Biography
Photograph by Nicholas Royle
I was born in England on St George's Day 1955 (click here for a brief story from my childhood). I have a Ph.D in Botany, worked as a researcher in biology in various universities, including Oxford and UCLA, and for six years was a lecturer in botany at St Andrews University. When I was 20, the first short story I ever finished was accepted by the American magazine Worlds of If, but the magazine went out of business before publishing it and I took this as a hint to concentrate on an academic career instead. I started writing again after a period as a resident alien in Los Angeles, and now I'm living the lion's life of a full-time writer.
My first novel, Four Hundred Billion Stars, won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and Fairyland won the 1995 Arthur C. Clarke Award for best SF novel published in Britain and the 1996 John W. Campbell Award for best novel. In 1995, my short story 'The Temptation of Dr Stein' won the British Fantasy Award, and in 1996 my novel Pasquale's Angel won the Sidewise Award for Best Long Form Alternate History fiction. Most of the time I live in London.
'Science fiction has seen fashions come and go, but there are still a few who keep the faith, and McAuley is one of the best.' The Independent
'McAuley matches the best of his American rivals for zest and scope.' The Guardian
'McAuley is a crafty and inventive writer.' Locus
'McAuley is part of a spearhead of writers who, for pure imagination, hipness, vision and fun, have made Britain the Memphis Sun Records of SF' Mark Thomas, Mail on Sunday
Bibliography
Novels
Four
Hundred Billion Stars New York, Del Rey (1988); London, Gollancz (1988);
Editrice Nord, Milan (1988); Munich, Heyne Verlag, (1990); Chomutov, Milenium
Publishing (1998); Paris, J'ai Lu (1998). Dorthy Yoshida, an astronomer cursed
with a near-crippling empathic talent, is recruited to help unravel the mystery
of a small terraformed planet orbiting a red dwarf star. Space opera with a
dark edge.Winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial
Award.
Of
the Fall New York, Del Rey (1989); (as
Secret
Harmonies) London, Gollancz (1989); Tel Aviv, Opus (1994); Munich,
Heyne Verlag (1995). Like Earth before the Age of Waste, the planet Elysium has
boundless oceans, clean skies, lush forests and fertile plains; even its
primitive aborigines seem harmless. But Citizens of Port of Plenty, descended
from the first colonists, ruthlessly suppress the expansionist plans of newer
settlers, and sudden loss of contact with Earth plunges Elysium into war. My
campus novel. British paperback Vista ISBN 0-575-60372-0 £5.99
Eternal
Light London, Gollancz (1991); Editrice Nord, Milan (1992); New
York, AvoNova (1993); Amsterdam, Meulenhoff (1993); Munich, Heyne Verlag (1995);
Paris, Jai'Lu (2000). Sequel to
Four Hundred Billion Stars. With Talbeck Barlstilkin, a near-immortal
Golden, Suzy Falcon, a reckless pilot, and Robot, an artist/terrorist, Dorthy
Yoshida travels to the centre of the Galaxy and beyond in a quest to unravel
the mystery of an enigmatic star travelling towards the Solar System. Radical
hard SF. British paperback Millennium ISBN 1-85798-910-4 £6.99
Red
Dust London, Gollancz (1993); New York, AvoNova (1994); Milan,
Editrice Nord (1994); Munich, Heyne Verlag (1995); Paris, Editions Flammarion
(2000). Mars has been partially terraformed by the Chinese, but now it is
dying. With the help of Yankee Yak herders, a hardwired assassin and a little
girl god, Wei Lee, dupe, womanizer and holy fool, stumbles on a plot that has
been spinning for decades, and is catapulted on a journey that will take him to
the summit of the biggest volcano in the Solar System and a battle in virtual
reality for the future of Mars and humanity. Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll . .
. and Mars. British paperback Vista ISBN 0-575-60213-9 £5.99.
Pasquale's
Angel London, Gollancz (1994); New York, AvoNova (1995); Frankfurt,
Eichborn (1995); Tel Aviv, Opus (1996); Paris, DeNoël (1998). An alternate
history set in 16th Century Florence transformed by the inventions of the Great
Engineer, Leonardo Da Vinci. Featuring Niccolo Machiavelli as a consulting
detective. Winner of the Sidewise Award.
British paperback Millennium ISBN 1-85798-909-0 £6.99 US paperback ISBN
0-380-77820-3 $5.99.
Fairyland
London, Gollancz (1995); New York, AvoNova (1996); Paris, J'ai Lu (1999);
Tokyo, Hayakawa (1999); Milan, Editrice Nord (1999); Poznan, Wydawnictwo Zysk
(1999); Munich, Heyne Verlag (1999). A near future thriller in which Alex
Sharkey, a drug designer, becomes involved with a brilliant but dangerous little
girl, Milena, and unwittingly helps initiate the process which changes dolls,
blue-skinned gengineered creatures designed for work, amusement or destruction,
into self-aware fairies. London, Paris, Tirana.
Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell
Awards. British paperback VISTA ISBN 0-575-60031-4 £5.99, US
paperback AvonNova ISBN 0-380-79429-2 $5.99. Sample
Child
of the River, The First Book of Confluence London, Gollancz
(1997); New York, Avon Eos (1998); Milan, Editrice Nord (1999). The artificial
world of Confluence is home to thousands of alien races shaped and raised to
consciousness by god-like descendants of humanity who have long ago retreated
from the Universe, but now the Great River, the lifeblood of Confluence, is
failing, and the world is riven by civil war. As a child, Yama was found on the
breast of a dead woman in a white boat floating on Confluence's Great River.
The unravelling of the riddle of his mysterious birth will reveal whether he is
to be the saviour of Confluence -- or its nemesis. In which I commit trilogy
(and
here's an
explanation of how I
got started). British paperback Vista ISBN 0-575- 60168-X £5.99 US
paperback Avon Eos ISBN 0-380-79296-6 $6.99 Sample
Ancients
of Days, The Second Book of Confluence London, Gollancz (1998); New
York, Avon Eos (1999); Milan, Editrice Nord (2000). Yama's search for his
origins takes him from a vast theocratic citadel in Ys, Confluence's chief city,
towards the war far down the length of the Great River, where forces loyal to
the Preservers struggle against those who follow the heresies of the last
humans, the Ancients of Days. An attempt to solve the problem of the difficult
middle volume of a trilogy. British paperback Millennium ISBN 1-85798-892-2 £6.99
US paperback HarperCollins Eos ISBN 0-380-79297-4 $6.99 Sample
Shrine
of Stars, The Third Book of Confluence London, Gollancz (1999); New
York, Avon Eos (2000). Yama discovers that the truth about his origins and the
true nature of Confluence are inextricably intertwined. I hope that all who
have followed him on his long and difficult journey find answers to all their
questions here. British paperback Millennium ISBN 1-85798-981-3 £6.99 US
hardback HarperCollins Eos ISBN 0-380-97517-3 $18.00 Sample
Short Stories
The
King Of the Hill London, Gollancz (1991); Munich, Heyne Verlagh (1995).
Includes: 'The King of the Hill'; 'Karl and the Ogre'; 'Transcendence'; 'The
Temporary King'; 'Exiles'; 'Little Ilya and Spider and Box'; 'The Airs of
Earth'; 'The Heirs of Earth'.
The
Invisible Country London, Gollancz (1996); New York, Avon Eos (1998).
Short stories with a biotechnological slant, including: 'The Invisible Country';
'Gene Wars'; 'Recording Angel'; 'Prison Dreams'; 'Dr Luther's Assistant'; 'The
Temptation of Dr Stein'; 'Children of the Revolution'; 'The True History of Dr
Pretorius'; 'Slaves'.
In
Dreams (edited with
Kim Newman) London, Gollancz
(1992). Anthology of original short stories about pop culture surrounding the 7
inch vinyl single.
Futures
London, Gollancz (2001). Four novella, including 'Reality Dust' by Stephen
Baxter, 'Watching Trees Grow' by Peter F. Hamilton, 'Making History' by Paul
McAuley, and 'Tendeleo's Story' by Ian McDonald.
Uncollected Stories
'Wagon, Passing' first appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine, Davis Publications, Inc, 1984; 'Among the Stones' first appeared in Amazing, TSR, Inc, 1987; 'A Dragon for Seyour Chan' first appeared in Interzone, 1987; 'Inheritance' first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mercury Press, Inc, 1988; 'Jacob's Rock' first appeared in Amazing, TSR, Inc, 1989; 'Crossroads Blues' first appeared in Interzone, 1991; 'Negative Equity' first appeared in Dark Terrors 2, edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton, Gollancz, 1996; 'Second Skin' first appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine, Dell Magazines, 1997; 'Residuals', by Paul J. McAuley and Kim Newman, first appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine, Dell Magazines, 1997; 'The Worst Place in the World' first appeared in The Mammoth Book of Dracula, edited by Stephen Jones, Robinson, 1997; 'Back Door Man' first appeared in Future Histories, edited by Stephen McClelland, Horizon House, 1997; 'All Tomorrow's Parties' first appeared in Interzone, 1997; 'The Quarry' first appeared in Dark of the Night, edited by Stephen Jones, Pumpkin Press, 1997; '17' first appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine, Dell Magazines, 1998; 'The Secret of My Success' first appeared in Interzone, 1998; 'Sea Change, With Monsters' first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Dell Magazines, 1998; 'Gardens of Saturn' first appeared in Interzone, 1998; 'Alien TV' first appeared in Alien TV, Novacon Publications, 1998 and Interzone, 1999; 'Before the Flood' first appeared in Alien TV, Novacon Publications, 1998 and Interzone 1999; 'I Spy' in White of the Moon, edited by Stephen Jones, Pumpkin Press, 1999; 'How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen' in Moonshots edited by Peter Crowther, Ace Books, 1999; 'Naming the Dead' first appeared in Interzone, 1999; 'Biopunks!' first appeared in Nature, 2000 as 'Danger -- Hard Hack Area'; 'Reef' first appeared in Sky Life edited by Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski, Harcourt Brace, 2000; 'Making History', PS Publishing, 2000; 'Interstitial' first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Dell Magazines, 2000; 'The Rift' first appeared in Vanishing Acts, edited by Ellen Datlow, Tor, 2000; 'A Very British History' first appeared in Interzone 2000; 'Searching for Van Gogh at the End of the World', first appeared in Destination 3001, edited by Robert Silverberg and Jaques Chambon, Editions Flammarion, 2000; 'Bone Orchards' first appeared in The Time Out Book of London Short Stories Volume 2, edited by Nicholas Royle, Penguin, 2000; 'The Proxy' first appeared in The New English Library Book of Internet Short Stories, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, New English Library, 2000; 'The Two Dicks' first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2001; 'Raven' (with Andreas Eschback, Valerio Evangeliski, Rodolfo Martinez and Jean-Claude Dunyach) first appeared in Galaxies, 2001; 'The Passenger' first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, 2002; 'Under Mars' first appeared in Mars Probes, edited by Peter Crowther, Daw, 2002; 'The Assassination of August Malarte' first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, 2002.