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".
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.
Works
Whitbourn is an archaeology graduate and published author since 1987. His first book, A Dangerous Energy, won the BBC/Victor Gollancz Fantasy Novel Prize 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.
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, The Pevensey Trilogy, was published in 2013.
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 to solve the associated centuries-old mystery.
Popes and Phantoms (1993) followed the success of A Dangerous Energy and featured the stoic and somewhat chilly 'Admiral Slovo' blazing a trail across the Italian Renaissance – albeit Whitbourn's alternate history version of same. Popes and Phantoms was also published in Russia by Mir Fantastiki. In 2021 the book was republished in its original and substantially larger form as Popes and Phantoms – Redux! Resurgam! complete with new cover.
Whitbourn has published short stories, including the Binscombe TalesBinscombe Tales website series of supernatural stories. 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 BooksSpark Furnace Books website in 2011.
His fifth book, The Royal Changeling was published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster's Earthlight imprint. The book recounts the Monmouth Rebellion and Battle of Sedgemoor (1685) while adding a layer of fantasy that brings figures from English mythology to life as both combatants and political forces.
The same company published his trio of books The Downs-Lord triptych, 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.
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.
Whitbourn's Nothing is True… – The First Book of Farouk, was published in 2018. It comprises a fantasy-tinged and highly unreliable alleged autobiography by the infamous playboy-monarch King Farouk I of Egypt (1920-1965). A companion and concluding volume, And Everything is Permissible – The Second Book of Farouk, covering the deposed King's sybaritic European exile, 1952–65, was published in 2019. Its title completes that of the first book, citing valedictory words attributed to Hassan i Sabbah, twelfth century founder of the Order of Assassins.
In 2020 Whitbourn published The Age of the Triffids, a sequel to John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1951).
2020 also saw publication of his novel BABYLONdon, a historical fantasy set during the Gordon Riots of 1780.
Whitbourn's works were reissued in eBook format by Orion Publishing Group Ltd's SF Gateway in 2013.
Altered Englands, Whitbourn's collected short stories 1990 to date, was published in 2020.
In December 2020 Whitbourn also released a 'Young Adult' Fantasy novel, Amy-Faith & The Stronghold, the first volume of a projected series. A sequel, Amy-Faith & The Enemy of Calm, appeared in 2021.
In 2021 Whitbourn won the Cædmon Prize, awarded annually by the Anglo-Saxon studies society Ða Engliscan Gesiðas (The English Companions), for a poem composed in Old English style and judged to be in accordance with "the spirit of Old English poetry".
Complete works
Books Title Publisher YearA Dangerous Energy Victor Gollancz 1992 (paperback 1993)Popes and Phantoms Victor Gollancz 1993 (paperback 1994)To Build Jerusalem Victor Gollancz 1995 (hardback & paperback)The Royal Changeling Earthlight – Simon & Schuster 1998Binscombe Tales – Sinister Saxon Stories (Vol. 1 collected short stories) Ash-Tree Press 1998More Binscombe Tales – Sinister Sutangli Stories (Vol. 2 collected short stories) Ash-Tree Press 1999Downs-Lord Dawn – Vol. 1 The Downs-Lord Triptych Earthlight – Simon & Schuster August 1999Downs-Lord Day – Vol. 2 The Downs-Lord Triptych Earthlight – Simon & Schuster December 2000Downs-Lord Doomsday – Vol. 3 The Downs-Lord Triptych Earthlight – Simon & Schuster February 2002Frankenstein's Legions Spark Furnace Books (Kindle edition) 2011The Complete Binscombe Tales (Vols. 1, 2 & 3 collected short stories) Spark Furnace Books (Paperbacks) 2011The Complete Binscombe Tales (Vols. 1 to 6 collected short stories) Spark Furnace Books (Kindle editions) 2011Binscombe Tales – The Complete Series (One volume) Spark Furnace Books (Hardback) 2011That Devil Wilkes! (Play) The PARVUS Press (Kindle edition) 2011Frankenstein's Legions Spark Furnace Books (Paperback & eBook) 2012The Two Confessions Spark Furnace Books (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2013Nothing is True... – The First Book of Farouk The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2018Everything is Permissible – The Second Book of Farouk The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2019The Age of the Triffids The PARVUS Press (Paperback) 2020 (for copyright reasons, for sale only in Canada)BABYLONdon The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2020Altered Englands (Collected short stories: 1990-date) The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2020That Devil Wilkes! (Play) The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2020. 