S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: CONEY, Michael Greatrex
Aged: 73
Born: Sept 28, 1932
Where: Birmingham, Warwickshire, ENGLAND
Died: Nov 4, 2005
Where: Saanichton, BC, CANADA
Interred: unknown
Married: Daphne
When:
Awards: British SF Award for Best 1976 Novel - Brontomek! and a 1987 Aurora Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Michael G. Coney
"My preference is for the persuasively fantastic."
Michael Coney was just 17 when he ended schooling at King Edward's in Birmingham and went to work for Russell & Co. as an auditor. Six years later he served in the Royal Air Force (1956-58). He then held successive three year jobs at Pearce Clayton Maunder, Dorchester (Senior Clerk, 1958-61), Plymouth Breweries in Devon (1963-66), and Peplow Warren Fuller (Accountant, 1966-69). Then he rolled the dice and accepted management of the Jabberwock Hotel in Antigua, West Indies (1969-1972). And risked all again, one last time, to emigrated to Canada for employment (since 1973) with the British Columbia Forest Service, Victoria, as a Management Specialist, retiring after 17 years service.
Somehow, someway...along that road, Coney managed to write and have published 4 non-fiction books, 18 science fiction novels (+2 unpublished posted to his web site), 1 short story collection, and approximately 63+ science fiction short stories. All of Coney's books are notable but most popular among them were Hello Summer, Goodbye (aka Rax, 1975), Brontomek! (1976), The Celestial Steam Locomotive (1983), and the collection Monitor Found in Orbit (1974). His most popular short story was "Tea and Hamsters." Given the number of short stories he wrote, he was highly anthologized.
Coney received early publishing help from Donald A. Wollheim in the States and Gollancz books in the UK. So like several British SF writers, his works were always available to the U.S. markets. [Some of the alternate titles to Coney's work, as well as those of other writers, was due to Wollheim's penchant for retitling the novels he purchased. This was a two-sided coin that failed as often as it succeeded...and always irked the authors.] Coney preferred to develop his characters, and the worlds they inhabited, in short story form before deciding if they were strong enough to support a novel. This pattern repeats across his entire writing career and makes a lot of sense for novel writers.
Coney's novels, along with those of other authors, were killed off two decades ago by publisher's profit formulas that were brain dead and self destructive from the git-go. None of Michael's smooth and imaginitive works have been republished. He is all but unknown outside of sf fandom. Maybe now that he is gone, another publisher's formula will see that there is money to be made in the death of an author and revisit his work. We can only hope.
Mike Coney lived and wrote for a while in the mode that "one man can change the world." But later discovered that not "every man can change the world." At which point he began taking care of himself and his family, and doing some things he wanted to do and writing stories that he wanted to write. In short, he matured and settled in for the remainder of the trip. He was half a world away from Birmingham when his body came to its end in time and space on Vancouver Island...and with light years still to travel in his mind.
Thumbnail is of a larger photo on the Michael Coney web site.
PEN NAMES: Jennifer Black
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
OBITUARY: Several
ON-LINE: Michael G. Coney web site and Casey Wolf's interview.
