Roberts, Jane
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1929-1984) US author perhaps best remembered for such speculative works as Dialogues of the Soul & Mortal Self in Time (1975), which take the form of a series of connected poems based, as was much of her voluminous speculative works, on lessons she claimed were channelled through her by an entity known as Seth. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Red Wagon" for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in December 1956. Her sf novel The Rebellers (1963 dos) provides a melodramatic mix of Overpopulation and Ecology themes as successive waves of plague answer humanity's problems by nearly eliminating the race for good. More typical of her later concerns is the Oversoul Seven sequence beginning with The Education of Oversoul #7 (1973), a transcendental parable about the meaning of reality and time and space, whose student protagonist inhabits the bodies and souls of four humans from different periods, ranging from 35,000 BCE to 2300 CE, and who discovers en passant the profound simultaneity of all realities; its sequels are The Further Education of Oversoul Seven (1979) and Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time (1984). Emir's Education in the Proper Use of Magical Powers (1979) is a Young Adult tale. [JC]
Dorothy Jane Roberts Butts
born Saratoga Springs, New York: 8 May 1929
died Elmira, New York: 5 September 1984
works (highly selected)
series
Oversoul Seven
- The Education of Oversoul #7 (New York: Pocket Books, 1973) [Oversoul Seven: pb/uncredited]
- The Further Education of Oversoul Seven (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1979) [Oversoul Seven: hb/Hal Siegel]
- Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984) [Oversoul Seven: pb/]
- The Oversoul Seven Trilogy (San Rafael, California: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1995) [omni of the above three: Oversoul Seven: pb/]
individual titles
- The Rebellers (New York: Ace Books, 1963) [dos: pb/Jack Gaughan]
- Emir's Education in the Proper Use of Magical Powers (Newburyport, Massachusetts: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 1979) [pb/Rebecca Whitney]
links
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