2nd, revised & extended, edition.Amy-Faith & The Stronghold The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2020Amy-Faith & The Enemy of Calm The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2021Popes and Phantoms – Redux! Resurgam! The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2021Lucy of the Lammas Lands The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2025He was a B*gger but I Loved Him: A Play about Monica Jones and Philip Larkin (Dec’d) The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2025The Hunt for Blunt! (Play) The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition) 2026
Short stories Title Published in Publisher Year"Waiting for a Bus" Third Book of After Midnight Stories William Kimber 1987"Roots" Fourth Book of After Midnight Stories William Kimber 1988"Waiting for a Bus" (full version) The Year's Best Fantasy Stories 14 DAW Books (USA) 1988"His Holiness Commands""It Has Been Said""No Truce With Kings""Let The Train Take The Strain" Binscombe Tales Haunted Library 1989"Rollover Night""I Could A Tale Unfold""The More It Changes""Appendix: A Complete List of Binscombe Tales" Rollover Night Haunted Library 1990"Every Little Breeze" All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No 2. – 1990"Peace on Earth, Goodwill To Most Men" (paperback 1991) Mystery for Xmas Michael O'Mara 1990"A Partial Cure" Transactions of the Doppelganger Society – 1990"Hello Dolly" Fifth Book of After Midnight Stories Robert Hale 1991"Peace on Earth, Goodwill To Most Men" Mystery for Xmas Michael O'Mara 1991"Be Assured, He Is Not There""The Flowering of the Reformation" Popes & Phantoms Haunted Library 1992"The Fall of a Dictator" All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No 4 – 1993"Justice Without Respite" Ghosts & Scholars. No 15 Haunted Library 1993"Walk This Way" All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No. 7 – 1994"Only One Careful Owner" A Binscombe Tale For Xmas Haunted Library 1994"Here Is My Resignation" – Lychgate 1995"Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside ( Within Reason )" A Binscombe Tale For Summer Haunted Library 1996"Ingratitude" All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No. 15 – 1997"Bury My Heart at Southerham (East Sussex)" Midnight Never Comes Ash-Tree Press 1997"BINSCOMBE TALES" (collected short stories) Sinister Saxon Stories. Vol. 1 Ash-Tree Press 1998"In the Name of Allah, the Omnipotent?" Interzone no 135 – September 1998Introduction to "Litany of Strange Sorrow" by John Gale – Doppelganger Press 1999"MORE BINSCOMBE TALES" (collected short stories) Sinister Sutangli Stories. Vol. 2 Ash-Tree Press 23 April 1999"In the Name of Allah, the Omnipotent?" – Nowa Fantastyka (Poland) September 1999"The Way, the Truth..." The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction – January 2000"Culloden II" All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society. No. 23 – 2000"Democracy" (part one of the 'Stalinspace' series) – Nowa Fantastyka (Poland) March 2000"Just Hanging Around" Ghosts & Scholars. No. 31 – 2000"Excuse Me" Shadows & Silence Ash-Tree Press December 2000"The Hills Are Alive" Interzone no 165 – March 2001"The Sunken Garden" Acquainted With the Night Ash-Tree Press 2004"A Pillar of the Church" At Ease With the Dead Ash-Tree Press 2007"Enlightenment" Exotic Gothic 2: New Tales of Taboo Ash-Tree Press 2008"You Must Be Cold" Terror Tales of the Scottish Highlands. Ed. Paul Finch Grey Friar Press 2015"Mebyon versus Suna" Terror Tales of Cornwall. Ed. Paul Finch Telos Publishing Ltd. 2017"Altered Englands" – Collected short stories: 1990-date Paperback & Kindle edition – (620 pages) The Parvus Press 2020"And Then There's Place-Name Studies..." The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Landscape Figures. Ed. Rosemary Pardoe Sarob Press 2024
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