Keith Roberts
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
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The Furies (1966)
- German: The Neptune Test . Translated by Hans-Ulrich Nichau. Goldmann, Munich 1967.
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Pavane (1968, fix-up)
- German: The momentous murder of Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth I. Translated by Thomas Schlück. Heyne, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-453-30393-8 . Later editions under the title: Pavane , 1984, ISBN 3-453-31034-9 ; 1993 ISBN 3-453-06224-8 .
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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 .
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Anita (1970, fix-up)
- English: The witch Anita . Translated by Gerhard Beckmann. dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-12127-0 .
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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)
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Molly Zero (1980)
- German: Molly Zero . Translated by Peter Pape. Heyne, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-453-06216-7 .
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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
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Machines and Men (1973)
- German: machines and people . Translated by Tony Westermayr. Goldmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-442-23343-7 .
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The Chalk Giants (1974)
- German: The chalk giants . Translated by Maike Blinde. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1981, ISBN 3-404-22038-2 .
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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)
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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
- Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 345 f.
- Hans Joachim Alpers, Werner Fuchs, Ronald M. Hahn, Wolfgang Jeschke : Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-02453-2 , p. 829 f.
- John Clute : Roberts, Keith. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition), version dated April 4, 2017.
- Don D'Ammassa : Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Facts On File, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5924-1 , p. 310.
- Gerd Dose: Alternate Worlds: Kingsley Amis '' The Alteration 'and Keith Roberts' 'Pavane'. In: Rüdiger Ahrens, Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann (Hrsg.): Fiction and History in Anglo-American Literature: Festschrift for Heinz-Joachim Müllenbrock for his 60th birthday . English Research, 256. Winter, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-8253-0725-5 .
- Paul Kincaid: Roberts, Keith . In: Noelle Watson, Paul E. Schellinger: Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers. St. James Press, Chicago 1991, ISBN 1-55862-111-3 , pp. 665 f.
- George Mann : The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Robinson, London 2001, ISBN 1-84119-177-9 , p. 246 f.
- Robert Reginald : Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. A Checklist, 1700–1974 with Contemporary Science Fiction Authors II. Gale, Detroit 1979, ISBN 0-8103-1051-1 , pp. 1050 f.
- Robert Reginald: Contemporary Science Fiction Authors. Arno Press, New York 1974, ISBN 0-405-06332-6 , p. 228.
- Darrell Schweitzer: Roberts, Keith . In: James Gunn : The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Viking, New York et al. a. 1988, ISBN 0-670-81041-X , p. 386.
- Phil Stephenson-Payne: Keith Roberts: Master Craftsman: A Working Bibliography. Galactic Central, Leeds 1993, ISBN 1-871133-37-8 .
- Donald H. Tuck : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1968. Advent, Chicago 1974, ISBN 0-911682-20-1 , p. 366.
Web links
- Literature by and about Keith Roberts in the catalog of the German National Library
- Keith Roberts in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
- Keith Roberts in the Science Fiction Awards + Database (English)
- Works by and about Keith Roberts at Open Library
- Keith Roberts in Fantastic Fiction (English)
- Keith Roberts in Fancyclopedia 3 (English)
- The Worlds of Keith Roberts , Bibliography (accessed July 7, 2018)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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 |