Festival of the Imagination 1996 – Souvenir Book – Jack Dann

This is a Guest bio for Jack Dann in the souvenir book, page 37 for Swancon 21, Festival of the Imagination 1996. It is followed on the next page by an appreciation by Joe Haldeman which we will not reproduce. As much as possible typographical errors have been faithfully reproduced.

Jack Dann

Jack Dann is the author or editor of over thirty-five books, including the novels Junction, Starhiker, and The Man Who Melted. Dann’s work has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Ronald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Castaneda, J G Ballard, and Philip K Dick. Philip K Dick, author of the stories from which the films Blade Runner and Total Recall were made, wrote that “Junction is where Ursula Le Guin’s Lathe of Heaven and Tony Boucher’s ‘The Quest for Saint Aquin’ meet … and yet it’s an entirely new novel … I may very well be basing some of my future work on Junction.” Best selling author Marion Zimmer Bradley called Starhiker “a superb book … it will not give up all its delights, all its perfections, on one reading.” Library Journal has called Dann “… a true poet who can create pictures with a few perfect words.” Roger Zelazny thinks he is a reality magician and Best Sellers has said that “Jack Dann is a mind-warlock whose magicks will confound, disorient, shock and delight.” The Washington Post Book World compared his novel The Man Who Melted with Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal.

His short stories have appeared in Omni and Playboy and other major magazines and anthologies. He is the editor of the anthology Wandering Stars, one of the most acclaimed anthologies of the 1970s, and several other well-known anthologies such as In the Field of Fire. He also edits the multi-volume Magic Tales fantasy series with Gardner Dozois and is a consulting editor for Tor Books. He has been a finalist for the Nebula Award eleven times and a World Fantasy Award finalist three times. He has also been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award, and is a recipient of the Premios Gilgames de Narrativa Fantastica award.

High Steel, a novel co-authored with Jack C. Haldeman II, has been published in hardcover by Tor Books to rave reviews. British critic John Clute called it “a predator … a cat with blazing eyes gorging on the good meat of genre. It is most highly recommended.” A sequel, Ghost Dance is in progress.

Dann’s major historical novel about Leonardo da Vinci–The Memory Cathedral–was published in hardcover by Bantam Books in December, 1995. Morgan Llewelyn called it “a book to cherish, a validation of the novelist’s art and fully worthy of its extraordinary subject”, Lucius Shepard thought it was “an absolute triumph”, and Kirkus Reviews called it “An impressive accomplishment”. Dann is currently working on The Silent, a new novel about the Civil War, which will also be published by Bantam.

As part of its Bibliographies of Modern Authors series, The[*] Borgo Press has published an annotated biobliography and guide entitled The Work of Jack Dann. A second edition is in the works. Dann is listed in Contemporary Authors and the Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series; The International Authors And Writers Who’s Who; Personalities Of America; Men Of Achievement; Who’s Who In Writers, Editors, And Poets, United States And Canada; Dictionary Of International Biography; and the Dictionary Of Distinguished Americans.

Jack Dann lives in Melbourne, Australia.

There is a photograph of him taken by M C Valada. (Copyright, all rights reserved).

* I assume this is ‘The’ based on googling. The page had that followed by a box and an r.

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