Ian R. MacLeod is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 writer.

He was born in Solihull

Solihull

Solihull is a town in the West Midlands of England with a population of 94,753. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is located 9 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre...

 near Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. He studied law and worked as a civil servant before going freelance in early 1990s soon after he started publishing stories, attracting critical praise and awards nominations.

Writings

He is the author of the novels The Light Ages and The House of Storms, which are set in an alternate universe

Parallel universe (fiction)

A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...

 nineteenth century England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, where aether, a substance that can be controlled by the mind, has ossified English society into guilds and has retarded technological progress.

MacLeod's debut novel, The Great Wheel, was published in 1997, and won the Locus Award

Locus Award

The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...

 for Best First novel.

MacLeod's novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 The Summer Isles (Asimov's Science Fiction

Asimov's Science Fiction

Asimov's Science Fiction is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy and perpetuates the name of author and biochemist Isaac Asimov...

Oct/Nov 1998) won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, Short Form

Sidewise Award for Alternate History

The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with...

 and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella

World Fantasy Award for Best Novella

This World Fantasy Award is given to the fantasy novella or novellas voted best by a panel of judges, and presented each year at the World Fantasy Convention...

. It is an alternate history where Britain, having been defeated in the World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, develops its own form of fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 in 1930s. The narrator is a closeted homosexual Oxford historian who had known the leader in youth. It was written as a novel, which however could not sell; MacLeod published the cut version, with the full-length version only being published in a limited edition in 2005. This novel version also won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, Long Form, thus becoming the only story to win the same award twice in two differing formats, novel and novella.

MacLeod won the World Fantasy Award again in for his 2000 novelette

Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 The Chop Girl. His shorter fiction has been collected in Voyages by Starlight, Breathmoss and Other Exhalations and Past Magic.

MacLeod was Guest of Honour at the 38th Novacon

Novacon

Novacon is an annual science fiction convention, usually held each November in the West Midlands, UK. It is now the annual convention of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.-History:...

, held in November 2008.

Novels

• The Great Wheel (Harcourt, 1997) (1998 Locus Award for Best First Novel
  Locus Award for Best First Novel
  Winners of the Locus Award for Best First Novel, awarded by the Locus magazine. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year....
  
  )
• The Light Ages (Earthlight, 2003) (2004 nomination for World Fantasy Award)
• The House of Storms (Simon & Schuster, 2005)
• The Summer Isles (Aio Publishing, 2005) (2005 Sidewise Award) Expanded version of the original 1998 novella, which also won the award.
• Song of Time (PS Publishing, 2008) (2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award
  Arthur C. Clarke Award
  The Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant from Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987...
  
  , 2009 John W. Campbell Memorial Award)
• Wake Up and Dream (PS Publishing, 2011)

Short story collections

• Voyages by Starlight
  Voyages by Starlight
  Voyages by Starlight is a collection of science fiction and horror stories by author Ian R. MacLeod. It was released in 1996 and was the author's first book. It was published by Arkham House in an edition of 2,542 copies...
  
  (1996, Arkham House)
• Breathmoss and Other Exhalations (2004, Golden Gryphon Press)
• Past Magic (2006, PS Publishing)
• Journeys (2010, Subterranean Press)

External links

• Official website
• Breathmoss and Other Exhalations at Golden Gryphon Press; excerpt and links to reviews
• Ian MacLeod information at Aio Publishing website, includes excerpt, links and further materials
• Ian R. MacLeod's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online

Interviews

• Interview at Infinity Plus
• Interview at scifi.com
• Interview at sfsite.com
• Asimov's online chat at scifi.com, 2004