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Clark, Simon

Entry updated 15 January 2024. Tagged: Author.

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(1958-    ) UK author, principally of Horror, who began to publish work of genre interest with "A Letter from John Shaw" in Dark Dreams #2 for Spring 1985 and has been a prolific author of short fiction ever since, with many of his stories (often set in his native Yorkshire) assembled as collections beginning with Blood & Grit (coll 1990; exp vt Blood and Grit 21 2011) [for further titles see Checklist below]. His first novel was the horror tale Nailed by the Heart (1995); his only series to date – the Vampyrrhic sequence opening with Vampyrrhic (1998) – deals energetically with the Vampire theme. Clark is of greatest sf interest for the Sequel by Another Hand The Night of the Triffids (2001), which was authorized by the John Wyndham estate to mark the fiftieth anniversary of The Day of the Triffids (6 January-3 February 1951 Collier's Weekly as "Revolt of the Triffids"; 1951). This book is set in the Near Future foreshadowed at the end of Wyndham's novel, with the Triffids a continuing presence whose ambulant habits and Poison stings are more a nuisance than a menace until – echoing the mass blindness of the original – a mysterious darkness descends on the Earth and once again gives an advantage to the vegetable hordes. One item of sf invention has triffids learning to hide underwater and thus ambush unwary humans; in general, though, Horror tropes predominate and the darkness is never satisfactorily explained in sf terms. The novel won the British Fantasy Award.

Also of direct sf interest, The Dalek Factor (2004) is a contribution to the Shared World of Doctor Who and – as indicated in the title – features the ever-popular Daleks. [DRL]

Simon Clark

born Doncaster, Yorkshire: 20 April 1958

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Vampyrrhic

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collections and stories

works as editor

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