Michael Marshall Smith is an award-winning and best-selling British author and screenwriter. He is best-known for his Science Fiction and short story writing, though in recent years, he has moved onto contemporary thrillers.

Early Life

Born in Knutsford, Cheshire in 1965, Smith spent his early life travelling with his family first to America, followed by South Africa and then Australia before eventually returning home to England. Whilst studying at Cambridge University, Smith became involved with the Cambridge Footlights. Upon graduation, he subsequently worked as writer and performer of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series And Now, in Colour, using the pseudonym Michael Rutger.

As Michael Marshall Smith

Smith's debut novel Only Forward was published in 1994, focusing on Stark - a private detective in The City who is hired to find a missing person. The City is divided up into neighbourhoods, tailored to the particular tastes of those that live there. They range from the slightly unusual - Colour, where everyone has to have an appreciation of colour to the plain strange such as Cat, which is inhabited entirely solely by Cats.

This was followed up in 1996 by Spares, about ex-cop and war veteran Jack Randall battling to save a group of clones from an uncertain fate.

1998 saw the publication of One of Us, where our narrator is Hap Thompson, a small-time crook acting as a REMtemp - a person who takes care of other peoples unwanted memories and dreams. But once he's been lumbered with the memory of a murder, he must find the real culprit and also who was set him up for the fall.

As Michael Marshall

Beginning in 2001, Smith began using the shortened name ‘Michael Marshall’. This was to distinguish between his present day novels and science fiction/horror novels in a manner similar to Iain Banks. The Straw Men was the first in a trilogy, focusing on a secret society of serial killers and those trying stop them.

This was followed in 2007 by The Intruders, which is currently being adapted as a pilot for possible series for the BBC.

Future Projects

Smith is currently working on a film adaption of his own short story Hell Hath Enlarged Itself, which is scheduled to start shooting in September 2009.

Novels

As Michael Marshall Smith

• Only Forward (1994)
• Spares (1996)
• One of Us (1998)

As Michael Marshall

• The Straw Men (2001)
• The Lonely Dead (2004)
• Blood of Angels (2005)
• The Intruders (2007)

As M.M. Smith

• The Servants (2008)

Collected Short Fiction

• What you make it (1999)
• More Tommorrow and other stories (2003)

For more information, I would recommend Smith’s official website: michaelmarshallsmith.com