The Uncollected Ian Watson

Edited by Nick Gevers.

Here are powerful stories which have never been collected before, such as 'Jingling Geordie's Hole', voted both the best and the worst story of the year by readers of Interzone magazine (sometimes by the same readers!), the kernel of Watson's novel The Fire Worm. Likewise, the short story which birthed his novel Deathhunter. And there's a stand-alone story related to the masterful Mockymen, never published before now. The mischievous 'Divine Diseases', which appeared in the science journal Nature, brought protests to that august publication; a similar satirical brio informs 'The Real Winston', a clever alternative take on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Besides stories, gathered here are many entertaining and often profound pieces of non-fiction, yielding deep insights into the author's creative works. In 'The Author as Torturer' he asks a question even more urgent today than when first voiced 20 years ago. Here are Watson's inspired impersonations of H.G. Wells (even if the period clothing doesn't show in print). Aptly, the Times Literary Supplement commented apropos Watson's fiction: 'A phenomenon, a national resource to be conserved, Ian Watson resembles H.G. Wells in both invention and impatience.' Well, The Uncollected Ian Watson is devoted to conserving these and other pieces previously scattered across anthologies and magazines — as well as Watson's views on films ranging from The Wicker Man to The Matrix, plus his perspectives on artificial intelligence as published in Intelligent Systems journal. His relationship with comics is explored, and much much more. Here's the full line-up.

Contents:

• Three Kinds of Close Encounters with Comics
• How I was Shot by Adolf Hitler
• Jingling Geordie's Hole
• Beware the Pedicating Tribads!
• King Weasel
• Shell Shock
• How the Elephant Escaped Extinction
• The Drained World
• Vile Dry Claws of the Toucan
• The Tragedy of Solveig
• Science Fiction, Surrealism, and Shamanism
• The Shortest Night
• The Author as Torturer
• A Cage for Death
• Secrets
• Scars
• The Jew of Linz
• The Big Buy
• Eyes as Big as Saucers
• The Aims of Artificial Intelligence
• The Matrix as Simulation
• The Real Winston
• H.G. Wells in Timisoara
• Of Warfare and The War of the Worlds
• The Wicker Man
• Dark City
• Stephen King's Thinner: An Attack Upon America
• A Daffodil Jacket, or The Misadventures of Sebastian in Kyiv
• Divine Diseases
• Intelligent Design 2.0
• Story Notes