Trevor Hoyle (born 25 February 1940 in

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England, and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale. In the United Kingdom 2021 Census, 2021 Census, the town had a population of 111,261, compared to 223,773 for the wid ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England, United Kingdom) is an English science fiction author. In the late 1970s he gained recognition for his "Q" series, featuring Christian Queghan, a scientific investigator possessing the ability to journey through time as well as to hypothetical worlds. As well as a number of ''

Blake's 7 ''Blake's 7'' is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Four series of thirteen 50-minute episodes were broadcast on BBC1 between 1978 and 1981. It was created by Terry Nation, who also wrote the first series, prod ...

'' novels.TREVOR HOYLE
Blake's 7, TRASH FICTION Hoyle also writes as Larry Milne and Joseph Rance.

'Q' series

In the ''Q'' series, Chris Queghan is an

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

on Earth IVn, a colonial offshoot of Earth billions of years from the present day. In the first novel, ''Seeking the Mythical Future,'' Queghan is apparently an

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

who travels through the

event horizon In astrophysics, an event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. Wolfgang Rindler coined the term in the 1950s. In 1784, John Michell proposed that gravity can be strong enough in the vicinity of massive c ...

of a

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

into an alternate universe, whose "Earth IVn" is a dystopia. "Queghan" lands in a blood-red sea,

leeches Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented bod ...

are still actively used within medicine,

rat Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include '' Neotoma'' (pack rats), '' Bandicota'' (bandicoo ...

s roam hospital corridors and hospital hygiene is non-existent, "King Jimmy K" (

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

) rules an intact and absolutist British Empire which includes "New Amerika", mental health professionals control the "Medikal Direkorate Authority" and "Psychological Concentration Camps",

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

(Australia) is still a penal continent for the empire and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

is considered to be a legitimate criminal justice procedure. However, it turns out that the astronaut who has been trapped on "Earth IVn" is not Queghan, but another astronaut who crossed the event horizon and entered its alternate universe, which is in resonance with the auditory and visual hallucinations of Stahl, who is experiencing

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

in a psychiatric hospital ward of the original Earth IVn. However, it is still an hallucination and when its faux-Queghan figure disappears, so does the surrounding hallucinatory facade. In ''Through the Eye of Time'',

Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980), was a British aristocrat and politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when he, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, turned to fascism. ...

and the

British Union of Fascists The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, f ...

control an alternate thirties United Kingdom, and ally themselves with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

against France, Japan and the United States. Finally, in ''The Gods Look Down,'' an anachronistic matter replicator device is being used in biblical

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

to help feed itinerant

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

communities after the Exodus from ancient

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. * ''Seeking the Mythical Future'' - Panther, 1977 () * ''Through the Eye of Time'' - Panther, 1977 () * ''The Gods Look Down'' - Panther, 1978 ()

''Blake's 7''

*''Terry Nation's Blake's 7'' (1977) (adapts the Series 1 episodes "The Way Back", "Space Fall", "Cygnus Alpha" and "Time Squad") *''Project Avalon'' (1979) (adapts the Series 1 episodes "Seek–Locate–Destroy", "Duel", "Project Avalon", "Deliverance" and "Orac") *''Scorpio Attack'' (1981) (adapts the Series 4 episodes "Rescue", "Traitor" and "Stardrive")

Other works

*''Rule of Night'' (1975) *''Earth Cult'' (1979) *''The Man Who Travelled on Motorways'' (1979) *''This Sentient Earth'' (1979) *'' Bullet Train'' (1980 – with Arei Kato) *''The Svengali Plot'' (1980) *''Through The Eye of Time'' (1982) *''The Gods Look Down'' (1982) *'' The Last Gasp'' (1983) *''Vail'' (1984) *''Scorpio Attack'' (1984) *''Kids'' (1987) *''Blind Needle'' (1994) *''Mirrorman'' (1999)

References

External links

*
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoyle, Trevor 1940 births English fantasy writers English science fiction writers Living people English male poets Writers from Rochdale Writers from Lancashire English male short story writers English short story writers English male novelists English male non-fiction writers