Westlake, Michael
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1942- ) UK author and editor, much of whose work has been in film studies. One Zero and the Night Controller (1980) is a Fabulation in which a taxi driver tracks down an occult nocturnal mystery; Imaginary Women (1987) plays with questions of Perception as conveyed through the hallucinations of film; and in 51 Soko: To the Islands on the Other Side of the World (1990) four Japanese men send letters to various English figures, weaving a pattern whose links are supernatural, and describing en passant several Alternate History versions of UK history. Of specific sf interest is The Utopian (1989), a double narrative contrasting the life of an insane contemporary man with that of his namesake – who is his Double [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] or literal Reincarnation – in the communal matriarchy which rules in 2411 CE. Though the tale might seem to read as delusional, both lives are equally weighted: the delusion, if any, might be the world of 1989. [JC]
Michael Westlake
born Surrey, England: 1942
works
- One Zero and the Night Controller (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980) [hb/John and Tony gibbs]
- Imaginary Women (Manchester, England: Carcanet, 1987) [hb/Stephen Raw]
- 51 Soko: To the Islands on the Other Side of the World (Edinburgh, Scotland: Polygon, 1990) [pb/Ann Ross Paterson]
- The Utopian (Manchester, England: Carcanet, 1989) [pb/]
links
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