George Turner (writer)
| George Reginald Turner | |
|---|---|
| Born |
15 October 1916 Melbourne, Australia |
| Died | 8 June 1997 (aged 80) |
| Occupation | Writer and critic |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Genre | Science fiction |
George Reginald Turner (15 October 1916 – 8 June 1997) was an Australian writer and critic, best known for the science fiction novels written in the later part of his career. He was notable for being a "late bloomer" in science fiction (by the field's standards). His first SF story and novel appeared in 1978, when he was in his early sixties. By this point, however, he had already achieved considerable success as a mainstream novelist, including a Miles Franklin Award, and as a literary critic.
Turner was born and educated in Melbourne. He served in the Australian Imperial Forces during the Second World War. Subsequently he worked in a variety of fields, including as an employment officer, as a technician in the textile industry, and was a reviewer of science fiction for the Melbourne Newspaper The Age. Prior to writing science fiction, he had a well-established reputation as mainstream literary fiction writer, his most productive period being from 1959 to 1967, during which he published five novels. Two of these were award winning, The Cupboard Under the Stairs (1962), being awarded the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's highest literary honour, and The Lame Dog Man (1967) being awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fund fellowship.
During the 1970s, he gained considerable reputation for his meticulous and well-considered reviews and criticism of science fiction, among his first critical publications in the field being in SF fan magazine SF Commentary, edited by Bruce Gillespie. In 1977 he edited The View from the Edge, an anthology of tales produced by participants in a Melbourne writers' workshop, which he ran with science fiction authors Vonda McIntyre and Christopher Priest. Over a decade after his previous publication of a full-length work of fiction, he published 'Beloved Son' (1978), his first science fiction novel. An extract from the novel had previously been published as "The Lindley Mentascripts" in Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature 1 in June 1977. Before his death he published six more science fiction novels.
Turner's science fiction narratives are remarkable for their detailed extrapolation and their invariably earnest approach to moral and social issues. In such novels as Drowning Towers and Genetic Soldier he displayed a gloomy vision of global warming's future ramifications. The former novel won an Arthur C. Clarke Award. Much of his work has a strongly "Australian" feel, and it sometimes incorporates references to the Aboriginal peoples of his country. Despite his late start, at death he was arguably one of the elder statesmen of Australian science fiction.
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