John Whitbourn height - How tall is John Whitbourn?

In 2020 Whitbourn published The Age of the Triffids, a sequel to John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951). Set a quarter century on from the events therein, it seeks to provide a ‘what happened next?’ to supplement its predecessor’s somewhat abrupt ending, whilst paying due homage to Wyndham’s masterwork. Whitbourn has said that this project represents fulfillment of a life-long ambition arising from likewise longstanding admiration for Wyndham. For copyright reasons this book is not for sale outside Canada and New Zealand.

2020 also saw publication of his novel BABYLONdon, a historical fantasy set during the Gordon Riots of 1780. As per its ‘blurb': ‘London is on fire and in the hands of the mob. BABYLON rises from the Infernal depths to replace England’s Capital and rule forever. Enter the enigmatic Cavaliere, sent to sort things out, armed only with a swordstick—and frightfully good manners.’

Whitbourn's Frankenstein’s Legions, a Steampunk and zombie-fiction tinged extrapolation of Mary Shelley's classic gothic tale, was published in both print and eBook form in 2012.

Whereas A Dangerous Energy focussed on the Church, and To Build Jerusalem on ‘high politics’, The Two Confessions concerns events in the life of a young would-be industrialist and entrepreneur. Chafing against the reactionary constraints of his civilisation, he stumbles upon a deep secret from the past and is commissioned (as an expendable person of ill-repute) to solve the associated centuries-old mystery. Stirred by his actions, events move to a dramatic conclusion between the most powerful forces of the age. The Two Confessions title is also a play on both the sacrament of confession and a clash between two competing ideological ‘confessions’.

It is curious that the Gordon Riots, an astounding instance of complete loss of control over an Imperial Capital, seems to have almost vanished down an Orwellian ‘Memory Hole’ in English history. If the rampant Mob had seized the Bank of England’s gold reserves—as they so nearly did—the subsequent history of Britain would have been radically different. For Americans a parallel would be, say, the unopposed pillaging of Washington by the Symbionese Liberation Army and ‘Weathermen’ in 1968, plus Fort Knox subject to massed attack…

In 2014 a new housing development in the village of Binscombe, Surrey, was named Whitbourn Mews in honour of the author and his The Binscombe Tales series.

At the same time Whitbourn has published a steady stream of short stories, including the extensive Binscombe Tales series of supernatural stories set in his ancestral homeland. They were published in two volume collected form as Binscombe Tales – Sinister Saxon Stories and More Binscombe Tales – Sinister Sutangli Stories by Ash-Tree Press in 1998 and 1999, and reissued in ebook and print editions by Spark Furnace Books in 2011.

Whitbourn's works were reissued in eBook format by Orion Publishing Group Ltd's SF Gateway in 2013.

A rare press interview with Whitbourn in 2000 was entitled Confessions of a Counter-Reformation Green Anarcho-Jacobite.

Subsequent years have seen the release by the same company of his trio of books which he insists on calling The Downs-Lord triptych (not "trilogy"), including Downs-Lord Dawn (1999), Downs-Lord Day (2000) and Downs-Lord Doomsday (2002). These depict the adventures of a 17th-century down-at-luck curate who crosses into an alternate Earth where – though all physical features are similar to ours – the hapless local humans are little more than food animals of the monstrous life-form known as Null. He appoints himself their liberator, goes back for 17th century weapons, and manages to defeat the Null (at least in that world's version of the British Isles) and in the process makes himself a God-Emperor. But further complications arise from the interference of a power-hungry 19th Century American professor, extraterrestrial creatures known as "Angels" – which is rather a misnomer – and the exploits of the Emperor's Corps of diplomats who refine Machiavellism to unprecedented subtlety.

His fifth book, The Royal Changeling, (described as the first work of Jacobite propaganda for several centuries) was published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster's Earthlight imprint. The book recounts the Monmouth Rebellion and Battle of Sedgemoor (1685) accurately and in great detail, while adding a layer of fantasy that brings figures from English mythology to life as both combatants and political forces. The fantasy layer builds momentum and becomes increasingly vivid as the story of the protagonist, Theophilus Oglethorpe, unfolds. Toward the end, as Theophilus engages in pitched battle with Monmouth and his allies, his wife, Eleanor, is simultaneously besieged by supernatural forces in their mansion in Godalming, Surrey.

A Dangerous Energy was reviewed as "the first Counter-Reformation science fiction novel", and To Build Jerusalem (1995) furthered the story of that particular alternate history. The Two Confessions, a third and concluding book in the loosely linked series (belatedly revealed by the author to be The Pevensey Trilogy), was published in 2013.

Popes and Phantoms (1993) followed the success of A Dangerous Energy and featured the stoic and somewhat chilly ‘Admiral Slovo’ (a family name often favoured in Whitbourn's works) blazing a trail across the Italian Renaissance – albeit Whitbourn's idiosyncratic and wildly skewed alternate history version of same. Many of the prominent figures of the time are met within and influenced (not always for the better) by their encounter with Slovo. Popes and Phantoms was also published in Russia by Mir Fantastiki.

Whitbourn is an archaeology graduate and published author since 1987. His first book, A Dangerous Energy, won the BBC/Victor Gollancz Fantasy Novel Prize (judged by, amongst others, Terry Pratchett) in 1991. In 1562, Elizabeth I suffered from a near-fatal bout of smallpox. In reality she recovered, but that did not occur in the world of A Dangerous Energy and its sequels. Instead, Elizabeth I died from that infection, and her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, succeeded to the English throne, leading to a second and permanent Catholic Counter Reformation in England and Scotland.

John Whitbourn (born 1958) is an English author of novels and short stories focusing on alternative histories set in a 'Catholic' universe. His works are characterised by wry humour, the reality of magic and a sustained attempt to reflect on the interaction between religion and politics on a personal and social scale. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) says he 'writes well, with dry wit'.