2017) intensify the emphasis on the clash and intermixing of these two civilizations, while bringing an aggressive Mongol empire under Chinggis Khan increasingly into the picture.
The Apollo Rising sequence opening with Hot Moon (2022) also inhabits Alternate History territory, beginning in a version of 1979 where both the USA and USSR have developed Space Flight to establish a permanent Moon presence including lunar-orbit Space Stations and ground bases. Soviet aggression escalates the Cold War to a hot war in space, and much Technothriller action ensues; the story continues in Radiant Sky (2024). [JC/DRL]
Alan Peter Smale
born Cheadle, Yorkshire, England: 9 September
works
series
Panverse Two/Hesperian Trilogy
- Clash of Eagles (New York: Del Rey, 2015) [Panverse Two/Hesperian Trilogy: hb/Larry Rostant]
- Eagle in Exile (New York: Del Rey, 2016) [Panverse Two/Hesperian Trilogy: hb/Larry Rostant]
- Eagle and Empire (New York: Del Rey, 2017) [Panverse Two/Hesperian Trilogy: hb/Larry Rostant]
Apollo Rising
- Hot Moon (Rockville, Maryland: CAEZIK SF and Fantasy, 2022) [Apollo Rising: hb/]
- Radiant Sky (Rockville, Maryland: CAEZIK SF and Fantasy, 2024) [Apollo Rising: pb/]
works as editor
- The Wandering Warriors (Monument, Colorado: WordFire, 2020) with Rick Wilber [anth: hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry