Colin Wilson: short biography, books

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Colin Wilson is an iconic English science fiction writer of the late 20th and early 21st century. He is best known for his "Spider World" cycle, which is still one of the best works of the genre. In this article, we will talk about the biography of the writer and his books.

Biography

Colin Wilson was born on June 26, 1931 in a town called Leicester (UK, Leicestershire). At the age of 16, a difficult family situation forced him to leave school and go to work in a factory. Then he had to change several places of service, he managed to visit a clerk in the tax office, serve in the Royal Air Force, as well as a magazine dealer in Paris. Free time was all spent on creative work.

Since 1954, Wilson began to earn a living by writing. The first book was published in 1956, it was called "The Outsider" and brought the author a real success. This inspired the writer to continue his literary career. However, Wilson did not stop there.

In the 60s, the writer begins to teach at universities. So, he lectured at Hollins College (USA), at the University of Washington (Seattle),Mediterranean Institute in Mallorca, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ).

In the last years of his life he lived in seclusion in his cottage in Cornwall. The writer died on December 5, 2013.

Creativity

In 1967, Colin Wilson published one of his most popular books - it was a fantasy novel called Parasites of Mind. However, the most popular was, of course, the World of Spiders cycle, the first part of which was released in 1987. The series quickly became a cult hit. Later, other science fiction writers began to add to it, as is often the case with popular fictional sagas.

At different periods of his life he was fond of music, sociology, criminology, occultism, philosophy, literary criticism, sexology. Many books have also been written on all these topics. However, most of them have not been translated into Russian.

Colin Wilson, Spider World

Let's talk about the most famous saga of the writer. As we said, the series received a continuation written by other science fiction writers, but here we will only consider the original books written by Wilson himself.

So, the world of the cycle is the future after the global cataclysm, which not only changed the climate on the planet, but also led to the evolutionary leap of arachnids. Now the planet Earth is dominated by spiders. People are forced to hide from them, but every year there are fewer of them, as arachnids constantly need slaves and food. In addition, spiders are endowed with telepathic abilities andable to penetrate people's minds. As you can see, Colin Wilson approached the creation of the plot in a rather original way.

Spider World includes 4 parts:

• "Tower";
• "Delta";
• "Mage";
• "Ghostland".

The protagonist of the cycle is Niall, one of those who hide from the pursuit of spiders. Suddenly, his telepathic abilities open up, and now he is already able to penetrate the head of an arachnid, and not vice versa. You can find out what the confrontation between people and spiders will lead to by reading the series.

Note that the translations of works written by Colin Wilson have started relatively recently. The books (Spider World in particular) by the writer, however, quickly received high ratings from Russian readers and gained popularity among science fiction fans.

The Space Vampires series

This is the last saga of the writer translated into Russian. Colin Wilson began writing it in 1976. It includes two novels in total: Space Vampires and Vampire Metamorphoses.

This time the author has chosen for himself the area of space fantasy, including characters atypical for this genre - vampires. True, this time the blood-sucking monsters have an alien origin.

Other works

Wrote many other works in the genre of fantasy Colin Wilson. The author's books have always been very popular, but here we will give only 2 of the most famous cycles.

So the series"The Outsider" was Colin's first literary experience, which immediately brought him fame as an excellent writer. In total, it includes 7 novels, the first was written in 1956, and the last in 1966.

And the second cycle worth mentioning, "Gerard Sorm", includes a total of three novels. Years of writing - from 1960 to 1970. Belongs to the genre of erotic-philosophical novel, includes elements of mysticism and detective story.