Happy Birthday, Barrington J. Bayley

Thanks (once again) to the wonders of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction‘s excellent On This Day function, we can tell you that seventy-six years ago today Barrington J. Bayley was born.

It may be an overstatement to refer to Bayley as one of British SF’s ‘forgotten authors’ but certainly he’s not as prominent in the cultural memory as some of his New Worlds contemporaries. And yet, this is the man Michael Moorcock calls ‘The most original writer of his generation’, and who is praised by two of the founders of cyberpunk as:

‘Fluent, singular and wonderfully funny’
William Gibson

‘Bayley writes science fiction with the natural fluency of a man who can’t help it. He has the ineffable, unfakeable genius of a true SF visionary’
Bruce Sterling

From the time-spanning space opera of The Fall of Chronopolis to the astonishingly inventive short stories collected in The Knights of the LimitsBarrington J. Bayley was one of British SF’s brightest and most original voices. We see it as our job to ensure that he doesn’t remain one of its most underestimated.

 

You can read more about Barrington J. Bayley in his entry at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and his books are available at his author page on the SF Gateway.