Duncan Lunan

At his book launch for From The Moon to the Stars, Duncan Lunan joked that, when a previous publisher fell through, it took Other Side Books roughly 3 seconds to agree to step in and accept this collection of rare Lunan SF gems. This is of course an exaggeration: I believe it was two seconds!

Duncan has been at the forefront of British SF and science for over 50 years, and Other Side Books were delighted to republish over a dozen long since out of print stories from the 1970s onwards. Duncan Lunan is known for turning a critical scientific eye to scifi/fantasy tropes, hence one look at the realistic potential of a Dyson Sphere, and another where we get a vampire realistic with the physics required.

From the Moon to the Stars is available as a paperback or for Kindle reader on Amazon.

The Other Side of the Interface is available in paperback and for Kindle devices on Amazon.

Duncan also contributed to the Second Christmas Book of Ghosts, the horror anthology which raises money for Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland. You can buy a copy here.

Born in 1945, Duncan Lunan has been a full time author, researcher, lecturer, broadcaster, editor, critic and tutor since 1970, specialising in astronomy, spaceflight and science fiction. He has published 9 books to date and contributed to 36 more, with 36 previously published stories and over 1500 articles. He was science fiction critic of the Glasgow Herald from 1971 to 1985, and ran the paper’s SF and fantasy short story competition from 1986 to 1992.

As Manager of the Glasgow Parks Department’s Astronomy Project in 1978-79, he built the first astronomically aligned stone circle in Britain for over 3000 years (recreated at a new site in 2019); he was on the management committee of Airdrie Public Observatory from 1977 to 2008, serving as a curator for 18½ years, and ran the North Lanarkshire Astronomy Project 2006-2009. Currently he is Treasurer of the educational charity ACTA SCIO, co-editor of its magazine Space and Scotland, and Past Chair of the Astronomers of the Future Club in his home town of Troon, to which he returned with his wife Linda in 2012.

His monthly astronomy column ‘The Sky Above You’ appears in various newspapers and magazines.

Illustrations in From The Moon to the Stars and The Other Side of the Interface by Sydney Jordan, creator of Jeff Hawke for the Daily Express and Lance McLane for the Daily Record. Lance McLane was syndicated overseas as a new version of Jeff Hawke, making Hawke the world’s longest-running science fiction comic strip, 1954-1988, with 10 stories written fully, in part or suggested by Duncan Lunan. Sydney provided the covers for Duncan’s books Children from the Sky, Starfield and The Elements of Time, illustrated all the stories in The Elements of Time and contributed illustrations to Children from the Sky, and Duncan’s nonfiction book, Incoming Asteroid! What Could We Do About It?.