John Kessel

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John Kessel (2016)

John Kessel (actually Joseph Vincent Kessel; born September 24, 1950 in Buffalo , New York ) is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy .

Life

Kessel studied English and physics at the University of Rochester , where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in 1972 . He then received a master's degree from the University of Kansas in 1974 and his PhD in 1981. From 1979 to 1982 he worked as an advertising and news editor for the Commodity News Service in Leawood , Kansas . Since 1982 he has taught creative writing and American literature at North Carolina State University in Raleigh , North Carolina . Kessel has also taught the Clarion Science Fiction Writers 'Workshop and the Clarion West Writers' Workshop 2004.

Kessel published his first science fiction short, The Silver Man , in 1978. As a result, he proved to be a prolific short story writer, known for playing with the conventions of the SF genre and popular culture in general, for example in The Big Dream in which a Raymond Chandler detective spies on the author Chandler, or in Herman Melville: Space Opera Virtuoso (1980), in which a Herman Melville born in 1902 writes space operas for Pulp Magazine . In 1983 Kessler received a first Nebula Award and a Hugo nomination for the short story Another Orphan , in which he again follows his fascination with Melville, this time a stock market trader awakening from the present in the fictional world of Moby-Dick , with the narrative about one Pastiche goes far beyond that by addressing the philosophical-literary problems in the relationship between fictionality and reality.

Kessel's first novel Freedom Beach (in collaboration with James Patrick Kelly ) was published in 1985. His second novel Good News from Outer Space (1989, German as Gute Nachrichten von den Sternen , 1996) is a satire in which the USA, shaken by the millennium fever in 1999 await the return of Christ , proclaimed by one of the notorious television evangelists who prophesied the arrival of a giant alien spaceship on New Year's Eve at the turn of the millennium . For the short story Buffalo (1991), in which he describes his father's fictional encounter with HG Wells in 1932, he received the 1992 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the Locus Award . The story Pride and Prometheus , in which Kessel brings together the worlds of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus , won the 2009 Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award . In 2018 an expanded version of the novel was published.

Starting in 2006, Kessel co- edited a number of SF anthologies with James Patrick Kelly , including Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology and Rewired: The Post- Cyberpunk Anthology (2007). In addition to his work as a writer, Kessel is a knowledgeable and valued SF critic. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction recognizes Kessel as “one of science fiction's most necessary critics”.

Kessel married Penelope Crews in 1975, from whom he divorced in 1980. In 1986 he married Sue Hall. Kessel is currently married to the writer Therese Anne Fowler.

Awards

The stage version of his short story Faustfeathers was awarded the Paul Green Playwright's Prize in 1994.

bibliography

Novels
  • Freedom Beach (1985, with James Patrick Kelly )
  • Good News from Outer Space (1989)
  • Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997)
  • The Moon and the Other (2017)
  • Pride and Prometheus (2018)
Collections
  • Meeting in Infinity (1992)
  • The Pure Product (1997)
  • The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories (2008)
  • Ninety Percent of Everything (2011, with James Patrick Kelly and Jonathan Lethem )
  • The Collected Kessel (2012)
Crosswhen (comic series, with Terry Lee)
  • Crosswhen # 1 (1978)
  • Crosswhen # 2 (1978)
  • Crosswhen # 3 (1978)
  • Crosswhen # 4 (1979)
  • Crosswhen # 5: The Slums of Space (1979)
  • Crosswhen # 6 (1979)
  • Crosswhen # 7: The Slums of Space (1979)
  • Crosswhen # 8 (1980)
Short stories
  • The Silver Man (1978)
  • The Incredible Living Man (1978)
    • German: The incredibly lively man. In: HJ Alpers (Hrsg.): Kopernikus 11. Moewig (Moewig Science Fiction # 3637), 1984, ISBN 3-8118-3637-4 .
  • Just Like a Cretin Dog (1979)
  • In an Alien Wood (1979)
  • Herman Melville: Space Opera Virtuoso (1980)
  • Last Things (1980)
  • Animals (1980)
  • The Monuments of Science Fiction (1980)
  • Uncle John and the Savior (1980)
  • Not Responsible! Park and Lock It! (1981)
  • Another Orphan (1982)
  • Below Zero (1983)
  • Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine (1983)
    • English: One does not see the heart's shine in the eye. In: Friedel Wahren (Ed.): Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazin 23rd episode. Heyne SF&F # 4140, 1984, ISBN 3-453-31105-1 .
  • Friend (1984, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • The Big Dream (1984)
    • German: a difficult dream. In: HJ Alpers (Hrsg.): Kopernikus 12. Moewig (Moewig Science Fiction # 3660), 1985, ISBN 3-8118-3660-9 .
    • German: The big dream. In: Friedel Wahren (Ed.): Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazin 24th episode. Heyne SF&F # 4178, 1985, ISBN 3-453-31143-4 .
  • Freedom Beach (1984, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • The Lecturer (1984)
    • German: The instructor. In: HJ Alpers (Hrsg.): Kopernikus 14. Moewig (Moewig Science Fiction # 3694), 1986, ISBN 3-8118-3694-3 .
  • A Clean Escape (1985)
    • German: A smooth exit. In: Friedel Wahren (Ed.): Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 35th episode. Heyne SF&F # 4690, 1990, ISBN 3-453-04272-7 .
  • Reduction (1986, with Gregory Frost)
  • The Pure Product (1986)
    • German: The pure product. In: Friedel Wahren (Ed.): Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 29th episode. Heyne SF&F # 4405, 1987, ISBN 3-453-00409-4 .
  • Credibility (1987)
  • Judgment Call (1987)
  • Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner (1988)
  • Buddha Nostril Bird (1990)
  • Invaders (1990)
    • German: Invaders. In: Ronald M. Hahn (Ed.): Invasoren. (= Volume No. 89 of the German The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ), Heyne SF&F # 5113, 1994, ISBN 3-453-07279-0 .
    • German: Invaders. In: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The defaulting time machine. (= Volume No. 37 of Internationale Science Fiction Stories ), Heyne SF&F # 5645, 1997, ISBN 3-453-11905-3 .
  • Buffalo (1991)
    • German: Buffalo. In: Ronald M. Hahn (Ed.): Ebenbilder. (= Volume No. 87 of the German The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ), Heyne SF&F # 5004, 1993, ISBN 3-453-06231-0 .
  • The Moral Bullet (1991, with Bruce Sterling )
  • Man (1992)
  • Fistfeathers (1992)
  • "SF Story" (1993)
  • The Franchise (1993)
  • The Einstein Express (1993)
  • Some Like It Cold (1995)
  • The True History of the End of the World (1995, with James Patrick Kelly and Jonathan Lethem)
    • German: This is how the world really ends. In: Ronald M. Hahn (Ed.): Death in the Land of Flowers. (= Volume 98 of the German The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ) Heyne SF&F # 5980, 1998, ISBN 3-453-14009-5 .
  • The Miracle of Ivar Avenue (1996)
  • Gulliver at Home (1997)
  • Faustfeathers: A Comedy (1997, stage version of the short story from 1992)
  • Every Angel is Terrifying (1998)
  • The President's Channel (1998)
  • Ninety Percent of Everything (1999, with James Patrick Kelly and Jonathan Lethem)
  • The Juniper Tree (2000)
  • The Family Vacation (2002)
  • Stories for Men (2002)
  • The Invisible Empire (2002)
  • Of New Arrivals, Many Johns, and the Music of the Spheres (2003)
  • Under the Lunchbox Tree (2003)
  • It's All True (2003)
  • The Tree Plan for Financial Independence (2004)
  • The Red Phone (2005)
  • The Snake Girl (2006)
  • Sunlight or Rock (2006)
  • The Last American (2007)
  • Downtown (2007)
  • Pride and Prometheus (2008)
  • Powerless (2008)
  • The Motorman's Coat (2009)
  • Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance (2009)
  • Iteration (2010)
  • The Closet (2010)
  • Clean (2011)
  • Consolation (2015)
  • The Mark of Cain (2019)
Anthologies (as editor)
  • Enemy Mine / Another Orphan (1989, with Barry B. Longyear )
  • Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology (1996, with Richard Butner and Mark L. Van Name)
  • Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology (2006, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology (2007, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • The Secret History of Science Fiction (2009, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka (2011, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology (2012, with James Patrick Kelly)
  • Nebula Awards Showcase 2012 (2012, with James Patrick Kelly)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Kessels Homepage ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Kessel, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kessel, Joseph Vincent (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer of science fiction and fantasy
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Buffalo , New York