Moore, Brian
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1921-1999) Irish-born author, in Canada 1948-1959, in the USA from 1959, best known for non-genre works like The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960); he also published at least seven detective thrillers beginning with Wreath for a Redhead (1951) under his own name and as by Bernard Mara and Michael Bryan. Several of his novels contain strong elements of fantasy, like Fergus (1970) and Cold Heaven (1983), two tales linked by their preoccupation with the dead – dead parents visiting their child; dead husband haunting a widow and challenging the terms of her faith. The Great Victorian Collection (1975) engages more fully with the moves of Fantastika in its treatment of a professor who dreams into reality a collection of Victorian antiques, which survive his death. The Mangan Inheritance (1979) involves a borderline use of Doppelganger themes.
Moore's only sf novel proper, Catholics (1972 New American Review #15; 1972), a Near Future tale set at the end of the nineteenth century, describes the conflict between the ecumenism of a social reformer and disillusioned conservatism of an abbot who has lost his faith (see Religion). [JC]
see also: Canada.
Brian Moore
born Belfast, Northern Ireland: 25 August 1921
died Malibu, California: 10 January 1999
works
- Fergus (Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1970) [hb/Edgar Blakeney]
- Catholics (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972) [hb/nonpictorial]
- The Great Victorian Collection (Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart,, 1975) [hb/Janet Halverson]
- The Mangan Inheritance (Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1979) [hb/Constance Fogler]
- Cold Heaven (Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1983) [hb/Hans Wendler]
links
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