Rankin, Ian
Entry updated 23 October 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1960- ) Scottish author active from the early 1980s, very much best known for his long Inspector Rebus sequence of policiers set in Edinburgh, beginning with Knots & Crosses (1987); the series is entirely nonfantastic, and is not listed below. His first novel, The Flood (1986), makes tentative occult connections between a gypsy girl and the eponymous Disaster, but they remain inexplicit. The Travelling Companion (2015) is a bibliomystery concerning a lost manuscript by Robert Louis Stevenson, which threatens to create a Doppelganger version of Companion's protagonist.
Rankin is of sf interest for Westwind (1990; rev with new intro 2019), a Near Future Technothriller set partly on a Space Station suffering an inexplicable blackout, but mostly in the UK, which is being abandoned by a newly isolationist America. [JC]
Ian James Rankin
born Cardenden, Fife, Scotland: 28 April 1960
works (very highly selected)
As noted above, the Inspector Rebus sequence is not listed.
- The Flood (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1986) [hb/]
- Westwind (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1990) [hb/David Fordham and David Wood]
- Westwind (London: Orion, 2019) [rev of the above with new introduction by author: hb/]
- The Travelling Companion (New York: The Mysterious Press, 2015) [novella: chap: in the publisher's Bibliomystery series: hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry