Geoff Ryman

Honorary Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing

Geoff Ryman

Canadian author Geoff Ryman has won 15 awards for his stories and ten books, many of which are science fiction. His novel Air (2005), won a John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the James W Tiptree Memorial Award, the Canadian Sunburst Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award. It was also listed in The Guardian’s series ‘1000 Novels You Must Read’.

In 2012 his novelette ‘What We Found’ won the Nebula Award in its category and his volume of short stories Paradise Tales won the Canadian Sunburst Award. Much of his work is based on travels to Cambodia such as ‘The Unconquered Country’ (1986), winner of the World Fantasy Award and British Science Fiction Association Award.

His novel The King's Last Song (2006) was set both in the Angkor Wat era and the time after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. His other mainstream fiction includes Was (1992), a novel about the American West viewed through the history of The Wizard of Oz. His hypertext web novel 253: a novel for the Internet in Seven Cars and a Crash, in which 253 people sit on a London tube and are each described in 253 words, won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award for best novel not published in hardback. The published Print Remix of the same novel (1998) is his most popular book. In 2011, Geoff Ryman won the Faculty Students' Teaching Award for the School of Arts, History and Culture.

As well as being an author Geoff helped lead the UK government onto the web, starting a web design team at the Central Office of Information in 1994. He also led the teams that designed the first official British Monarchy and 10 Downing Street websites, and until recently worked on the UK government's flagship website www.direct.gov.uk.

He is currently at work on a new historical novel set in the United States before the Civil War.

A selection of Geoff's fiction