Ian Watson

"What makes Watson stand out from the crowd is the freedom of his imagination. His forte is ideas, the more mind-bending, the better. He is an explorer into the nature of consciousness. His quest into non-ordinary awareness leads to a magnificent transcendence of the mundane, to an appreciation of the multidimensional experience of reality."

-J.G. Ballard

Ian Watson is a British science fiction author of great talent who for some unknown reason has been continually ignored by the mainstream SF scene. He has a large body of work, most of which is now out of print but is consistently excellent.

Ian Watson recently received a credit for the screenplay for Steven Spielberg/Stanley Kubrick's A.I.. Watson was working with Kubrick on the screenplay at the time of Kubrick's death.

Watson took a break from writing in 1997 to care for his wife, Judy, who unfortunately died over Easter, 2001. Since her death, he has taken part in poetry and writing conventions around the world.

An incomplete list of his work follows (entries marked with a * are anthologies of short stories):

1. The Embedding (1973)
2. The Jonah Kit (1975)
3. The Martian Inca (1977)
4. Alien Embassy (1977)
5. Miracle Visitors (1978)
6. God's World (1979)
7. The Very Slow Time Machine (1979)*
8. The Gardens of Delight (1980)
9. Under Heaven's Bridge (with Michael Bishop) (1981)
10. Deathhunter (1981)
11. Sunstroke (1982)*
12. Chekhov's Journey (1983)
13. Converts (1984)
14. The Books of the Black Current:
    1. The Book of the River (1984)
    2. The Book of the Stars (1984)
    3. The Book of Being (1985)
15. The Book of Ian Watson (1985)*
16. Slow Birds (1985)*
17. Queenmagic, Kingmagic (1986)
18. Evil Water (1987)*
19. The Power (1987)
20. The Fire Worm (1988)
21. Whores of Babylon (1988, reprinted in 2003)
22. Meat (1988)
23. Salvage Rites (1989)*
24. The Flies of Memory (1990)
25. The Inquistion War Series (based on the Warhammer 40,000 game universe):
    1. Inquisitor (1990, reprinted in 2002 as Draco)
    2. Space Marine (1993)
    3. Harlequin (1994)
    4. Chaos Child (1995)
26. Stalin's Teardrops (1991)*
27. The Books of Mana:
    1. Lucky's Harvest (1993)
    2. The Fallen Moon (1994)
28. The Coming of Vertumnus (1994)*
29. Hard Questions (1996)
30. Oracle (1997)
31. Mockymen (2003)
32. The Butterflies of Memory (2006)*