Hal Duncan

Hal Duncan (born 1971) is a Scottish science fiction and fantasy writer from Ayrshire, associated with the boundary-blurring New Weird movement though he resists genre labels. His two-volume debut, Vellum (2005) and Ink (2007), collectively titled The Book of All Hours, reimagines the war between Heaven and Hell as a battle fought by shapeshifting characters across countless parallel realities and historical eras, mixing myth, pulp adventure, and metafiction. Vellum won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award and the Tähtivaeltaja Award and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy and Locus Awards. Duncan has also written the satirical novella Escape from Hell! (2008), the linked-story collection Scruffians! Stories of Better Sodomites (2014), and poetry and essays exploring queer identity and literary theory. A former computer programmer, he turned to full-time writing in 2005 and is openly gay and politically outspoken.