Ure, Jean
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1943- ) UK author of a wide range of fiction for Young Adult readers, her active career beginning with the nonfantastic Dance for Two (1960) and continuing for well over half a century. Relatively little of her work is of sf interest, the main exception being the dark Plague 99 sequence comprising Plague 99 (1989; vt Plague 1991), Come Lucky April (1992; vt After the Plague 1995) and The Watchers at the Shrine (1994). In the first volume is set in a Near Future London devastated by the eponymous Pandemic, a Disaster which may have been caused by the long-drawn-out Cold War. Descendants of the tale's three protagonists people still-affected Britain a century hence; it is a land afflicted by splinter groups and cults, the second volume being set mainly in a Feminist commune, and the third in a masculinist enclave devoted to the worship of a nuclear power plant (see Nuclear Energy). The Wizard Trilogy beginning with The Wizard in the Woods (1990) is fantasy; several of Ure's singletons [see Checklist below for small selection] contain supernatural elements, some being full-fledged ghost stories. [JC]
Jean Neville Ure
born London: 1 January 1943
works
series
Plague 99
- Plague 99 (London: Methuen Children's Books, 1989) [Plague 99: hb/Daniel Faoro]
- Plague (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991) [vt of the above: Plague 99: hb/Mark Whiting]
- Come Lucky April (London: Methuen Children's Books, 1992) [Plague 99: hb/Daniel Faoro]
- After the Plague (London: Mammoth, 1995) [vt of the above: Plague 99: hb/]
- The Watchers at the Shrine (London: Methuen Children's Books, 1994) [Plague 99: hb/Daniel Faoro]
The Wizard Trilogy
- The Wizard in the Woods (London: Walker Books, 1990) [Wizard Trilogy: hb/David Anstey]
- The Wizard in Wonderland (London: Walker Books, 1991) [Wizard Trilogy: hb/David Anstey]
- The Wizard and the Witch (London: Walker Books, 1995) [Wizard Trilogy: hb/David Anstey]
individual titles (highly selected)
- The Children Next Door (Bath, Avon: Chivers Press, 1994) [hb/]
- Whatever Happened to Katy-Jane? (London: Walker Books, 1996) [hb/Derek Brazell]
- The Girl in the Blue Tunic (London: Scholastic, 1997) [pb/Peter Bailey]
- A Twist in Time (London: Walker Books, 2000) [pb/Derek Brazell]
links
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