William John Watkins

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William John Watkins (actually William Jon Watkins; born July 19, 1942 in Coaldale , Schuylkill County , Pennsylvania ) is an American science fiction writer and poet.

Life

Watkins is the son of crane operator Charles William Joseph Watkins and Edna, née Pearson. He attended Neshaminy High School in Langhorne and then studied at Rutgers University in New Brunswick , New Jersey , where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1964 and graduated from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education with a master's degree in education (M. Ed.) In 1965 . In 1961 he married Sandra Lee Preno and has three children from this marriage. After completing his studies, he worked as a teacher at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown until 1968 , then at the high school in Asbury Park , New Jersey, and from 1969 as Associate Professor of Humanities at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft , New Jersey. Watkins has now retired.

Watkins published a first volume of poetry in 1968, and a play appeared in 1969, which premiered the following year. His first science fiction publication was the novel Ecodeath (1972), which he wrote with colleague Gene Snyder, about catastrophic pollution and the main characters are Snyder and Watkins. Only through teleportation into a future parallel world will they be able to save a small remnant of humanity. Humanity on the edge remains the dominant theme in Watkins' subsequent books. They are dystopias seen through dark glasses , characterized by a very pessimistic view of human nature and the prospect of humanity to escape self-destruction. Salvation, if at all, can only come from outside. In Clickwhistle (1973, German as click whistle ) these are dolphins, which the whale specialist Dr. Pearson help prevent nuclear Armaggedon. In What Rough Beast (1980), the rescue comes from a furry alien named Lth, who is endowed with a few super powers and wants to lead humanity on the path of enlightenment. But people don't want, they hunt Lth. The solution and redemption comes when Lth succeeds in communicating with computers that are in the process of becoming conscious. Henceforth, the higher consciousness is implanted in humans in the form of a conscious microcomputer. The war against a sinister tyranny is also the topic several times, for example in The God Machine (1973, German as opponent of the system ), where a high-tech underground army fights against an oppressive machine like Orwell's 1984 . An essential part of this is a reduction device called a "diminutor", with which the underground fighters can be shrunk to the size of ants. The whole thing takes place in a poisoned world in which the air is so contaminated that you can only survive with breathing masks.

In addition to his literary work, Watkins has also written a children's book, a book about one of the last trackers in America, esoteric counselors, a Who's Who of wrestling in New Jersey and Suburban Wilderness (1981), in which someone was seriously injured in an accident from the perspective of a person Bikers - Watkins is a keen motorcyclist - describing the amazingly diverse fauna that can be seen through binoculars from the window of a house in an American suburb.

Awards

In 1969, Watkins' piece Judas Wheel won the literary magazine Per / Se Award for one-act play . His poems have been nominated many times for the Asimov's Readers' Award , his short story The Beggar in the Living Room was nominated for the 1994 Nebula Award . In 2002 he received the Rhysling Award for the poem We Die As Angels .

bibliography

Novels
  • Ecodeath (1972, with Gene Snyder as EV Snyder)
  • Clickwhistle (1973)
  • The God Machine (1973)
  • The Litany of Sh'reev (1976, with Gene Snyder)
  • What Rough Beast (1980)
  • The Centrifugal Rickshaw Dancer (1985)
  • Going to See the End of the Sky (1986)
  • The Last Deathship Off Antares (1989)
  • Cosmic Thunder (1996)
Short stories
  • Ten Micro Novels (1974)
  • The People's Choice (1974)
  • The Last Ten Micro Novels (1975)
  • Coming of Age in Henson's Tube (1977)
    • German: Test of courage in the Henson tube. In: HJ Alpers (ed.): Countdown. Knaur Science Fiction & Fantasy # 5711, 1979, ISBN 3-426-05711-5 .
  • Butcher's Thumb (1978)
  • Post Awful (1985)
  • A Bite of the Apple (1989)
  • Ants (1989)
  • In The Lowerarchy of The Underpinning (1991)
  • The Resurrectionist (1992)
  • For Which the First Was Made (1993)
  • Hearts and Minds (1993)
  • Home Art (1993)
  • The Beggar in the Living Room (1993)
  • Snow Scene with Frozen Rabbit (1993)
  • American Cusine (1993)
  • The Mist of Avalon Nine (1994)
  • The Seven Succubi (1994)
  • Part Way Down Sleep's Mountain (1994)
  • The Massive Quantities of Ice (1995)
  • Good Help Is Hard to Find (1995)
  • Zombies at the Public Facility (2000)
  • Under the Sand (2001)
  • Seijin's Enlightenment (2005)
  • The Polka Man (2007)
  • Five Hundred Vinnies (2009)
  • The Fall of Stile City (2013)
Plays
Poems
  • Five Poems (1968)
Non-fiction and miscellaneous
  • A Fair Advantage (1975, children's book)
  • The Tracker (1978, with Tom Brown Jr.)
    • English: The tracker: The authentic report of one of the last trackers in America today. Translated by Jochen Eggert. Scherz, Bern et al. 1985, ISBN 3-502-18835-1 .
  • The Psychic Experiment Book (1980)
  • The Psychic Diet Book (1980)
  • Suburban Wilderness (1981)
  • Who's Who in New Jersey Wrestling (1981)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the original "Micronizer".
  2. ^ William Jon Watkins - Opponent of the System , Review by Michael Drewniok on Buchwurm.org from October 5, 2018, accessed October 27, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Watkins, William John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Watkins, William Jon (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American science fiction writer and poet
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Coaldale , Schuylkill County , Pennsylvania