SFE: Patterson, James (2024)

Entry updated 2 January 2023. Tagged: Author.

(1947-) US author who has become a chart-dominating best-seller over the past three decades, his greatest success being the Alex Cross sequence of crime thrillers featuring a Black forensic psychologist, where the occasional apparent incursion into the fantastic – such as the vampire cult in Violets Are Blue (2001), and the infernal "Mastermind" whose powers fall short of the supernatural – is found to be an evil but nonfantastic device. After some thrillers with supernatural content like The Jericho Commandment (1980) and Virgin (1980; much rev vt Cradle and All 2000), work of sf interest begins with the When the Wind Blows/Maximum Ride sequence, the initial two instalments being When the Wind Blows (1998) and The Lake House (2003), in which an exercise in Genetic Engineering has the improbable outcome of generating Mutant children with wings (see Scientific Errors) on the run from the Mad Scientist who created them; in the sequel, even more McGuffin-like, they look for refuge from the hunt. Now couched for the Young Adult market, the sequence effectively continues, though in mutated form, with Maximum Ride, Book 1: The Angel Experiment (2005), the final volume (to date) being City of the Dead (2021) with Mindy McGinnis; the various young protagonists, gaining further Superpowers when needed, fight off Werewolves and other menaces, including other young mutants in league with evil and the threat of apocalypse. There is considerable romantic activity, despite the wings. Blowback (2022) with Brendan DuBois is a Near Future Political thriller about a new American president who attempts perpetuate his regime by become a de facto dictator.

A further series, the Daniel X sequence, beginning with The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (2008) with Michael Ledwidge, assembles tropes out of Superhero Comics: the origin story of the boy with Superpowers; the Aliens who are aspirational Secret Masters of Earth; Inventions; a template sensation that the menace will reoccur, no matter how often the evil-doers are defeated. The Witch & Wizard sequence, beginning with Witch & Wizard (2009) with Cate Kiernan, pits the eponymous supernatural figures against a future totalitarian state. [JC]

James Brendan Patterson

born Newburgh, New York: 22 March 1947

works

series

When the Wind Blows/Maximum Ride