Richard Paul Russo (born 1954) is an American science fiction writer. He attended the Clarion Workshop in 1983; his first story, “Firebird Suite”, appeared in Amazing Stories in 1981 and his first novel, Inner Eclipse, was published in 1988. His second novel, Subterranean Gallery, won the Philip K. Dick Award for 1989. He won that award again in 2001 for Ship of Fools. Subterranean Gallery was also a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. As of 2010 he lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Candace, four cats and a dog.
Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo
Richard Paul Russo published Ship of Fools in 2001 and it won the Philip K Dick Award for that year. I read it when it came out but only remembered two or three scenes from it (powerful scenes, though, I should say). The re-read surprised me and maybe disappointed me slightly. One thing seems clear. In 2001 Russo was playing with concepts that would show up in later writers’ work with regularity in the intervening fourteen years; the “generation ship” and the idea of a social and economic underclass is addressed by Brenda Cooper in her YA series RUBY’S SONG, and more pointedly in the graphic novel and movie Snowpiercer. I think Russo even influenced Joss Whedon, because some s... Read More
