John Crowley (1) (1942–)
Forfatter af Little, Big
For andre forfattere med navnet John Crowley, se skeln forfatterne siden.
Om forfatteren
John Crowley was a recipient of the American Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters Award for Literature. He lives in the hills above the Connecticut River in northern Massachusetts with his wife & twin daughters. (Bowker Author Biography)
Image credit: Photo by Zoe Crowley
Serier
Værker af John Crowley
Gone {story} 4 eksemplarer
Missolonghi 1824 {story} 3 eksemplarer
Exogamy {short story} 2 eksemplarer
The Reason for the Visit {story} 1 eksemplar
Science Fiction as Poetry {review} 1 eksemplar
Where Spirits Gat Them Home 1 eksemplar
Associated Works
The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005) — Bidragyder — 367 eksemplarer
The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993) — Bidragyder — 315 eksemplarer
The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2004) — Bidragyder — 270 eksemplarer
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now (2009) — Bidragyder — 268 eksemplarer
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection (2001) — Bidragyder — 249 eksemplarer
The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology (1999) — Bidragyder — 118 eksemplarer
The Chemical Wedding: by Christian Rosencreutz: A Romance in Eight Days by Johann Valentin Andreae in a New Version (2016) — Redaktør, nogle udgaver — 104 eksemplarer
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Thirteen (2019) — Bidragyder — 52 eksemplarer
Lapham's Quarterly - The Future: Volume IV, Number 4, Fall 2011 (2011) — Bidragyder — 23 eksemplarer
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction September 1996, Vol. 91, No. 3 (1996) — Bidragyder — 12 eksemplarer
Embrace the Mutation: Fiction Inspired by the Art of J. K. Potter (2002) — Bidragyder — 10 eksemplarer
Fantastic Imaginings: A Journey Through 3500 Years of Imaginative Writing, Comprising Fantasy, Horror, and Science… (2012) — Bidragyder — 4 eksemplarer
Misunderstanding Cad First Contact SF Masterpiece Selection — Bidragyder — 1 eksemplar
Satte nøgleord på
Almen Viden
- Juridisk navn
- Crowley, John Michael
- Fødselsdato
- 1942-12-01
- Køn
- male
- Nationalitet
- USA
- Fødested
- Presque Isle, Maine, USA
- Bopæl
- Presque Isle, Maine, USA
Vermont, USA
Kentucky, USA
Indiana, USA
New York, New York, USA - Uddannelse
- Indiana University (1965)
- Erhverv
- senior lecturer (creative writing)
filmmaker
fantasy writer - Organisationer
- Yale University
- Priser og hædersbevisninger
- World Fantasy Award (Life Achievement, 2006)
American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature, 1992) - Agent
- Howard Morhaim (Lotts Agency)
Medlemmer
Discussions
Little, Big 25th Anniversary Edition i Fine Press Forum (august 2023)
Little, Big i Hogwarts Express (april 2013)
Fantasy Novel i Name that Book (oktober 2010)
Anmeldelser
Lister
Five star books (1)
Favourite Books (2)
SF Masterworks (2)
Same Title (1)
Faerie Mythology (1)
Unread books (1)
Magic Realism (1)
Hæderspriser
Måske også interessante?
Associated Authors
Statistikker
- Værker
- 39
- Also by
- 51
- Medlemmer
- 11,505
- Popularitet
- #2,043
- Vurdering
- 3.9
- Anmeldelser
- 269
- ISBN
- 246
- Sprog
- 11
- Udvalgt
- 108
Crowley went for the first option - he started with a small change but wrapped it into a secret society and time travel. And yet, the novella works because its internal logic makes sense inside of its own framework.
Cecil Rhodes's real life reads as a story even without embellishments. His will established the Rhodes Scholarship - which is probably the first thing a modern reader think of when they hear his name. His story in Africa may be colorful and his name may be living in a lot of local names (past and current) but I'd admit that I knew very little about him before I met him in this novella (and then went to check how much of what was in the text was true - the answer ended up being "a lot").
It all started really innocently - a young man invented a time machine and went back in time to get a rare stamp. Things did not go exactly as expected and before long the reality he started from seemed to have changed - the British Empire never fell, a time traveling society had been meddling and ensuring that the Empire will stand forever and history as we know it had become a bit less stable. So where does Rhodes come into play you wonder? Well, he had the money and he had the right upbringing and mindset - setting up a scholarship while making sense before his death did not really match his thoughts earlier in his life. So what if he never managed to get to the later stage of his life and never got disillusioned with the Empire?
For most of the novella, the reader needs to pick up from sometimes very subtle clues what kind of reality the text is talking about - ours, the one where Rhodes dies even younger than in ours or something totally different. It could have been frustrating but it ends up fascinating - Crowley's handling of the real history works flawlessly in its merging of the story of a young man, Winterset, who is asked to go back in time and undo a change which brought what he thinks of the real history. There are some places where the text could have stalled but somehow it never happens - the necessary confusion for the story to work ends up being the strength of the novella. And by the end of it, by the time when the reader knows a lot more about that world than any of the characters, it all gets tied together - all the way back to where we started with that rare stamp.
This story is exactly what science fiction (and fantasy) is really good at - looking at real life issues with a different lens. In this case, it is colonialism and the British Colonial Service - the format allows the exploration not only of what had been but of what could have been (both good and bad). The ending may feel unresolved - the story is closed but there is enough of an opening for everyone, including the reader and Winterset, to realize that this may not be the end.
I am not surprised the novella won the World Fantasy Award (even if it is nominally a science fiction story, there are some elements to push it to the border between the two genres or even over into fantasy) - if anything, I am surprised it did not win more awards. I am glad to have finally found it.… (mere)