Marusek, David 1951-

PERSONAL:

PERSONAL: Born 1951, in Buffalo, NY; married (divorced, 1986); children: one daughter. Education: University of California—Santa Barbara, B.A., 1973; attended University of Alaska—Anchorage and Jagiellonski University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Fairbanks, AK. Agent—Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd., 303 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011. E-mail—david@marusek.com.

CAREER:

Writer and graphic artist. Freelance graphic designer; previously worked as a cannery watchman on Chichagof Island, AK; as a hospital attendant in Juneau, AK, and Anchorage, AK; as a commercial fisherman and seafood processor in Homer and Cordovea, AK; as an advertising sales representative for a daily newspaper in Fairbanks, AK; and as a desktop publishing instuctor for the University of Alaska— Fairbanks.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short fiction, 2000, for the novella The Wedding Album.

WRITINGS:

Counting Heads (science fiction novel), Tor (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor of short stories and novellas to periodicals, including Asimov's, Nature, and Playboy.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his first novel, Counting Heads, science fiction writer David Marusek peers into the future of 2134, where nanotechnology has enabled people to live indefinitely and remain young in the process, but only as long as they can afford expensive rejuvenation therapies. When Eleanor Starke, a powerful personage who holds a governorship on the Tri- Disciplinary Council, dies in a mysterious space yacht crash, her daughter's head is recovered and cryogenically frozen. However, it soon goes missing. Various factions begin looking for the head, which may be the key to the world's future as an evil oligarchy seeks to take control and eliminate many of the overpopulated world's people.

David Itzkoff, writing in the New York Times, called the novel "an ambitious, sometimes brilliant and sometimes overwhelming attempt to provide a fully realized portrait of what society might be like in the 22nd century." Itzkoff continued, "At its best, the novel makes a reader nostalgic … for the present time, and grateful that he will never see a future in which the human body has become devalued to the point where it is merely a storehouse for information, and no one ever really dies—they are coldly declared ‘irretrievable.’" Commenting in Publishers Weekly, a reviewer noted that the author's "writing is ferociously smart, simultaneously horrific and funny." Booklist contributor Regina Schroeder concluded that the author "presents a gripping conspiracy in an uncomfortably three-dimensional future."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2005, Regina Schroeder, review of Counting Heads, p. 33.

Entertainment Weekly, December 9, 2005, Ted Rose, review of Counting Heads, p. 92.

New York Times, March 5, 2006, Dave Itzkoff, review of Counting Heads.

Publishers Weekly, September 26, 2005, review of Counting Heads, p. 67.

ONLINE

Agony,http://trashotron.com/agony/ (April 21, 2006), Rick Kleffel, review of Counting Heads.

Anchorage Press Web site, http://www.anchoragepress. com/ (April 21, 2006), Brandon Seifert, "Everyday Science Fiction," profile of the author.

David Marusek Home Page,http://www.marusek.com (April 21, 2006).

David Marusek Web Log, http://countingheads.blog spot.com (April 21, 2006).

Locus Online,http://www.locusmag.com/ (April 21, 2006), Beth Gwinn, "David Marusek: Starship Alaska."

Strange Horizons,http://www.strangehorizons.com/ (March 7, 2006), Dan Hartland, review of Counting Heads.