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Watson, Ian

Entry updated 3 March 2025. Tagged: Author.

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(1943-    ) UK teacher and author who lectured in English in Tanzania (1965-1967) and Tokyo (1967-1970) before beginning to publish sf with "Roof Garden Under Saturn" forNew Worlds in 1969; he then taught Future Studies for six years at Birmingham Polytechnic, taking there one of the first academic courses in sf in the UK; he became a full-time writer in 1976, publishing more than 180 short stories since 1969 at a gradually increasing tempo and with visibly increased mastery over the form. His collections includeThe Very Slow Time Machine (coll1979),Sunstroke (coll1982),Slow Birds (coll1985),The Book of Ian Watson (coll1985),Evil Water (coll1987),Salvage Rites (1989),Stalin's Teardrops (coll1991),The Coming of Vertumnus (coll1994),The Great Escape (coll2002),The Butterflies of Memory (coll2006),The Beloved of My Beloved (coll2009) with RobertoQuaglia,Saving for a Sunny Day and Other Stories (coll2012),The 1000 Year Reich and Other Stories (coll2016) and others; of these,The Chinese Time Machine (coll2023) contains entirely recent material.

It is as a novelist, however, that Watson remains best known. His first novel,The Embedding (1973), although it is not necessarily his finest work, remains his most respected single title, a work which very early confirmed his stature as an sf writer of powerful intellect, one of the most demanding authors of theScientific Romance, though the sometimes erratic quicksilver shiftiness of his tales perhaps makes him less fully representative of that self-consciously serious-minded tradition than his near-contemporary BrianStableford. Through a complex tripartite plot, the book engages in a searching analysis (seeCommunications;Linguistics;Perception) of the nature of communication through language; the Whorfian hypothesis that languages comprehensively shape our perception of reality – a hypothesis very attractive, for obvious reasons, to sf writers, though now discredited – is bracingly embodied in at least two of the subplots: one describing a cruel experiment in which children are taught only an artificial language; the other showing attempts on the part of visitingAliens to understandHomo sapiens through an analysis of our modes of communication.

Again and again, though they vary widely from one another, each of Watson's novels reveal itself to be very much of a piece, each comprising aThought Experiment which spirals outwards from the same central obsessions about the nature ofPerception, the quest for what might be called the True Names that describe ultimate realities, and the terrible cost to human beings – in betrayals and self-betrayals – of gainingConceptual Breakthroughs, especially through a search forTranscendence.The Jonah Kit (1975), which won theBSFA Award for 1978, features the imprinting of human consciousness into a whale, in an ironized rendering ofUplift, and the transcendental whiffs of alienIntelligences (and disturbing speculative cosmology) to which Earth's whale population becomes heir.Orgasmachine (1976; English-language version2010) is a fable (not published in English for many years) about the manufacture of custom-built girls forSex.The Martian Inca (1977) reverses the dynamic flow ofThe Jonah Kit, featuring a transformative virus that invades Earth.Alien Embassy (1977) foregrounds a constant Watson preoccupation – his concern with the control of information and perception by the powers-that-be, generally governments – in a tale about the frustrated transformation of the human race.Miracle Visitors (1978) again combines speculations about perception and transcendence, in this case suggesting thatUFOs work as enticements to focus human attention on higher – indeedPosthuman – states of communication.God's World (1979) reworks Watson's ongoing concerns in yet another fashion, describing another ambivalent alien incursion, this time in the form of the "gift" of a stardrive which takes a selected human team to the eponymous world, where they undergo dangerous transfigurations and encounter a dangerous metaphysics.

Watson's first six novels, then, comprised a set of virtuoso variations on his central themes. His next,The Gardens of Delight (1980), seems at first aScience Fantasy, stepping sideways from the early work: a humanStarship encounters a planet which has transformed itself into a replica down to the last detail of the paintingThe Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch (1460-1516); but this mimicry of humanArts is soon unveiled as a further examination ofTranscendence.Under Heaven's Bridge (dated 1980 but1981) with MichaelBishop shows the flavour of the latter writer's mind as its protagonist investigates an alien culture in terms more relevant toAnthropology than Watson would alone have been inclined to employ. As the 1980s progressed, his novels tended to plunge into a pyrotechnic inventiveness in plot and style; and some even show attempts at humour, though the impatience of his quick mind has never made for successful light moments.Deathhunter (1981) suggests that humans give off a pheromone-like signal at the point of death, which attracts Death himself in the form of a mothlike insect (seeEschatology).Chekhov's Journey (1983), perhaps his least enticing novel through its entanglement in too large a cast (Watson has never been a sharp delineator of character), revolves around the Tunguska explosion of 1908.

TheBlack Current/Yaleen trilogy –The Book of the River (fixup1984),The Book of the Stars (1984) andThe Book of Being (1985), all assembled asThe Books of the Black Current (omni1986) – was his major 1980s effort; in a world divided by a mysterious and apparently sentient river into two utterly opposed halves, one half being dominated by women (Gender), the heroine Yaleen suffers rites of passage, uprootings, rebirths and transcendental awakenings as she becomes more and more deeply involved in a finalCosmological conflict between the river/Worm and the Godmind, the latter's intentions being deeply inimical to the future of humanity. More expansive, and easier than his earlier books, theBlack Current sequence was, except for his later rather off-handWarhammer 40,000Ties (see listing below), Watson's best attempt to gain a wide readership.

Subsequent books are if anything even more varied.Converts (1984) is a brisk comedy about forcedEvolution and the misuse of power.Queenmagic, Kingmagic (1986) is a slightly over-perkyFantasy based onChess and other board games.The Power (1987) andMeat (1988) are horror.Whores of Babylon (1988), set in what may be aVirtual-Reality version of Babylon reconstructed in America, details its protagonists' suspicions that aComputer is generating them as well as the city.The Fire Worm (1988) is a complex and gripping tale in which the medieval Lambton Worm proves to be the alchemical salamander of Raymond Lully (Ramon Lull;circa 1235-1316).The Flies of Memory (September 1988Asimov's; exp1990) dazzlingly skates over much of the thematic material of the previous twenty books, as the eponymousAliens memorize bits of Earth – in a manner evocative ofThe Gardens of Delight a decade earlier – so that the Universe can continue remembering itself, while various human protagonists embody linguistic concerns and dilemmas ofPerception, andSpace-Opera antics continueen passant. TheBooks of MANA sequence comprisingLucky's Harvest (1993) andThe Fallen Moon (1994), which elaborately and intricately reworks the FinnishKalevala (1835; much exp1849) [seeTheEncyclopedia of Fantasy under linksbelow] compiled/written by Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), features exuberant adventures set on a planet much like Finland (which in the back-story was discovered by a female FinnishStarship pilot, Lucky, who assumes the role of theKalevala's witch Louhi). Through an emphasis on a storyline involving a great deal ofShapeshifting andMagic part-rationalized byNanotechnology, Watson neatly captures the metamorphic intensity of Finnish legend, where landscape and myth and folk seem hauntedly mutable.

Later novels continued the same pattern of skittish but intense and cognitively demanding invention.Oracle (1997) is aTime Travel tale involving a Roman centurion, with twists.Mockymen (2003) replays earlier themes – dubiousAliens visiting Earth in search of prizes whose nature is long unrevealed;Transcendence at huge cost;Drugs that drive Faustian bargains with users – against an intricate storyline that combines apocalyptic andTechnothriller elements, along withIdentity Transfer and occult evocations of Norwegian neo-Nazi violence. The almost unpinned range of the book, like some earlier titles, seems to have directly influenced writers like JamesLovegrove.The Waters of Destiny (2012 3vols ebook; part rev vtWaters of Destiny 1: Assassins' Legacy2018) with Andy West [for individual ebook titles see Checklist below] is aTechnothriller taking off from the concept of a twelfth-century Arab physician's successful identification of the Black Death as a form of haemorrhagic fever, with dire modern consequences.The Brain from Beyond: A Spacetime Opera (2016) spoofishly combinesSpace Opera andTime Opera in a tale involvingTime Travel shenanigans, anAI called Homer, a Creation Geologist from fundamentalistNear Future America (seeReligion),Aliens in an AntarcticStasis Field, and other elements.

InCinema, Watson wrote and received screen credit for the screen story of StevenSpielberg'sA.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), based on "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" (December 1969Harper's Bazaar) by Brian WAldiss.

Watson's intelligent, polemical pieces about the nature of sf – many of which appeared inVector,Science Fiction Studies andFoundation (for which he served as features editor 1976-1991, sitting on the Council of theScience Fiction Foundation for the same period) – throw some light on the intentions of his sometimes difficult fiction, and is also, in a sense, of a piece with it. As a whole, his work engages vociferously in battles against oppression – cognitive or political – while at the same time presenting a sense that reality, so far as humanity is concerned, is subjective and partial, created too narrowly through our perception of it. The generation of fuller realities – though incessantly adumbrated by methods ranging fromDrugs through linguistic disciplines, focused meditation, radical changes in education from childhood up, and a kind of enhanced awareness of other perceptual possibilities – is never complete, never fully successful. Humans are too little, and too exorbitantly storyable, for reality. Watson has been perhaps the most impressive synthesizer of late twentieth-century sf; and (it may be, after the radically different J GBallard) the least deluded. [JC/PN]

see also:Antimatter;Cybernetics;Devolution;Games and Sports;Game-Worlds;History in SF;Interzone;Machines;Mars;Metaphysics;New Wave;New Worlds;New Writings in SF;Pastoral;Physics;Psychology;Quantum Computers;SF in the Classroom;Sociology;Superman;Under the Sea;Writers of the Future Contest.

