Peter Dickinson (1927 – 2015) was a prolific Britishnote author, who is known both for his crime fiction and for his books for younger readers, of which many are SF.
His works include:
- The Changes trilogy — The Weathermonger, Heartsease, and The Devil's Children — in which a mysterious supernatural force causes modern England to revert to medieval levels of society and technology,
- The Flight of Dragons, a mock-scholarly work which claimed that dragons really existed, and flew and breathed fire by means of large amounts of hydrogen generated as a metabolic by-product.
- "The Kin" - A prehistoric YA series nominated for the Whitbread award. Consists for 4 books named after individual characters, later published as a single volume.
- "The Blue Hawk" - A novel about a young boy rebelling against a theocratic society, loosely resembling ancient egypt.
- Eva, about a girl who wakes up as a chimpanzee.
- He has also written a number of adult mystery books, including the James Pibble mysteries and Princess Louise mysteries.
The Changes trilogy was adapted loosely for television in 1975, and The Flight of Dragons even more loosely into an animated film in 1986.
He was awarded an OBE for services to Literature in 2009.
Peter Dickinson's works provide examples of:
- Alternate History: King and Joker and Skeleton-in-Waiting, set in a history where Edward VII's eldest son lived to become king.
- Hollywood Prehistory: Bone From a Dry Sea is partly set four million years ago in a culture based on the aquatic ape hypothesis
, and partly Meanwhile, in the Future… following the archaeologist who's digging up its remains.
- Prequel: The Changes trilogy was written in reverse order — first The Weathermonger, set at the end of the Changes, then Heartsease, set in their midst, then The Devil's Children, set at their beginning.
- Split at Birth: The Lion Tamer's Daughter
- Technophobia: The trilogy The Changes has British people suddenly becoming violently technophobic under what turns out to be a malevolent extra-terrestrial influence.
- When She Smiles: In one of the stories in the collection Water: Tales of the Elemental Spirits, the main character is described as one of these ("Her face lit up with kindness and humor and intelligence.") The same phrase, in an non-ironic echo, is used to describe her Love Interest.
