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John M. Ford
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 John M. Ford is a writer whose work is well-known in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres.
His major novel to date is a fantasy, The Dragon
Waiting (1983), but his stories range widely, and he is a
writer of both computer gaming and role-playing game scenarios. Ford is steeped in the traditions of the
science fiction field and, like Poul Anderson and Isaac Asimov (to name only two of many), is occasionally drawn
to the mystery and thriller. He has established a reputation as one of the finest and most complex writers of
the generation of the 1980s.
In "Heat of Fusion," Ford is advancing the literary tradition of Kornbluth's "Gomez" and Smith's
"No, No, Not Rogov!". But Ford, like others in the 1980s, considers the metaphorical implications of scientific
ideas and here examines not only the character of the scientist but the metaphorical and emotional
reverberations of the scientist's work. In this he is more similar to Gregory Benford (in, say, "Exposures") or Gene
Wolfe in "Procreation" than to Niven, Forward or Kingsbury. The underlying belief in the power of
science (physics) and scientists (physicists) is still there. Yet he is also, and quite seriously, importing the
Kafkaesque into hard sf, which alters the affect into something quite individual. The setting is minimally sketched,
by allusions to airlocks and such, and by the implication (as in Kornbluth and Smith) that titanic disaster is
narrowly averted. In the end, Ford's story is a challenge to the political and human-centered complacency of
much contemporary hard sf. It is certainly in the tradition of Godwin's "The Cold Equations."
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The Ascent of Wonder copyright © 1994 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. | ||
Cramer: On Science & Science Fiction || Hartwell: Hard Science Fiction
David G. Hartwell || Kathryn Cramer || About Tor Books || Ordering Info
Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.