Although the British author Ian Watson began
writing science fiction in 1969, he was largely unknown in the United States until his first novel,
The Embedding (1973), was issued in an American
edition in 1975. Like most of Watson’s subsequent
fiction, the novel was complex and intelligent. It
examined the influence of language on perception
in a more probing fashion than had Jack VANCE in
The Languages of Pao (1957), looking at the subject
from two points of view: a group of children raised
speaking an artificial language, and a group of
aliens trying to understand human communication. The interfaces between two different consciousnesses is repeated in Watson’s second novel,
The Jonah Kit (1975), in which human personalities are imprinted on the brain of a whale.
Three excellent novels quickly followed. The
Martian Inca (1977) concerns a space probe that
returns from Mars contaminated by a new form of
disease that gives those afflicted access to the
memories of some of their ancestors. Star travel is
achieved through mental projection in Alien Embassy (1977), but one of those gifted with the talent discovers a subtle danger among the stars. The
Miracle Visitors (1978) speculates about a unique
explanation for UFO sightings and other unexplained phenomena—that they are manifestations
of a different form of consciousness, rather than a
strictly objective event. Watson was quite well received critically, but may have had trouble finding
his audience because of the intense and sometimes
abstruse intellectual content of his speculations.
His next few novels were less successful, and some
did not find an American publisher until many
years later. God’s World (1979) explores theological
matters as aliens who appear to be angels invite
humans to visit their world, where they apparently
are in direct communication with God. Another
alien world appears to have been shaped in the
form of a classic painting of hell by Hieronymous
Bosch in The Gardens of Delight (1980). Under
Heaven’s Bridge (1981), written with Michael
BISHOP, explores the world of a race partly flesh,
partly machine. An obsessed man attempts to defeat personified death itself in Deathhunter (1981).
The metaphysical content of Watson’s novels
during this period left many readers uneasy, and
even his more accessible work was similarly neglected. In Chekhov’s Journey (1983), for example,
a film crew is recreating a historic trek across
Siberia by using hypnosis to convince an actor that
he is the historical Chekhov. The actor asserts that
he is actually the projection of a time traveling astronaut from the future, and that his vehicle is on
a collision course with the past. Converts (1984)
describes the somewhat predictable troubles of a
would-be superman.
The Black Current trilogy was considerably
more popular, comprising The Book of the River
(1984), The Book of the Stars (1984), and The Book
of Being (1985). The setting is a primitive world
dominated by a river whose very waters may be
part of an alien intelligence. The water has the
power to drive men insane, but women are immune to its power. The central figure endures
many adventures and revelations as she explores
her world, and gets caught up in the conflict between two superintelligences.
Watson’s next science fiction novel did not
appear until 1988. Whores of Babylon is an uneven
thriller set in a virtual reality recreation of ancient
Babylon. The Flies of Memory (1990) is a fascinating first contact story involving some truly strange
aliens, who have come to the Earth in order to “remember” it. Hard Questions (1996) is the closest
Watson has come to a techno-thriller, a suspense
story involving a new technology so radical that it
could lead to civil unrest. Watson’s other SF novels
during the 1990s were highly regarded game tieins. His most recent, Mockymen (2003), transforms
a bad movie plot into a fascinating novel, with disembodied aliens inhabiting the bodies of dead humans in anticipation of an invasion.
Watson has been a prolific writer at shorter
length throughout his career, although much of
his work has appeared only in England. “The
Ghosts of Luna” (1974), “The Very Slow Time
Machine” (1976), “The Flesh of Her Hair”
(1984), “On the Dream Channel Panel” (1986),
and “Nanoware Time” (1991) are among his best
short stories. Three collections have appeared in
the United States—The Very Slow Time Machine
(1979), The Book of Ian Watson (1985), and The
Great Escape (2002)—but his other collections are
also of very high quality. Watson often demands
considerable effort from his readers, and it is unfortunate that many seem unwilling to expend the
necessary energy.