John Greenwood

Mentor to the Silver Age

One of the co-editors, and key contributors, to New Words magazine during the 1990s, John has become a virtual hermit, in literary terms, even as his feet have travelled the highways and byways of England.

Nevertheless, Silver Age Books look forward to displaying a photograph which displays his magnificent physiognomy, which embodies those qualities held most dear by his fellow author, Stephen William Theaker: “friendship, good naturedness, tolerance, and the spirit of scientific enquiry”, although to that, in John’s case, we might add the spirit of philosophical enquiry. (Theaker’s comments are drawn his shameless attempts to hawk Professor Challenger in Space on WH Smith’s online bookshop.)

The story of John’s life began many, many years ago, in 1972 – a time in which many people now living were yet to be born. He attended school, as children do, and won the admiration of all around him for his intelligence and conscientiousness.

Once at secondary school, he quickly became one of the student librarians, going on to win a prize for his diligence and skill in sorting books and arranging them neatly on the shelves. What’s more, thanks to the special lending privileges afforded librarians, John was able to take books home a dozen at a time – it is entirely likely that there are books in that library which to this day have been read by no one but the precociously intellectual teenage Greenwood – on politics, philosophy and literary theory, for example.

At the tender age of 14, he took the brave step of standing in the Oakbank School mock elections as the Communist candidate. Despite facing a barrage of abuse during the campaign, he managed to gain more votes than two other candidates. However, the headmaster, upon reading out the results, took it upon himself to add ten extra votes to each of those, placing John in a humiliating last place. A fine lesson in democracy! As noted in the John Greenwood Journal, “[he] was basically thankful for the opportunity to serve his country. During the campaign, he endured extremes of hardship, including hunger, nakedness, disease, injury and inclement weather, but claims never to have complained or questioned his [party] or its cause. In Greenwood's own words, ‘There is no person that has seen my crying and blubbering about imaginary or even real misfortunes, and there is no person who has had a greater share of them.’”

Another early experiment saw him launch a school science fiction magazine, together with his Writer’s Group colleagues, Sam Dixon and the ever-ready Steven Gilligan. The one issue which saw publication was quite remarkable, and efforts are in progress to make content from it available on the Juvenilia section of this website.

At the age of 18, he spent some time as the roadie for a rock band, Master Zangpan and the Mechanical Housewife, whose single concert ended in a hail of torn-up beermats. John decided not to pursue this career. From now on, he’d let others carry the amps!

While at university, John received in the mail an envelope from Stephen William Theaker. It contained something that was to change his life – the mock-up of New Words! Intended only to be a curiosity, the A5 booklet nevertheless inspired John and Steven Gilligan to found, for real this time, the remarkable magazine of fantastic fiction, New Words. They ran with the ball for four world-shaking issues (put your ear to the ground, and you’ll still feel the reverberations).

At about the same time, John was working on his portions of the Cartonia Orange 7 round robin novel, now available in full on this website.

For a brief but brilliant period in 1992 he exercised his considerable axe-wielding talents as one of The Theakers.

John’s great height gives him a statesmanlike perspective on the world he passes through. Those lucky enough to call him a friend count their lucky stars. (Howard Phillips, on the other hand, has been known to wish him to the Devil. Howard Phillips calls no man friend.) The fervent hope of Silver Age Books is that once John completes his search for truth, he brings it back to us in a brightly coloured cage. Following one of the traditional routes to secret knowledge, John recently married a globe-trotting archivist, who lured him into the marital state with promises of the ancient and arcane artifacts to be found in the vaults and crypts of England.

For a time, John indulged his more frivolous side, with contributions to Cartonia Red 3... Word has it that he might even be planning a novel... Negotiations are also under way to add some of his short stories to this website.

In November 2004 John wrote his first novel to see publication, The Foundling, which was serialised across all four issues of November Spawned.

Rumour has it that during 2005 John was briefly a member of Howard Phillips and the Saturation Point, providing guitars, narration and even vocals to Howard Phillips' Musical Version of The Fear Man.

During the summer of 2005 sudden inspiration struck, and so was created Newton Braddell, a spacefaring adventurer, lost as to his own purpose, destined for a deliberately indefinite journey across the universe. The first story appeared in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #8, and further instalments followed on a regular basis thereafter.

Novels

The Foundling (2005) November Spawned #1 #2 #3 #4

The Hatchling (2007-8) Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #20 #21

Short Story Collection

There Are Now a Billion Flowers (October 2002)

Short Stories

Cartonia Orange (1994) (co-author) Stories

Diary Entries and Exits (1995) New Words #2

A Meditation on the Intricacy of the Prison Bars (1995) New Words #3

Cleanliness (1995) New Words #4

The Loper (2005) TQF #6

Living With Mister Robot (2006) TQF #10

The Mushrooms from Infinity (Extract) (2007) TQF #13

The Strange Story of Roland Parsimony (2007) TQF #15

Insight (2007) TQF #15

Shadowplay (2007) TQF #15

In The Colony (2007) TQF #15

Ice Age (2007) TQF #15

Big Ben (2007) TQF #15

New Dawn Fades (2007) TQF #15

The Great Quatroon (2007) TQF #15

Wilderness (2007) TQF #15

The Infinity Puppets (2007) TQF #15

Glass (2007) TQF #15

The Lodger (2007) TQF #15

A Mistake at the Fancy Dress Shop (2007) TQF #15

I Remember Nothing (2007) TQF #15

Newton Braddell's Inconclusive Researches into the Unknown

NON-FICTION

First Words: Vitriolic Editorial (1995) New Words #2

ILLUSTRATION

Cover illustrations (2006-) TQF #12 #18

Interior illustrations or photography (2007-) TQF #17 #18 #19 #22

MUSIC

The Theakers

Howard Phillips and the Saturation Point