Stephenson, Andrew M
Entry updated 2 June 2025. Tagged: Artist, Author.
(1946-2025) Venezuelan-born (of UK parents) author, electronics design engineer and, signing himself Ames, a magazine and book illustrator; in the UK from childhood. He began publishing work of genre interest with "Holding Action" in Analog for November 1971, but then released only one more professionally published story (plus an Amateur Magazine fiction appearance) before his first novel. In Nightwatch (1977), a secret Moon-based project constructs Weapons platforms in space, controlled by AI "Golems", to resist an assumed Alien Invasion. In the event this proves to be a friendly First Contact of interstellar traders carrying a Stargate portal that offers access to a rich galactic civilization described in terms of expansive Space Opera. Meanwhile Earth has destroyed itself in World War Three, but the Moon base of the defence project survives, and with alien help our planet may yet be healed. His second novel The Wall of Years (1979; rev 1980), perhaps more typically of a UK writer, describes the destruction of coherent spacetime in the twenty-first century through the discovery (and internecine warfare among) a variety of Parallel Worlds; the main line of story follows an attempt from the twenty-sixth century to stabilize a particular Alternate History generated by this chaos, a Changewar scenario involving a sojourn in the Dark Ages, specifically the court of King Alfred the Great. Unfortunately, Stephenson did not continue his novel-writing career, though he published two further short stories.
His illustrations appeared in, inter alia, Analog, Galaxy, Macrocosm, SF Digest, Speculation, Vector and the first US edition of Christopher Priest's Inverted World (1974). More recently he scripted Waterloo Sunset (April 2004-November 2005 Waterloo Sunset 4 issues; graph 2006) illustrated by Trevor Goring, a Graphic Novel set in a post-Disaster London bereft of high Technology. [JC/DRL]
see also: History in SF; Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference; Relapse.
Andrew Michael Stephenson
born Maracaibo, Venezuela: 8 October 1946
died Lyng, Norwich, Norfolk: May 2025 [found on 16 May]
works
- Nightwatch (London: Futura, 1977) [pb/Peter Jones]
- The Wall of Years (London: Futura, 1979) [pb/Brian Lewis]
- The Wall of Years (New York: Dell Books, 1980) [exp of the above: pb/]
- Waterloo Sunset (Berkeley, California: Image Comics, 2006) with Trevor Goring [graph: first appeared in 4 instalments April 2004-November 2005 Waterloo Sunset: pb/Trevor Goring]
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