Barrington J. Bayley (1937–2008) was an underrated, often fascinating English science fiction writer associated with the New Wave movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Bayley was a frequent contributor to New Worlds when it was edited by Michael Moorcock, and the two became good friends. Moorcock later reprinted Bayley in various New Worlds paperback anthologies and continued to be a strong advocate for the author. Later, more than twenty of Bayley’s stories would appear in the magazine Interzone. His work also appeared in the anthologies Tomorrow’s Alternatives and An Index of Possibilities. His approach to writing science fiction has been cited as influential on M. John Harrison, Brian Stableford, Bruce Sterling, Iain M. Banks, and Alastair Reynolds.
Bayley’s first book, The Star Virus, was followed by more than a dozen other novels, including Annihilation Factor, Collision with Chronos, Empire of Two Worlds, The Fall of Chronopolis, The Great Hydration, The Grand Wheel, The Pillars of Eternity, The Soul of the Robot, Star Winds, and The Zen Gun. However, the most lasting impact made by Bayley remains in the realm of short fiction, especially his work from the 1970s. His two collections The Knights of the Limits (1978, reprinted in 2001) and The Seed of Evil (1979) are remarkable for the wealth of their ideas and their kinetic and often playful style. Some of the stories are fairly experimental in both form and content, while others take core science fiction ideas or tropes and use traditional story structures to turn those ideas or tropes on their head. Some, like “Mutation Planet,” “The Exploration of Space,” and “The Bees of Knowledge”—inspired by the mathematical writings of C. Davies and W. G. Peck—are so different they could have been written by different people, and yet are equally brilliant.
Of Bayley’s work, Bruce Sterling wrote, “[he] reminds one that the power of the British New Wave was…due…to its sheer visionary intensity.” In Vector, Chris Evans observed that “Bayley is one of the most inventive and idiosyncratic writers in the genre; his short stories, especially, read like no one else’s…His plots are fast-paced and action-packed, with the fate of a world or solar system in the balance—but his subject matter extends far beyond the limited horizons of the pulp format.”
“Sporting with the Chid,” the lead-off story from The Seed of Evil, provides a classic example of Bayley’s liveliness, playfulness, and ingenuity. Yet Bayley was never frivolous in his expressions of a unique imagination. “Sporting” may be vastly entertaining, but it is also dark and layered, and contains a sting in its tail.