Berry, Adrian
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1937-2016) UK science journalist (chiefly in the London Daily Telegraph, of which he was the science correspondent from 1977 to 1996 and thereafter the consulting editor for science) and occasional sf author; he was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and an enthusiastic advocate of Space Flight. His sf novels – the Koyama sequence comprising Koyama's Diamond: A Novel of the Far Future (1982) and Labyrinth of Lies (1984) – are set in a Far-Future planetary system with much political intrigue, with some interesting ideas and plot turns; but they are written in a lurid style reminiscent of 1930s Pulp magazines.
Berry's more important service to sf has been the publication of a number of nonfiction science books about the future (see Futures Studies), including the bestselling The Next Ten Thousand Years: A Vision of Man's Future in the Universe (1974) as well as The Iron Sun: Crossing the Universe through Black Holes (1977) – expounding in a lively if not altogether rigorous fashion the contemporary speculation that Black Holes could somehow be used as Wormholes for easy interstellar travel – and From Apes to Astronauts (coll 1980). The topics discussed in these books – mostly to do with physics and speculative Technology – are among those much exploited by Hard-SF writers in the 1970s and ever since. The Giant Leap: Mankind Heads for the Stars (1999) sets further hard-headed speculations on how to achieve manned travel in space over the next decades into a context of politicized arguments about the inevitable primacy of corporate enterprise; the sense that the book is a Libertarian tract should not, however, deter readers from benefiting from the clear exposition that survives. In 2001 Berry inherited the title of Viscount Camrose. [PN/JC/DRL]
see also: Terraforming.
Adrian Michael Berry
born 15 June 1937
died 18 April 2016
works
series
Koyama
- Koyama's Diamond: A Novel of the Far Future (New York: Vantage Press, 1982) [vanity: Koyama: hb/]
- Labyrinth of Lies (New York: Vantage Press, 1984) [vanity: Koyama: hb/Peter Juul]
nonfiction (selected)
- The Next Ten Thousand Years: A Vision of Man's Future in the Universe (London: Jonathan Cape, 1974) [nonfiction: hb/]
- The Iron Sun: Crossing the Universe through Black Holes (London: Jonathan Cape, 1977) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]
- From Apes to Astronauts (London: Daily Telegraph, 1980) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
- The Super-Intelligent Machine: An Electronic Odyssey (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983) [nonfiction: hb/]
- High Skies and Yellow Rain (London: Daily Telegraph, 1983) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
- The Next 500 Years: Life in the Coming Millennium (London: Headline, 1995) [nonfiction: hb/]
- The Giant Leap: Mankind Heads for the Stars (London: Headline, 1999) [nonfiction: hb/The Chopping Block]
links
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