Keith Roberts

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Keith John Kingston Roberts (born September 20, 1935 in Kettering , Northamptonshire , † October 5, 2000 in Salisbury , Wiltshire ) was a British science fiction writer and illustrator. He also published under the pseudonyms Alistair Bevan, John Kingston and David Stringer.

Life

Keith Roberts studied art and graduated in design in 1956 , then attended Leicester College of Arts . He worked for a long time as a graphic designer in the advertising industry, an area to which he remained loyal even later. In the 1960s he was involved in the production of animated films and appeared as a cover artist in British SF magazines. Roberts' first two short stories he published in 1964 in the British SF magazine Science Fantasy , where he became editor in 1966 (it was called Impulse at the time ). Further stories by Roberts also appeared in the New Worlds magazine .

The first novel The Furies (1966, German The Neptune Test , Goldmann) was followed two years later by his most important novel: Pavane , initially marketed in German as The Serious Assassination of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I , later editions under the original title.

In Pavane it comes to an alternate world in which Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated and the Spanish Armada was victorious. As a result, England was shaped by the rule of the Catholic Church in the 20th century.

In 1990 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis , ten years later he succumbed to the consequences of the disease.

Awards

  • 1983: BSFA Award for the short story Kitemaster
  • 1984: Interzone Readers Poll for the short story Kitemaster
  • 1987: BSFA Award for the illustrations for The Clocktower Girl in Kaeti & Company and for the short story Kaeti and the Hangman

bibliography

Kaeti (short stories)
  • Kaeti's Apocalypse (1986, short story)
  • Kaeti & Company (1986, collection)
  • Kaeti on Tour (1992, collection)
Single novels
  • The Furies (1966)
    • German: The Neptune Test . Translated by Hans-Ulrich Nichau. Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  • Pavane (1968, fix-up)
  • The boat of fate (1971)
    • English: The boat of fate . Translated by Christa Schlang. Marion von Schröder Verlag, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-547-77803-4 . Paperback edition: Moewig, Rastatt 1987, ISBN 3-8118-2445-7 .
  • Anita (1970, fix-up)
    • English: The witch Anita . Translated by Gerhard Beckmann. dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-12127-0 .
  • The Inner Wheel (1970)
    • German: Homo Gestalt . Translated by Hans Maeter. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, ISBN 3-404-22025-0 .
  • The Boat of Fate (1971)
  • Molly Zero (1980)
  • Kiteworld (1985)
    • German: Drachenpiloten . Translated by Horst Pukallus. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-05406-7 .
  • Gráinne (1987)
  • The Road to Paradise (1988)
  • The Event (1989)
Collections
  • Machines and Men (1973)
    • German: machines and people . Translated by Tony Westermayr. Goldmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-442-23343-7 .
  • The Chalk Giants (1974)
    • German: The chalk giants . Translated by Maike Blinde. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1981, ISBN 3-404-22038-2 .
  • The Grain Kings (1976)
    • German: The new gods . Translated by Tony Westermayr. Goldmann, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-442-23327-5 .
  • The Passing of the Dragons (1977)
  • Ladies from Hell (1979)
    • English: The revolution of the windmills . Translated by Tony Westermayr. Goldmann, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-442-23378-X .
  • The Lordly Ones (1986)
  • A Heron Caught in Weeds (1987)
  • Winterwood: And Other Hauntings (1989)
Non-fiction
  • Irish Encounters (1988)
  • The Natural History of the PH (1988)
  • Lemady: Episodes of a Writer's Life (1997)

criticism

  • Karsten Kruschel on kite pilots : “The literary quality of Keith Roberts is based less on original SF ideas, sophisticated gimmicks or action-oriented tension. He is a confident draftsman of three-dimensional landscapes and a romantic narrator of gripping stories that usually only round off and complete in the mind of the reader; here you can feel the artist, who is also known in England for his unconventional cover art. "" A strange, interesting, at the same time repulsive and fascinatingly poetic world is opened up by Roberts and exposed to an inevitable doom - in the hope that the reader would become their own Demons, if not less annoying, then perhaps understandable. "()

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karsten Kruschel: Die Poesie der Papierdrachen , in: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The Science Fiction Year 1993 , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag , Munich, ISBN 3-453-06202-7 , pp. 714–715.
personal data
SURNAME Roberts, Keith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roberts, Keith John Kingston (full name); Bevan, Alistair (pseudonym); Kingston, John (pseudonym); Stringer, David (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British science fiction writer and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Kettering, Northamptonshire
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 2000
Place of death Salisbury , Wiltshire