Donald Kingsbury
Encyclopedia
Donald MacDonald Kingsbury (born 12 February 1929 in San Francisco, California
) is an American
–Canadian
science fiction
author
. Kingsbury taught mathematics
at McGill University
, Montreal
, from 1956 until his retirement in 1986.
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
–Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. Kingsbury taught mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, from 1956 until his retirement in 1986.
Books
- Courtship RiteCourtship RiteCourtship Rite is a science fiction novel by American writer Donald Kingsbury, originally serialized in Analog magazine in 1982. The book is set in the same universe as some of Kingsbury's other stories, such as "Shipwright" and the unpublished The Finger Pointing Solward.In the UK, the novel was...
. New York : Simon and Schuster, 1982. ISBN 0-671-44033-0. (Nominated for Hugo for Best NovelHugo Award for Best NovelThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1983) (Won Compton Crook AwardCompton Crook AwardThe Compton Crook Award is presented to the best first novel of the year in the field of Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror by the members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc, at their annual Baltimore-area science fiction convention, Balticon, held on Memorial Day weekend in the...
) Published in UKUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as Geta. - The Moon Goddess and the SonThe Moon Goddess and the SonThe Moon Goddess and the Son is a science fiction novel by American writer Donald Kingsbury, expanded from a novella originally published in the December 1979 issue of Analog magazine....
. New York : Baen Books, 1986. ISBN 0-671-55958-3. (Short version nominated for Hugo Award for Best NovellaHugo Award for Best NovellaThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1980) - Psychohistorical CrisisPsychohistorical CrisisPsychohistorical Crisis is a science fiction novel by Donald Kingsbury, published by Tor Books in 2001. An expansion of his 1995 novella "Historical Crisis", it is a re-imagining of the world of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, set after the establishment of the Second Empire.Review by Peter...
. New York : Tor Books, 2001. ISBN 0765341956. (Winner, 2002 Prometheus AwardPrometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
) - The Finger Pointing Solward has been anxiously awaited ever since the publication of Courtship RiteCourtship RiteCourtship Rite is a science fiction novel by American writer Donald Kingsbury, originally serialized in Analog magazine in 1982. The book is set in the same universe as some of Kingsbury's other stories, such as "Shipwright" and the unpublished The Finger Pointing Solward.In the UK, the novel was...
. Kingsbury has never quite finished the story, noting as far back as 1984 that he was still 'polishing' it (see interview with Robert Sawyer) and as recently as the Readercon biography notes in July 2006. Artist Donato Giancola placed a copy of the intended cover on his gallery page. In 1994, an excerpt was published as "The Cauldron".
Short fiction
- "Ghost Town", 1952.
- "Shipwright", AnalogAnalog Science Fiction and FactAnalog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, 1978. - "To Bring in the Steel", Analog, 1978.
- "The Survivor", Man-Kzin Wars IV, 1991.
- "The Cauldron", Northern Stars: The Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction, 1994.
- "The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine", Man-Kzin Wars VI, 1994.