Brian Stableford


Brian Michael Stableford was a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who published a hundred novels and more than a hundred volumes of translations. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but later ones dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for some of his very early and late works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work.

Biography

Born in Shipley, Yorkshire, Stableford graduated with a degree in biology from the University of York in 1969 before going on to do postgraduate research in biology and later in sociology. In 1979 he received a PhD with a doctoral thesis on The Sociology of Science Fiction.
Until 1988 he worked as a lecturer in sociology at the University of Reading. He was later a full-time writer and a part-time lecturer at several universities for classes concerning subjects such as creative writing. He was married twice, and had a son and a daughter by his first wife.
He wrote and contributed to numerous reference works, including the last print edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, wrote books and essays on the history of science fiction, and published more than 200 translations of novels of early French science fiction and fantasy.
Brian Stableford died in Swansea, Wales, on 24 February 2024, at the age of 75.

Awards and honours

Fiction

Series

Dies Irae
  1. The Days of Glory
  2. In the Kingdom of the Beasts
  3. ''Day of Wrath''
    Hooded Swan ( Grainger)
  4. The Halcyon Drift ; also available as an ebook, listed at 58,069 words
  5. Rhapsody in Black ; also available as an ebook, listed at 51,279 words
  6. Promised Land ; also available as an ebook, listed at 49,848 words
  7. The Paradise Game ; also available as an ebook, listed at 50,303 words
  8. The Fenris Device ; also available as an ebook, listed at 49,782 words
  9. Swan Song
All six novels are also available in an omnibus volume: ''Swan Songs''
Daedalus Mission
  1. The Florians
  2. Critical Threshold
  3. Wildeblood's Empire
  4. The City of the Sun
  5. Balance of Power
  6. ''The Paradox of the Sets''
    Asgard
  7. Asgard's Secret ; revised and expanded from 2 earlier versions:
  8. *Journey to the Center
  9. *Journey to the Centre
  10. Asgard's Conquerors ; revised and expanded from an earlier version:
  11. *Invaders from the Centre
  12. Asgard's Heart ; revised and expanded from an earlier version:
  13. *''The Centre Cannot Hold''
    Warhammer
  14. The Orfeo Trilogy:
  15. *Zaragoz
  16. *Plague Daemon
  17. *Storm Warriors
  18. The Wine of Dreams
  19. ''Warhammer 40000: Pawns of Chaos''
    David Lydyard (Werewolves)
  20. The Werewolves of London
  21. The Angel of Pain
  22. ''The Carnival of Destruction''
    Dark Future
  23. ''Ghost Dancers''
    Genesys
  24. Serpent's Blood
  25. Salamander's Fire
  26. ''Chimera's Cradle''
    Emortality
The first six volumes are considered the main sequence and were published out of series order; preferred reading order shown below is established from the author's introduction to volume 6, The Omega Expedition. This series is also related to, though not always entirely consistent with, the 8 collections and 5 novels subtitled "Tales of the Biotech Revolution", see below.
The term "emortality", intended to indicate near-immortality as opposed to absolute immortality, is acknowledged by Stableford to have been coined by Alvin Silverstein in his 1979 book, Conquest of Death.
In the introduction to his 2007 collection, The Tree of Life and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution, Stableford describes this series as "tracking the potential effects of possible developments in biotechnology on the evolution of global society. a modified version of the future history mapped out in The Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000–3000.
"The broad sweep of this future history envisages a large-scale economic and ecological collapse in the 21st-century brought about by global warming and other factors, followed by the emergence of a global society designed to accommodate human longevity."
  1. The Cassandra Complex ; revised and expanded from:
  2. *"The Magic Bullet", Interzone #29 1989
  3. Inherit the Earth ; revised and expanded from:
  4. *"Inherit the Earth", Analog July 1995
  5. Dark Ararat
  6. Architects of Emortality ; revised and expanded from:
  7. *Les Fleurs du Mal ''Asimov's October 1994; also, see Collection 19, below
  8. The Fountains of Youth ; revised and expanded from:
  9. *"Mortimer Gray's History of Death", Asimov's April 1995
  10. The Omega Expedition ; revised and expanded from:
  11. *"And He Not Busy Being Born..." Interzone #16 Summer 1986
  12. The Dragon Man: A Novel of the Future'' ; a stand-alone "Young Adult" novel; also available as an e-book, listed at 65,401 words
    Mnemosyne
  13. The Wayward Muse
  14. *Introduction *
  15. *"The Secret Exhibition", Weird Tales Fall 1999; revised here, per the author's introduction
  16. *"The Incubus of the Rose", Weird Tales Summer 2000; revised here, per the author's introduction
  17. *"The Arms of Morpheus" *
  18. Eurydice's Lament
  19. The Mirror of Dionysius
  20. ''The Pool of Mnemosyne''
    The Empire of the Necromancers
  21. The Shadow of Frankenstein ; a fix-up of the following:
  22. *"The Grey Men" Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 2: Gentlemen of the Night, ed. Jean-Marc Lofficier & Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press 2005
  23. *"The Child-Stealers" Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 3: Danse Macabre, ed. Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press 2006
  24. Frankenstein and the Vampire Countess ; a fix-up of the following:
  25. *"The Return of Frankenstein" Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 4: Lords of Terror, ed. Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press 2008
  26. *"The Vampire in Paris" Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 5: The Vampires of Paris, ed. Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press 2009
  27. Frankenstein in London ; a fix-up of the following:
  28. *"Where Zombies Armies Clash By Night" Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 6: Grand Guignol, ed. Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press 2010
  29. *"The Necromancers of London" Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 7: Femmes Fatales, ed. Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press 2011
    Auguste Dupin
  30. "The Legacy of Erich Zann", see Collections 21 & 23, below
  31. The Mad Trist / Valdemar's Daughter ; billed as "Wildside Double #10"
  32. *"Valdemar's Daughter: A Romance of Mesmerism" *; also available as an ebook, listed at 30,405 words
  33. *"The Mad Trist: A Romance of Bibliomania" *; also available as an ebook, listed at 32,787 words
  34. The Quintessence of August: A Romance of Possession
  35. The Cthulhu Encryption: A Romance of Piracy
  36. Journey to the Core of Creation: A Romance of Evolution
  37. ''Yesterday Never Dies: A Romance of Metempsychosis''
    Morgan's Fork
  38. Spirits of the Vasty Deep
  39. The Insubstantial Pageant
  40. ''The Truths of Darkness''
    Paul Furneret
  41. The Painter of Spirits
  42. The Quiet Dead
  43. ''Living With the Dead''

