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(1968- ) UK mathematician and author, mostly of Young Adult fantasy in his early career, including the Adamantine Palace sequence beginning with The Adamantine Palace (2009) and the shorter Thief-Taker's Apprentice sequence beginning with The Thief-Taker's Apprentice (2010). Of sf interest is Elite: Wanted (2014) with Gavin G Smith, writing together as Gavin Deas, a Tie to the Massively Multiplayer Online Game Elite Dangerous, which is Space Opera.
The Empires series – a Near Future diptych comprising Empires: Extraction (2014) and Empires: Infiltration (2014) with Gavin G Smith, writing together as Gavin Deas – deals with the simultaneous Invasion of Earth by two separate Alien civilizations known as the Pleasure and the Weft. The latter are featured in Empires: Extraction, which is primarily by Deas; they take a combative approach to the tracking-down of the McGuffin hidden on Earth and of galactic importance. The Gallow/Fateguard series opening with The Crimson Shield (2013) as by Nathan Hawke is fantasy.
As Sam Peters, the more ambitious Keon Rouse sequence, beginning with From Darkest Skies (2017), opens on a devastated Earth after an Alien Invasion, in the course of which the continents have been transformed. Some remaining humans survive under Dystopian rule, with the majority exiled to various diaspora planets; it is not clear whether the humans in charge are quislings or simply privileged by the "Masters", as before their punishing intervention. The protagonist, searching for the reasons behind his wife's murder several years earlier, returns to one of the newly occupied planets (see Colonization of Other Worlds) with a daily-growing AI "servant" which controls his relations to the Internet command structure, and which has been programmed to replicate his wife, so he can interrogate her personality to uncover the secret behind her death. A noir thriller plot eventuates, expanding in the second volume, From Distant Stars (2018), into Time Abyss territory with the discovery of an ancient Alien artefact at the North Pole. Eventually his subtly transformed and no longer dead wife reappears, from a location revealed in From Divergent Suns (2019). [JC]
born England: 29 September 1968
works
series
Adamantine Palace
Thief-Taker's Apprentice
Gallow/Fateguard
Elite Dangerous
Empires
Keon Rouse
Dominion
individual titles
links
Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 11:46 am on 7 October 2026.
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