Swindells, Robert E

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

(1939-    ) UK translator and author who has concentrated for most of his career on Young Adult novels, several of them set in his native Yorkshire. Although most of his work has been fantasy, sf novels of interest have appeared at various points over this career, beginning with When Darkness Comes (1973), a Prehistoric SF tale movingly depicting the consequences of the incursion of Homo sapiens on the early world, and Brother in the Land (1984; vt Fallout 1993), which in a sense reverses field on When Darkness Comes, for the young protagonist in this Post-Holocaust tale, must adapt Neanderthal tactics to survive. A Serpent's Tooth (1988) segues between apprehensions of World War Three and the Black Death; Daz 4 Zoe (1990) is a full-blown Near Future Dystopia set in a UK dominated by the ultra-rich who live in fortified Keeps; the young protagonists in Hydra (1991) discover that a crop circle in rural England contains the imago form of an Alien (see also First Contact) whose mature form could devastate the planet; Timesnatch (1994), set in the Near Future, describes the Discovery of a Time Machine which is used to extract extinct animals from the deep past, but which attracts the attention of criminal entrepreneurs.

More recent titles included two Timeslip tales, Blitzed (2002), whose protagonists find themselves in a grimly depicted World War Two, and In the Nick of Time (2007) sets its young protagonist in a school for sick children in the early 1950s, where her coming of age proves difficult to achieve. Sometimes overcongenial with his target markets, Swindells remains at the same time an author repeatedly capable of confronting serious issues with tact and clarity. His non-fantastic Stone Cold (1993) won the Carnegie Medal. [JC]

Robert Edward Swindells

born Bradford, Yorkshire: 20 March 1939

works

series

Norah

• Norah's Ark (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1979) [illus/hb/Avril Haynes]
• Norah's Shark (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1979) [illus/hb/Avril Haynes]
• Norah and the Whale (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1981) [illus/hb/Avril Haynes]
• Norah to the Rescue (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1981) [illus/hb/Avril Haynes]

Fliss

• Room 13 (London: Doubleday, 1989) [Fliss: illus/hb/Jon Riley]
• Inside the Worm (London: Doubleday, 1993) [Fliss: illus/hb/Jon Riley]
  • Room 13 and Inside the Worm (London: Corgi Yearling, 2007) [omni of the above two: Fliss: illus/pb/Jon Riley]

individual titles

• When Darkness Comes (Leicester, Leicestershire: Brockhampton Press, 1973) [illus/hb/Charles Keeping]
• A Candle in the Night (Newton Abbot, Devon: David and Charles, 1974) [hb/]
  • A Candle in the Dark (Sevenoaks, Kent: Knight Books, 1983) [vt of the above: pb/]
• Voyage to Valhalla (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1976) [illus/hb/Victor Ambrus]
• The Very Special Baby (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977) [illus/hb/Victor Ambrus]
• The Ice-Palace (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977) [illus/hb/Jane Jackson]
• Dragons Live Forever (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1978) [illus/hb/Petula Stone]
• Ghost Ship to Ganymede (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1980) [chap: hb/Jeff Burns]
• World-Eater (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981) [hb/Ken Stott]
• Brother in the Land (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1984) [hb/Allan Manham]
  • Fallout (New York: William Morrow/Beech Tree Books, 1993) [vt of the above: pb/]
• The Thousand Eyes of Night (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985) [hb/]
• The Ghost Messengers (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985) [chap: hb/]
• Staying Up (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1986) [hb/]
• Mavis Davis (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1988) [hb/]
• The Postbox Mystery (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988) [illus/hb/Kate Rogers]
• A Serpent's Tooth (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988) [hb/]
• Follow a Shadow (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989) [hb/]
• Night School (Paperbird, 1989) [illus/pb/Rob Chapman]
• Daz 4 Zoe (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990) [hb/Richard Jones]
• Tom Kipper (London: Macmillan, 1990) [illus/hb/Scoular Anderson]
• Dracula's Castle (London: Yearling, 1990) [chap: illus/pb/Jon Riley]
• Hydra (New York: Doubleday, 1991) [illus/hb/Mark Robinson]
• Rolf and Rosie (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Andersen Press, 1992) [illus/hb/David McKee]
• You Can't Say I'm Crazy (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992) [illus/hb/Tony Ross]
• The Go-Ahead Gang (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992) [illus/hb/M Bradley]
• Sam and Sue and Lavatory Lou (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) [illus/hb/Val Biro]
• The Secret of Weeping Wood (London: Scholastic, 1993) [illus/hb/Carolyn Dinan]
• The Siege of Frimly Prim (London: Methuen, 1993) [illus/hb/Scoular Anderson]
• We Didn't Mean To, Honest! (London: Scholastic, 1993) [illus/hb/Carolyn Dinan]
• Stone Cold (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1993) [hb/]
• Timesnatch (London: Doubleday, 1994) [illus/hb/Les Edwards]
• Kidnap at Denton Farm (London: Scholastic, 1994) [hb/]
• The Muckitups (London: Piccadilly, 1995) [illus/hb/Laura Beaumont]
• The Ghosts of Givenham Keep (London: Scholastic, 1995) [hb/]
• Unbeliever (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995) [hb/]
• Jacqueline Hyde (London: Doubleday, 1996) [hb/Angelo Rinaldi]
• Last Bus (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1996) [hb/]
• Hurricane Summer (London: Mammoth, 1997) [illus/hb/Kim Palmer]
• Nightmare Stairs (London: Doubleday, 1997) [hb/Max Schindler]
• Peril in the Mist (London: Scholastic, 1997) [hb/]
• Smash! (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1997) [hb/]
• Abomination (London: Doubleday, 1998) [hb/]
• The Strange Tale of Ragger Bill (London: Scholastic, 1998) [hb/]
• Dosh (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1999) [hb/]
• Roger's War (London: Mammoth, 1999) [illus/hb/Kim Palmer]
• Invisible! (London: Doubleday, 1999) [pb/Larry Rostant]
• Doodlebug Alley (London: Mammoth, 2000) [illus/hb/Kim Palmer]
• A Wish for Wings (London: Doubleday, 2001) [hb/]
• Wrecked (London: Puffin, 2001) [pb/]
• Blitzed (London: Doubleday, 2002) [hb/Larry Rostant]
• No Angels (London: Puffin, 2001) [pb/]
• In the Nick of Time (London: Corgi Yearling, 2007) [pb/Tracy and Jerry Paris]
• The Shade of Hettie Daynes (London: Transworld/Corgi, 2008) [pb/]

collections and stories

• The Weather-Clerk (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979) [graph/hb/Petula Stone]
• The Moonpath and Other Stories (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1979) [coll: hb/]
  • The Moonpath and Other Tales of the Bizarre (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Carolrhoda Books, 1983) [coll: vt of the above: illus/hb/Reg Sandland]
• The Wheaton Book of Science Fiction Stories (Exeter, Devon: Wheaton, 1982) [coll: chap: hb/Gary Long]
• Trick or Treat (no place given: Stoke Books, 2012) [novella: chap: hb/]

works as editor

• The Orchard Book of Vikings (London: Orchard, 2000) with Peter Utton [anth: hb/]
• The Orchard Book of Egyptian Gods and Pharaohs (London: Orchard, 2000) [anth: illus/hb/Stephen Lambert]
• The Orchard Book of Stories from Ancient Egypt (London: Orchard, 2000) [anth: illus/hb/Stephen Lambert]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

previous versions of this entry

• Internet Archive