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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".

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 (judged by, amongst others, Terry Pratchett) 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 (as an expendable person of ill-repute) to solve the associated centuries-old mystery. Stirred by his actions, events move to a dramatic conclusion between the most powerful forces of the age. The Two Confessions title is also a play on both the sacrament of confession and a clash between two competing ideological 'confessions'.

Popes and Phantoms (1993) followed the success of A Dangerous Energy and featured the stoic and somewhat chilly 'Admiral Slovo' (a family name often favoured in Whitbourn's works) blazing a trail across the Italian Renaissance – albeit Whitbourn's idiosyncratic and wildly skewed alternate history version of same. Many of the prominent figures of the time are met within and influenced (not always for the better) by their encounter with Slovo. 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. It included a previously deleted whole second 'Book' and ending, plus the author's comments in a Foreword & Apology and Afterword & Apologia, together with sundry Odd Thoughts.

At the same time Whitbourn has published a steady stream of short stories, including the extensive Binscombe Tales^[1] series of supernatural stories set in his ancestral homeland. 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 Books^[2] 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. Toward the end, as Theophilus engages in pitched battle with Monmouth and his allies, his wife, Eleanor, is simultaneously besieged by supernatural forces in their mansion in Godalming, Surrey.

Subsequent years have seen the release by the same company of 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. He appoints himself their liberator, goes back for 17th century weapons, and manages to defeat the Null (at least in that world's version of the British Isles) and in the process makes himself a God-Emperor. But further complications arise from the interference of a power-hungry 19th Century American professor, extraterrestrial creatures known as "Angels" and the exploits of the Emperor's Corps of diplomats.

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). He reveals himself to be an all-conquering global statesman riding and bestriding 20th century history, and an incomparable lover and erotic artiste besides. Faithful to the book's title, little within is likely to be true. 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). Set a quarter century later, it seeks to provide a 'what happened next?’ to supplement its predecessor's somewhat abrupt ending, whilst paying due homage to Wyndham's masterwork. Whitbourn has said that this project represents fulfillment of a life-long ambition arising from likewise longstanding admiration for Wyndham. For copyright reasons this book is not for sale outside Canada and New Zealand.^[3]

2020 also saw publication of his novel BABYLONdon, a historical fantasy set during the Gordon Riots of 1780. As per its 'blurb': "London is on fire and in the hands of the mob. BABYLON rises from the Infernal depths to replace England's Capital and rule forever. Enter the enigmatic Cavaliere, sent to sort things out, armed only with a swordstick—and 'frightfully' good manners."

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—and thus a substantial, 600+ page tome—was published in 2020. Its cover features a depiction of The Long Man of Wilmington, an enigmatic hill figure often referenced in Whitbourn's writing. The Long Man or Giant—Southern England's answer to the Sphinx—has come to symbolise the author's beloved Downs Country.

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, duly appeared in 2021.

In 2021 Whitbourn won the Cædmon Prize, awarded annually by 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	Year
A 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	1998
Binscombe Tales – Sinister Saxon Stories (Vol. 1 collected short stories)	Ash-Tree Press	1998
More Binscombe Tales – Sinister Sutangli Stories (Vol. 2 collected short stories)	Ash-Tree Press	1999
Downs-Lord Dawn – Vol. 1 The Downs-Lord Triptych	Earthlight – Simon & Schuster	August 1999
Downs-Lord Day – Vol. 2 The Downs-Lord Triptych	Earthlight – Simon & Schuster	December 2000
Downs-Lord Doomsday – Vol. 3 The Downs-Lord Triptych	Earthlight – Simon & Schuster	February 2002
Frankenstein's Legions	Spark Furnace Books (Kindle edition)	2011
The Complete Binscombe Tales (Vols. 1, 2 & 3 collected short stories)	Spark Furnace Books (Paperbacks)	2011
The Complete Binscombe Tales (Vols. 1 to 6 collected short stories)	Spark Furnace Books (Kindle editions)	2011
Binscombe Tales – The Complete Series (One volume)	Spark Furnace Books (Hardback)	2011
That Devil Wilkes! (Play)	The PARVUS Press (Kindle edition)	2011
Frankenstein's Legions	Spark Furnace Books (Paperback & eBook)	2012
The Two Confessions	Spark Furnace Books (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2013
Nothing is True... – The First Book of Farouk	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2018
Everything is Permissible – The Second Book of Farouk	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2019
The Age of the Triffids	The PARVUS Press (Paperback)	2020 (for copyright reasons, for sale only in Canada)
BABYLONdon	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2020
Altered Englands (Collected short stories: 1990-date)	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2020
That Devil Wilkes! (Play)	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2020. 2nd, revised & extended, edition.
Amy-Faith & The Stronghold	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2020
Amy-Faith & The Enemy of Calm	The PARVUS Press (Paperback & Kindle edition)	2021
Popes and Phantoms – Redux! Resurgam!	The PARVUS Press (Paperback edition)	2021