    Other novels

  • Cradle of the Sun
  • The Blind Worm
  • To Challenge Chaos
  • The Realms of Tartarus ; a trilogy of short novels, the first of which is slightly revised from the following:
  • * The Face of Heaven
  • Man in a Cage ; also available as an e-book, listed at 75,907 words; loosely based on the following story:
  • * "Meeting at Eternity", Proteus #3 1966
  • The Mind-Riders
  • The Last Days of the Edge of the World
  • The Walking Shadow
  • Optiman / a.k.a. War Games
  • The Castaways of Tanagar
  • The Gates of Eden
  • The Empire of Fear ; revised and expanded from:
  • * "The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady", F&SF August 1988
  • Young Blood ; also available as an e-book, listed at 129,274 words
  • Firefly: A Novel of the Far Future, ; also available as an e-book, listed at 52,589 words; revised and expanded from:
  • * "Beyond Time's Aegis", Science Fantasy November 1965
  • The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires – first published in somewhat abridged form in the following:
  • * "The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires", Interzone January 1995
  • Year Zero ; a fix-up and expansion of the following 3 stories:
  • * "When Molly Met Elvis", Interzone April 1997
  • * "Molly and the Angel", Interzone July 1999
  • * "Molly and the Men in Black", Interzone September 1999
  • The Eleventh Hour ; also available as an e-book, listed at 106,225 words
  • Curse of the Coral Bride ; loosely based on the following:
  • * "The Light of Achernar", The Last Continent: New Tales of Zothique, ed. John Pelan, ShadowLands Press 1999
  • Kiss the Goat
  • The Stones of Camelot ; revised and expanded from:
  • * "The Architect of Worlds", Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel & Martin H. Greenberg, DAW July 1998
  • Streaking: A Novel of Probability
  • The New Faust at the Tragicomique
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity ; book version of the following linked novellas:
  • * "The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires", Interzone January 1995 / Mark V. Ziesing 1996, see above
  • * "The Black Blood of the Dead", Interzone January 1997
  • * "The Gateway of Eternity", Interzone January 1999
  • The Moment of Truth, ; loosely based on the following:
  • * "The Face of an Angel", Leviathan 3, ed. Forrest Aguirre & Jeff VanderMeer, Ministry of Whimsy 2002
  • Prelude to Eternity: A Romance of the First Time Machine
  • The World Beyond: A Sequel to S. Fowler Wright's The World Below
  • Alien Abduction: The Wiltshire Revelations ; "A Comedy of Aliens"
  • Luscinia: A Romance of Nightingales and Roses ; also available as an e-book, listed at 62,555 words
  • The Plurality of Worlds: A 16th-century Space Opera ; book version of the following linked novellas:
  • * "The Ethership", Asimov's August 2006
  • * "Doctor Muffet's Island", Asimov's March 2007
  • * "The Philosopher's Stone", Asimov's July 2008
  • * "The Great Armada", Asimov's April/May 2009; text slightly restored here
  • Zombies Don't Cry: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
  • Xeno's Paradox: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
  • Nature's Shift: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution ; loosely based on the following:
  • * "The Growth of the House of Usher", Interzone #24 1988
  • Echoes of Eternity
  • Vampires of Atlantis: A Love Story ; revised and expanded from the following:
  • * "Sheena", The Vampire Sextette, ed. Marvin Kaye, SFBC 2000 / Ace 2002
  • The Darkling Wood: A Scientific Fantasy ; revised and expanded from the following:
  • * "Tenebrio", Vanishing Acts, ed. Ellen Datlow, Tor 2000
  • The Devil in Detail ; loosely based on the following related stories:
  • * "Chacun sa Goule", Dancing with the Dark, ed. Stephen Jones, Vista 1997
  • * "The Haunted Bookshop", Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror, ed. Stephen Jones & David Sutton, Gollancz UK 2000
  • * "Beyond Bliss", The Haunted Bookshop and Other Apparitions, Borgo Press Sep. 2007
  • Portals of Paradise
  • Tangled Web of Time
  • Further Beyond: A Lovecraftian Science Fiction Novel ; revised and expanded from the following:
  • * "Further Beyond", Black Wings III, ed. S. T. Joshi, PS Publishing Feb. 2014
  • The Death of Broceliande: A Tale of Faery ; revised and expanded from the following:
  • * "Chanterelle", Black Heart, Ivory Bones, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, Avon 2000
  • The Alchemy of Blood ; revised and expanded from the following:
  • * "The Path of Progress", The Return of the Djinn and Other Black Melodramas, Borgo Press Aug. 2009
  • The Tyranny of the Word
  • The Revelations of Time and Space
  • The Elusive Shadows: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
  • ''Meat on the Bone''