Tilley, Robert J
Entry updated 2 September 2024. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) UK jazz musician, graphic designer and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Devil and Mr Wooller" in Ellory Queen's Mystery Magazine for September 1955; almost all his short work appeared by 1972, and was assembled as The Dark Corners: Fantastic Crime Stories (coll 2014) and Something Else: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Robert J Tilley (coll 2015). His stories are crisply told, plot-driven; they fit comfortably within the precepts and confines of Genre SF of the period.
Tilley's first novel, The Big Losers (1988), follows the life of an Alien visitor to Earth at a point when the survival of the planet may be moot. In his second novel, One More Time (2010), the American government's discovery of a time warp to 1942 (see Time Travel) opens a way to examine the musical culture of that fraught era (see Music); the protagonist's complex involvement in this world leads to the possibility that an Alternate History may be created, one which may not lead toward the disaster of the real twenty-first century.
Tilley should not be confused with journalist Robert J(ames) Tilley (1938-2015), also born in Somerset, and an occasional nonfantastic novelist who wrote as by Bob Andrews late in life; his career as a foreign correspondent seems to have occupied him fully into the twenty-first century. [JC]
Robert J Tilley
born Bridgewater, Somerset
died
works (selected)
- The Big Losers (Delavan, Wisconsin: New Infinities Productions, 1988) [publisher's location also listed as New York: pb/David Cherry]
- One More Time (Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford Publishing, 2010) [pb/]
collections and stories
- The Dark Corners: Fantastic Crime Stories (Rockville, Maryland: Wildside Press, 2014) [coll: pb/]
- Something Else: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Robert J Tilley (Rockville, Maryland: Wildside Press, 2015) [coll: pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry