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Geoff Ryman

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Geoff Ryman
Geoff Ryman at Åcon 2010.
Geoff Ryman at Åcon 2010.
BornGeoffrey Charles Ryman
1951 (age 72–73)
Canada
OccupationAuthor, actor, teacher
GenreScience fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, LGBT literature
Literary movementMundane science fiction
Notable worksThe Child Garden
Was
Air

Geoffrey Charles Ryman (born 1951) is a Canadian writer of science fiction, fantasy, slipstream and historical fiction. Ryman has written and published seven novels, including an early example of a hypertext novel, 253. He has won multiple awards, including the World Fantasy Award.

Biography

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Ryman was born in Canada and moved to the United States at age 11. He earned degrees in History and English at UCLA, then moved to England in 1973, where he has lived most of his life.[1][2] He is gay.[1]

In addition to being an author, Ryman started a web design team for the UK government at the Central Office of Information in 1994.[3] He also led the teams that designed the first official British Monarchy and 10 Downing Street websites, and worked on the UK government's flagship website, www.direct.gov.uk.[3]

Works

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Ryman says he knew he was a writer "before [he] could talk", with his first work published in his mother's newspaper column at six years of age.[4] He is best known for his science fiction; however, his first novel was the fantasy The Warrior Who Carried Life (1985), and his revisionist fantasy of The Wizard of Oz, Was... (1992), has been called "his most accomplished work".[2]

In 1996, Ryman began publishing instalments of 253: A Novel for the Internet in Seven Cars and a Crash on the web. The work deals with the interconnected lives of 253 people on a Bakerloo line train in London, hurtling towards death, and is an early example of a hypertext novel. It was deeply personal to Ryman. '253 happens on January 11th, 1995,' he writes, 'which is the day I learned my best friend was dying of Aids.' The project was intricate and lengthy, and took up a great deal of time, but in the 2000s, when Ryman was suffering from cancer, he accidentally failed to renew the URL, which was sold on, resulting in the loss of the project. In 2023, however, Ryman was able to restore it, and it became available online again.[5]

Much of Ryman's work is based on travels to Cambodia. The first of these, The Unconquered Country (1986), was winner of the World Fantasy Award[6] and BSFA Award. His novel The King's Last Song (2006) was set both in the Angkor Wat era and the time after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.[3]

In 2023, after a significant hiatus between novels, Ryman published Him, an alternative history of Jesus Christ, in which Jesus is born biologically female, but identifies as male.[7] New Scientist called it 'provocative,'[8] while Lisa Tuttle commented in The Guardian: 'It will offend those determined to be offended, but it is a serious, heartfelt exploration of profound human questions by one of our best writers.'[9]

Ryman has written, directed and performed in several plays based on works by other writers.

He was guest of honour at Novacon in 1989 and has twice been a guest speaker at Microcon, in 1994 and in 2004.[10][11][12] He was also the guest of honour at the national Swedish science fiction convention Swecon in 2006,[13] at Gaylaxicon 2008,[14] at Wiscon 2009,[15] and at Åcon 2010.[16] An article by Wendy Gay Pearson on Ryman's novel The Child Garden won the British Science Fiction Foundation's graduate essay award and was published in a special issue of Foundation on LGBT science fiction edited by Andrew M. Butler in 2002.[17] Ryman's works were also the subject of a special issue of Extrapolation in 2008, with articles dealing with Air, The Child Garden, Lust, and Was, in particular. Neil Easterbrook's article in this special issue, "'Giving An Account of Oneself': Ethics, Alterity, Air"[18] won the 2009 Science Fiction Research Association Pioneer Award for best published article on science fiction (this award has since been renamed the SFRA Innovative Research Award). The issue includes an interview with Geoff Ryman by Canadian speculative fiction writer Hiromi Goto.[19] The introduction to the special issue, by Susan Knabe and Wendy Gay Pearson, also responds to Ryman's call for Mundane science fiction.[20]

The Mundane SF movement was founded in 2002 during the Clarion Workshop by Ryman and other Clarion West Workshop instructors.[21] In a 2004 manifesto on the subject, Ryman writes of the Mundane science fiction movement: 'This movement proposes "mundane science fiction" as its own subgenre science fiction, typically characterized by its setting on Earth and a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written or a plausible extension of existing technology.'[22]

In 2008 a Mundane SF issue of Interzone magazine was published, guest-edited by Ryman, Julian Todd and Trent Walters.[23]

Ryman has lectured at the University of Manchester since at least 2007; as of 2022 he is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing for University of Manchester's English Department, where in 2011 he won the Faculty Students' Teaching Award for the School of Arts, History and Culture.[24]

Partial bibliography

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Main article: Geoff Ryman bibliography

Novels

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Collections

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Awards

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Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Geoff Ryman

References

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  1. ^ a b "Geoff Ryman: The Mundane Fantastic". Locus. January 2006.
  2. ^ a b Ency fantasy
  3. ^ a b c "Geoff Ryman (Centre for New Writing, The University of Manchester)". Arts.manchester.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 31 August 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  4. ^ Reed, Kit (7 August 2004). "Geoff Ryman interviewed - infinity plus non-fiction". Infinityplus.co.uk. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  5. ^ "253 people, 253 stories, 253 words each: The re-creation of an internet novel". The Irish Times. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  6. ^ World Fantasy Convention. "Award Winners and Nominees". Archived from the original on 1 December 2010. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
  7. ^ "Ian Mond Reviews Him by Geoff Ryman". Locus Online. 15 February 2024. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  8. ^ Wilson, Emily (17 January 2024). "Him review: A provocative retelling of the story of Jesus". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 17 January 2024. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  9. ^ Tuttle, Lisa (15 December 2023). "The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  10. ^ Ansible #199, February 2004
  11. ^ Ansible #79, February 1994
  12. ^ John Grant: Gulliver Unravels: Generic Fantasy and the Loss of Subversion – infinity plus non-fiction
  13. ^ Johan Anglemark. "Recent news". Imagicon. Archived from the original on 11 August 2010. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  14. ^ [1] Archived 15 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ "WisCon - The World's Leading Feminist Science Fiction Convention". Wiscon.info. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  16. ^ "GoH". Åcon. 7 August 2009. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  17. ^ Pearson, Wendy Gay. "Science Fiction as Pharmacy: Plato, Derrida, Ryman." Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 85 (2002): 66-75.
  18. ^ Easterbrook, Neil (2008). """Giving an Account of Oneself": Ethics, Alterity, Air."". Extrapolation. 49 (2): 240–26–. doi:10.3828/extr.2008.49.2.6.
  19. ^ Goto, Hiromi. "An email conversation with Geoff Ryman." Extrapolation 49.2 (2008): 195-205.
  20. ^ Knabe, Susan, and Wendy Gay Pearson. "Introduction: Mundane Science Fiction, Harm and Healing the World." Extrapolation (pre-2012) 49.2 (2008): 181-195.
  21. ^ "Geoff Ryman: The Mundane Fantastic: Interview excerpts". Locus. January 2006. Retrieved 23 September 2007.
  22. ^ "Mundane Science Fiction". HPPR. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  23. ^ Andy Cox (3 May 2008). "Interzone 216: Special Mundane-SF issue". TTA Press.
  24. ^ "Geoff Ryman". University of Manchester. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  25. ^ "Him". Goodreads. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  26. ^ a b "2005 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 17 May 2009.
  27. ^ a b c "1990 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 17 May 2009.
  28. ^ Mike Addelman (2012). "Ryman wins one of world's top science fiction prizes". University of Manchester.
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