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 1998
Introduction 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

Articles

Title	Published in	Year
"The Day The Cornish Invaded Guildford" (1497 rebellion)	The Surrey Advertiser	2 June 1989.
"The Bones of a Revolutionary" (Tom Paine's remains)	The Surrey Advertiser	22 September 1989.
"A Gift To Woden From Pevensey?"	The Parish Pump No. 65	'Spring 1990'.
"A Gift To Woden From Pevensey?"	Wiðowinde (Bindweed). Journal of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas (The English Companions) No. 88	August 1990.
"What Would Have Happened If..."	The Catholic Times	6 November 1994
"Taking Fantastic Liberties With Our History" (Interview)	The Surrey Advertiser	29 May 1998
SF & Fantasy Book Reviews. x30.	SFX Magazine	1998–2004
"Sticks & Stones"	Wiðowinde (Bindweed). Journal of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas (The English Companions) No. 113	'Spring 1998'
"Why I Like It Here"	Downs Country Magazine no. 22	May 1998
"In the Shade of the Typewriter Tree" (Interview)	Interzone no 135	September 1998
"'Orrible Massacre in Sussex"	Downs Country Magazine no. 26	January 1999
"The 'Prehistory' of St. Edmund's – 1534 – 1899"	Essay in The Catholic Parish of St. Edmund, King & Martyr, Godalming, 1899 – 1999 – A Centenary Commemorative History	November 1999.
"Monmouth's Stalin Organs – or Ingenious Inventions and Annoying Authors"	The So-ho Gazette – Newsletter of the 1685 Society	July 2000
"Confessions of a Counter-Reformation Green Anarcho-Jacobite" (Interview)	Starburst Magazine No. 266	October 2000
"Whitbourn's Wisdom" (Interview)	SFX magazine no 73	January 2001
"Angles, Saxons, Normans – & Vandals (& Scots)"	Wiðowinde (Bindweed). Journal of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas (The English Companions) No 128	'Summer 2002'
"Looking For New England"	3SF Magazine No 1	October 2002
"A Hymn To Merrily"	All Hallows: Journal of the Ghost Story Society No 32	February 2003
Author Profile – Phil Rickman	SFX magazine no 124	December 2004
"Borderline Gothic: Phil Rickman & The Merrily Watkins Series"	21st Century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels Since 2000. Ed. Danel Olson. The Scarecrow Press Inc.	2011
Review of All Night North – Songs to Words by Philip Larkin. Various artists, produced by Jim Orwin. 2010	About Larkin – Journal of The Philip Larkin Society. No. 41. Reprinted in bound 25th Anniversary Issue, July 2020	April 2016
"Interview with John Whitbourn by Peter Berard"^[4]	The San Antonio Review (USA). Volume III. Summer 2020	2020
"From Place to Place". Cædmon Prize winning poem	Wiðowinde (Bindweed). Journal of Ða Engliscan Geðisdas (The English Companions) No 201	'Spring 2022'
"Larkin Goes Country" [Larkin in the lyrics of Rosanne Cash]	About Larkin – Journal of The Philip Larkin Society. No. 53.	April 2022
"Larkin & the Reading Job: Funk or Fix?"	About Larkin – Journal of The Philip Larkin Society. No. 54.	October 2022
"Transcending the Mundane - As recounted to Gareth Worthington" (Interview)	Focus - The British Science Fiction Association's Magazine for Writers. No. 78.	'Summer 2024'
"Charles Robertson, Orientalist Artist & Godhelmian"	The Godalming Trust Newsletter.	'Winter 2024'