(1972-    ) Australian writer who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Art of Dying" for Aurealis in 1997, and who came into sudden recognition with her first novel, The Etched City (2003; rev 2004), a tale whose venue shares with the earlier work of M John Harrison a culture and a poisonous City at its heart where magic and Technology are not easily distinguished; balancing between sf and fantasy protocols, the novel exhibits an assured Equipoise which marks it as work whose heart is in the twenty-first century. Its protagonists, who seem at first romantically decadent, are viewed with a cold eye. This novel won a Ditmar Award. [JC]

Kirsten Jane Bishop

born Melbourne, Australia: 6 March 1972

died

works

• The Etched City (Canton, Ohio: Prime Books, 2003) [pod: widely available: pb/K J Bishop]
  • The Etched City (New York: Bantam Books, 2004) [rev of the above: pb/Paul Youll]

links

Previous versions of this entry

• 16/11/2005
• 21/12/2011