Peter Dickinson, who has died aged 88, was a prolific novelist for adults and children. He was admired by critics and readers alike and had the distinction of being the first author to twice receive the prestigious Carnegie medal, awarded annually by librarians for the year’s outstanding new children’s book. He won in consecutive years, in 1980 for Tulku and in 1981 for City of Gold and Other Stories from the Old Testament.
His first novel for children, The Weathermonger, was published in 1968, and was followed swiftly by Heartsease (1969) and The Devil’s Children (1970), all three set at the time of the “changes”; British society is rejecting machines, turning backwards towards the middle ages and embracing a dark age of ignorance, suspicion and malevolence. Good adventures brilliantly imagined unfold in each, and the structure of the trilogy – although written first, the events in The Weathermonger come at the end of the sequence – brought Dickinson great praise. His ability to create new worlds – what he described as “science fiction without the science” – while also keeping up a page-turning pace was refreshing.
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