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Michael F. Flynn
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 Michael F. Flynn is one of the most prominent of the writers to emerge from Analog in the late 1980s
and early 90s. His novel, The Country of the
Blind (1990) and his collection, The Nanotech Chronicles
(1991), as well as his nonfiction articles on psycho-history, have established him as a writer to watch. A statistician
by profession, in his fiction Flynn is interested in technology and the people who work with it. So he's a
perfect match for the traditional image of the hard sf writer, of the contemporary sort one finds in Analog two
decades after Campbell. His fiction is full of confidence in the ability of logic and scientific training to solve
human problems, perhaps a bit superior in that knowledge -- the latest evolutionary stage descended from the
Astounding group of the forties whose fans identified with
Slan; his first published story was "Slan Libh" (1984).
He is constantly experimenting with styles and technical tricks in his writing, and seems not yet to have fully
hit his stride.
This story is a clever amalgam of the ghost story and sf, plausibly updating the discredited
experiments in spiritualism of the 19th and early 20th century as well as investigating the psychology of the scientist and
the physics of ghosts. And it is Flynn's interest in the psychology of his central character, over and above
the climactic scientific discovery, that shows a deepening in human concerns still not typical of the Analog story
of recent decades. Still, note that physics is the privileged science in this story, and that too is a foundation
of the Analog school of today.
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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
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Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.