Robert E. Swindells (born 20 March 1939) is an English author. Prolific from the 1970s onward, his novels, generally featuring protagonists aged around eleven to mid teens, often focus on Supernatural Fiction and Science Fiction, typically within a recognisable setting, with blunt candour about the darker consequences of such themes. His more naturalistic novels visit such themes as parental abuse, religious fundamentalism, and war.
Selected works
- When Darkness Comes (1973)
- A Candle in the Night (1974)
- Voyage to Valhalla (1976)
- Ice Palace (1977)
- The Weather Clerk (1979)
- Ghost Ship to Ganymede (1980)
- World-Eater (1983)
- Brother In The Land (1984)
- The Thousand Eyes of Night (1985)
- Staying Up (1986)
- A Serpent's Tooth (1988)
- Room 13 (1989)
- Follow a Shadow (1989)
- Daz for Zoe (1990)
- Stone Cold (1993)
- Timesnatch (1994)
- Inside the Worm (1994)
- Unbeliever (1995)
- Jacqueline Hyde (1996)
- Nightmare Stairs (1997)
- Smash! (1997)
- Hurricane Summer (1997)
- Abomination (1998)
- Dosh (1999)
- Invisible! (1999)
- Doodlebug Alley (2000)
- A Wish For Wings (2001)
- Wrecked (2001)
- Blitzed (2002)
- No Angels (2003)
- Ruby Tanya (2004)
- Roger's War (2004)
- Branded (2005)
- Snapshot (2006)
- In the Nick of Time (2007)
- Burnout (2007)
- The Shade of Hettie Daynes (2008)
- The Tunnel (2008)
- A Skull in Shadow's Lane (2012)
- The Deep End (2013)
Tropes found in his works:
- Abusive Parents: In Abomination, Martha Dewhursts's puritanical parents constrain her with austere, brutal discipline.
- After the End: The struggle to survive after a nuclear war is explored in Brother in the Land.
- Alien Invasion: The Thousand Eyes of Night, World Eater and Hydra.
- Bizarrchitecture/Eldritch Location: Room 13 features a room whose sinister interior only appears in the dead of night.
- Darker and Edgier: Brother in the Land.
- Demonic Possession: A legendary dragon returns via surreptitious possession of some kids building a life-size papermache model of it in Inside the Worm.
- Hate Plague: Inside the Worm's eponymous dragon, said by its medieval defeater to be an "Agent of Satan", incites those it possesses to acts of delinquency.
- Humans Are Bastards: Downplayed in Brother in the Land. In the struggle to survive in a nuked world, many turn readily to authoritarianism, brutality and murder, but others strive for peaceful prosperity.
- Holy Burns Evil: Inside the Worm's dragon was originally banished by the sheer faith of Saint Ceridwen.
- I'm a Humanitarian: In Brother in the Land, the wilderness of a nuked Britain is roamed by cannibals.
- Kid Hero: Somewhat deconstructed. Young protagonists tend to be overwhelmed by their predicaments, but strive to make some good of them. In Abomination, for example, Martha and Scott reunite Martha's imprisoned illegitimate nephew with his mother via email and a phone call.
- Legend: The eponymous dragon in Inside the Worm reflects both the legend of The Lambton Worm and Beowulf.
- Planet Eater: In World Eater, black holes are revealed to be interstellar predators which eat planets, stars and light.
- Oop North: His books often have a North West setting, and North East place names get a few mentions.
- Shout-Out: Several to Doctor Who in Timesnatch. Hydra's aliens somewhat recall those in Quatermass 2.
- Slice of Life: Some of his novels centre around more naturalistic, though momentous, subject matter.
- Would Hurt a Child: Abomination's Mr and Mrs Dewhurst, as well as brutally disciplining their twelve-year-old daughter, imprison their six-year-old nephew in the cellar, to hide from their sect their eldest daughter's conception of a child outside of wedlock.
- You Cloned Hitler!: A bunch of latter-day Nazi sympathisers in Timesnatch hope to use Rye's Apparatus to transport Hitler to the present.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: A class of twelve/thirteen year-olds in Inside the Worm are awed by the efficiency and ease with which they build a papermache costume of a dragon. And then it starts to seem a little too realistic...