Ian Watson

born St Albans, Hertfordshire: 20 April 1943

works

series

Black Current

Warhammer 40,000: Inquisition War

  • Inquisitor (Brighton, Sussex: GW Books,1990) [tie toWarhammer 40,000: Inquisition War: pb/ChrisBaker as Fangorn]
    • Draco (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: BL Publishing/Black Library,1992) [tie toWarhammer 40,000: vt of the above:Inquisition War: pb/Clint Langley]
  • Harlequin (London: Boxtree,1994) [tie toWarhammer 40,000: Inquisition War: pb/Dave Gallagher]
  • Chaos Child (London: Boxtree,1996) [tie toWarhammer 40,000: Inquisition War: pb/Mark Craven]
    • The Inquisition War (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: BL Publishing/Black Library,2004) [omni of the above three with additional material: tie toWarhammer 40,000:Inquisition War: pb/Clint Langley]

Warhammer 40,000

Book of MANA

The Waters of Destiny

  • Assassins (Gijón, Spain: Palabaristas Press,2012) with Andy West [ebook: first of three parts ofThe Waters of Destiny broken up for ebook publication:Waters of Destiny: na/Ana Diaz]
  • Tongue of Knowledge (Gijón, Spain: Palabaristas Press,2012) with Andy West [ebook: second of three parts ofThe Waters of Destiny broken up for ebook publication:Waters of Destiny: na/Ana Diaz]
  • Death Overflows (Gijón, Spain: Palabaristas Press,2012) with Andy West [ebook: third of three parts ofThe Waters of Destiny broken up for ebook publication:Waters of Destiny: na/Ana Diaz]

individual titles

  • Japan: A Cat's Eye View (Osaka, Japan: Bunken,1969) [Japan as seen through the eyes of a cat, for younger readers:Bunken Extensive Reading Series: pb/]
  • The Embedding (London: Victor Gollancz,1973) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • The Jonah Kit (London: Victor Gollancz,1975) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • The Martian Inca (London: Victor Gollancz,1977) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • Alien Embassy (London: Victor Gollancz,1977) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • Miracle Visitors (London: Victor Gollancz,1978) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • God's World (London: Victor Gollancz,1979) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • Orgasmachine (Paris: Editions Champ Libre,1976) [trans by Michel Pétris from original manuscript: pb/uncredited]
    • Orgasmachine (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press,2010) [rev of original English-language manuscript: hb/Judy Watson]
  • The Gardens of Delight (London: Victor Gollancz,1980) [hb/from Hieronymus Bosch]
  • Under Heaven's Bridge (London: Victor Gollancz,1981) with MichaelBishop [book is dated 1980: hb/nonpictorial]
  • Deathhunter (London: Victor Gollancz,1981) [incorporating "A Cage for Death", January 1981Omni: hb/nonpictorial]
  • Chekhov's Journey (London: Victor Gollancz,1983) [hb/nonpictorial]
  • Converts (London: Granada/Panther,1984) [incorporating "Jean Sandwich, the Sponsor and I" fromUniverse #11 (anth1981) edited by TerryCarr: pb/James Marsh]
  • Queenmagic, Kingmagic (London: Victor Gollancz,1986) [hb/Kathleen Aldridge]
  • The Power (London: Headline,1987) [pb/uncredited]
  • Meat (London: Headline,1988) [pb/Graham Potts]
  • Whores of Babylon (London: Grafton Books/Paladin,1988) [pb/PeterGoodfellow]
  • The Fire Worm (London: Victor Gollancz,1988) [incorporates "Jingling Geordie's Hole", Autumn 1986Interzone #17: hb/nonpictorial]
  • The Flies of Memory (London: Victor Gollancz,1990) [earlier version appeared September 1988Asimov's: hb/Mike Litherland]
  • Hard Questions (London: Victor Gollancz,1996) [hb/Splash]
  • Oracle (London: Victor Gollancz,1997) [hb/Splash]
  • Mockymen (Urbana, Illinois: Golden Gryphon Press,2003) [hb/Steve Montiglio]
  • New Adventures of a Chinese Time Machine (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press,2024) [hb/Adler]

collections and stories

nonfiction

works as editor

about the author

links

previous versions of this entry



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