Search SFE    Search EoF

  Omit cross-reference entries  

Williams, Sean

Entry updated 17 July 2023. Tagged: Author.

Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

pic

(1967-    ) Australian author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Light Bodies Falling" in Aurealis for October 1991, and has since published a number of stories, the balance here, as with his longer work, being some sf but rather more fantasy. This work has been assembled as Doorway to Eternity (coll 1995), A View Before Dying (coll 1998 chap), New Adventures in Sci-Fi (coll 1999) and Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (coll 2008). Most of his novels have appeared in series, and most of them have been in collaboration with Shane Dix, beginning with The Unknown Soldier (1995), initially intended as the first volume of the Cogal sequence but rewritten as the first volume of the Evergence sequence, Evergence: The Prodigal Sun (2000), which continues with The Dying Light (2000) and A Dark Imbalance (2001; vt The Dark Imbalance 2001), all three assembled as Evergence (omni 2001) [for full vt details see Checklist below]. The series is set in Space Opera country, but with an underlying darkness that marks its distance from some of its models: after the destruction of the home planet, Homo sapiens have become waif biota, scrabbling for scanty Lebensraum, and soon threatened with total destruction by a Posthuman enemy, with soldiers Genetically Engineered into death-defiant Clones; there is no triumphant ending.

After the Cataclysm/Change sequence of fantasy novels beginning with The Stone Mage and the Sea (2001), all by Williams alone, the Orphans sequence – comprising Echoes of Earth (2002), Orphans of Earth (2003) and Heirs of Earth (2004), all with Dix – returns to the interstellar arena of the first series, though with added complexity. In the absence of a Faster Than Light drive, Earth fills its exploration ships with Avatar-like "engrams", essentially Computer-driven readouts of humans back on Earth, their mission to assess various planets in terms of the Colonization of Other Worlds. But impossibly advanced Aliens donate incomprehensible Technologies to the avatars, apparently with Uplift in view. The narrative twists and darkens; Earth is destroyed; a humbling perspective on the role of Homo sapiens in a vast thronged universe, in the manner of twenty-first century space opera, may explain the crumbling of the story in the final volume. A further series with Dix, the Geodesica sequence comprising Geodesica: Ascent (2006) and Geodesica: Descent (2005), casts various Posthumans into a complex set of conflicts centring on the eponymous Labyrinth, a vast Macrostructure that also serves to provide hyperspatial Transportation (at a cost) to civilizations across the galaxy; a Sense of Wonder occasionally illuminates this ambitious tale. The Astropolis sequence – comprising Saturn Returns (2007), Astropolis: Earth Ascendent (2008) and Astropolis: The Grand Conjunction (2009), all solo –confronts a Sleeper Awakes protagonist, who has been changed into a woman (see Gender) with Amnesia, with a galaxy disintegrating into Entropic disarray. The Trouble Twisters sequence, beginning with Troubletwisters (2011) with Garth Nix, is Young Adult and comparatively lighthearted.

Various Star Wars Ties – either by Williams and Dix or Williams alone, and beginning with Remnant (2003) in the Star Wars: The New Jedi Order series – forge no new ground. Williams is a writer who agilely dodges an instinctual darkness of vision, and who has not yet perhaps delivered a tale entirely in focus; but he is capable of arousing his readers into expecting exactly that. [JC]

see also: Ditmar Award.

Sean Llewellyn Williams

born Whyalla, South Australia: 23 May 1967

works

series

Evergence

Cataclysm/Change: Books of the Change

Cataclysm/Change: Books of the Cataclysm

  • The Crooked Letter (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins, 2004) [Books of the Change: pb/Greg Bridges]
  • The Blood Debt (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins, 2005) [Books of the Change: pb/Greg Bridges]
  • The Hanging Mountains (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins, 2005) [Books of the Change: pb/Greg Bridges]
  • The Devoured Earth (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins, 2006) [Books of the Change: pb/Greg Bridges]

Cataclysm/Change: The Broken Land

  • The Changeling (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Angus and Robertson, 2008) [The Broken Land: pb/Natalie Winter]
  • The Dust Devils (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Angus and Robertson, 2008) [The Broken Land: pb/Natalie Winter]
  • The Scarecrow (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Angus and Robertson, 2009) [The Broken Land: pb/Natalie Winter]

Orphans

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order

  • Remnant (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2003) with Shane Dix [tie to Star Wars: Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: pb/Jon Foster]
  • Refugee (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2003) with Shane Dix [tie to Star Wars: Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: pb/Jon Foster]
  • Reunion (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2003) with Shane Dix [tie to Star Wars: Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: pb/Jon Foster]
    • Force Heretic (New York: Science Fiction Book Club, 2003) with Shane Dix [omni of the above three: tie to Star Wars: Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: hb/Jon Foster]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Star Wars: The Old Republic

  • Fatal Alliance (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 2010) [tie to Star Wars: Star Wars: The Old Republic: pb/ATTIK]

Geodesica

Astropolis

The Fixers

Trouble Twisters

  • Troubletwisters (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2011) with Garth Nix [Trouble Twisters: pb/Jeremy Reston]
    • Troubletwisters: The Magic (Sydney, New South Wales: Scholastic, 2012) with Garth Nix [vt of the above: Trouble Twisters: pb/Owen Richardson]
  • Trouble Twisters: The Monster (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2012) with Garth Nix [Trouble Twisters: pb/Jeremy Reston]
  • The Mystery of the Golden Card (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2013) with Garth Nix [Trouble Twisters: pb/Paul Young and Ian Butterworth]
    • The Mystery (London: Egmont Books, 2013) with Garth Nix [vt of the above: Trouble Twisters: pb/]
  • Missing, Presumed Evil (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2013) with Garth Nix [Trouble Twisters: pb/Paul Young and Ian Butterworth]
    • The Missing (Sydney, New South Wales: Scholastic, 2014) with Garth Nix [vt of the above: Trouble Twisters: hb/Owen Richardson]

Twinmaker

  • Twinmaker: Jump (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2013) [Twinmaker: pb/Design Cherry, Bigstock]
    • Jump (New York: HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, 2013) [vt of the above: hb/]
  • Twinmaker: Crash (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2014) [Twinmaker: pb/Design Cherry, warrengoldswain]
    • Crashland (New York: HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, 2014) [vt of the above: hb/Howard Huang]
  • Twinmaker: Fall (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins/Allen and Unwin, 2015) [Twinmaker: pb/]
    • Hollowgirl (New York: HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, 2015) [vt of the above: hb/Howard Huang]

individual titles

  • Metal Fatigue (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins, 1996) [pb/Greg Bridges]
  • The Resurrected Man (Sydney, New South Wales: HarperCollins, 1998) [pb/Shaun Tan]
  • Blood Ties (Sydney, New South Wales: Scholastic, 2014) with Garth Nix [pb/Angelo Rinaldi]

collections

links

previous versions of this entry



x
This website uses cookies.  More information here. Accept Cookies