Newman, Kim
Newman, Kim (1959–)
(pop culture)Kim Newman, the author of the award-winning vampire novel Anno-Dracula, was born in London in 1959, but was brought up in Somerset. He attended the University of Sussex where he majored in English. At the end of the 1970s, he moved to London and began his career working in the theater and cabaret circles. He finished his first play, Another England, in 1980 which, along with a few others over the years, were produced by the Sheep Worrying Theatre Group, at the Arts Centre, Bridgewater. To bolster his income, Newman also played the kazoo in a cabaret band.
In the early 1980s he also wrote several short stories, some of which were published, and numerous scripts for radio and television. His first book, Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations, written with Neil Gaiman, appeared in 1985. Over the next decade he contributed widely to various literary reference books and his broad knowledge of the horror field led to his first award-winning book, Horror: 100 Best Books (with Stephen Jones, 1988), which received the Bram Stoker Award as the year’s Best Non-fiction Title. Additional reference titles include Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film Since 1968 (1988) and the BFI Companion to Horror (1996).
Newman’s first vampire novel, Bad Dreams, appeared in 1990, and over the next few years he established himself in the horror field as a fiction writer of note. His talent was confirmed in 1992 with the appearance of the alternative history volume Anno-Dracula, which hypothesized a future for England if the characters in Bram Stoker‘s novel had been real and if Dracula had won. The volume won three awards: The Children of the Night Award (The Dracula Society) for Best Novel (1992); the fiction award of The Lord Ruthven Assembly (1994); and the International Horror Critics’ Guild Award for Best Novel (1994). It was followed by a sequel, The Bloody Red Baron (1994), which followed an alternative history through World War I.
In the meantime, under the pseudonym Jack Yeovil, Newman has written a set of novels including several based on the Warhammer games. Of his Yeovil novels, three feature vampires: Warhammer: Drachenfels (1989), Orgy of the Blood Parasites (1994), and Warhammer: Genevieve Undead (1993).
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