Paul J. McAuley

Paul J. McAuley (born 23 April 1955) is a British botanist and science fiction author. A biologist by training, McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction. His novels dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternative history/alternative reality, and space travel.

McAuley began with far-future space opera Four Hundred Billion Stars, its sequel Eternal Light, and the planetary-colony adventure Of the Fall. Red Dust, set on a far-future Mars colonized by the Chinese, is a planetary romance featuring many emerging technologies and SF motifs: nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, personality downloads, virtual reality. The Confluence series, set in an even more distant future (about ten million years from now), is one of a number of novels to use Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory (that the universe seems to be evolving toward a maximum degree of complexity and consciousness) as one of its themes.^[1] About the same time, he published Pasquale's Angel, set in an alternative Italian Renaissance and featuring Niccolò Machiavegli (Machiavelli) and Leonardo da Vinci as major characters.

McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings: Fairyland describes a dystopian, war-torn Europe where genetically engineered "dolls" are used as disposable slaves. Since 2001 he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.

Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988.^[2] Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award^[3] and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.^[4] "The Temptation of Dr. Stein", won the British Fantasy Award. Pasquale's Angel won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (Long Form).