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The Ice People

Maggie Gee

3.35 · Rating details · 390 ratings · 35 reviews

In this novel, Maggie Gee speculates about the survival of love between men and women in a frozen future world where children are rare, child-size robots run out of control, and homosexuality is the norm. Far into the the 21st century, civilization has broken down in the face of the deepening cold. An old man, Saul, lives in a disused airport with a gang of wild boys, who ...more

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published May 1st 1999 by John Blake (first published December 31st 1998)

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Dec 11, 2012 Hilary G rated it liked it

I've always loved science fiction (though I don't like that term much) and The Ice People encompasses the best that science fiction can do. The best science fiction isn't about ray guns and matter transmitters and warp ten (though those things are fun), it's about PEOPLE and what happens to them when things change, how they adapt to change (or not). There were many kinds of change in the Ice People – biological change (difficulty in having children), societal change (the segging), technological I've always loved science fiction (though I don't like that term much) and The Ice People encompasses the best that science fiction can do. The best science fiction isn't about ray guns and matter transmitters and warp ten (though those things are fun), it's about PEOPLE and what happens to them when things change, how they adapt to change (or not). There were many kinds of change in the Ice People – biological change (difficulty in having children), societal change (the segging), technological change (the Doves) and climatic change (the new Ice Age) and it focussed fairly tightly on how all those changes affected one small family – Saul, Sarah. Luke and Dora. The changes must have affected every single living thing, but the way Maggie Gee kept her main characters centre stage the whole time (I can't remember a scene when one of them was not present) kept it on a human scale, instead of an epic disaster-movie scale. All of the other characters, except perhaps Briony, were peripheral. In fact, I never really got the point of Briony, as she was somehow superfluous to the story.

It was interesting that Maggie Gee (a female, presumably) chose to tell her story from the vantage point of a male. I thought she was quite successful. (Perhaps that was why she needed Briony, so that it wasn't TOO male or that the only "female" in half the story would be a robot). I felt a lot of sympathy for Saul without ever losing sympathy for Sarah. This was unlike books that polarise your feelings. Nobody was all good or all bad. Saul's biggest mistake – with Sarah, and with Luke – was not to realise that his hopes and dreams weren't necessarily shared by those that he loved (and he really did love them, I think) and it was a sin of omission not of commission. I don't think he ever arrived at an understanding of why either Sarah or Luke had left him or why the only "person" who remained faithful to him was an artificial life form that was programmed to please him. Saul was an idealist who thought that love was enough, but you don't need an ice age or mutated robots to tell you life's not like that.

Another demonstration of my concept of what is really good science fiction was that the ideas and inventions of the story were extensions or developments from current reality, rather than a completely imagined alternate reality. Of course, the future might not be like this (I hope not) but it COULD be. I mentioned on site that the very day I finished the book, there was an article in the Daily Telegraph about the Earth freezing, and also another that mentioned "rogue nano-machines that replicate catastrophically". Similarly, I believe there are already robots in Japan that do housework and stuff (and certainly the idea of robots is not off-the-wall) and it is possible to see how lonely or sad people could get attached to something that isn't real - teddy bears have performed that function for centuries. The segregation of men and women seems a possible long-term outcome of all the single sex relationships, which sometimes seems to be a fashion statement rather than a biological urge. I'm glad it hasn't happened yet – I like men!

I thought the parts about children were very poignant. People longed for children and went to extraordinary lengths to try and have them. The Doves could be regarded as child replacements. Saul tried to live out his dreams through his son. Yet in the end it was the children who inherited the earth, as you would expect, and not the idealised, sentimental, yearned-for children of the adults, but real people who adapted to the changed world and grew away and separated and lived lives that were entirely different than previous generations. This was their world now.

It was interesting to contemplate what would happen after the story ended. Would societies in the sense that we understood them ever develop again or would bonking in the woods and cannibalising the old continue for centuries? Would humanity start again to climb up the technological ladder? Would they even survive until the thaw came? But I thought the book ended in the right place, leaving plenty of scope for the imagination.
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Jun 17, 2012 Melanie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: university

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Global Warming, an Ice Age, the segregation of men and women, and little household robots that are as dangerous as they are cute - how many problems can you pack in a Dystopian novel? Perhaps never enough, and so I felt overly unsatisfied after reading The Ice People.

The narrator, Saul, introduces himself in a pompous manner, "I, Saul, Teller of Tales, Keeper of Doves, Slayer of Wolves, shall tell the story of my times." What follows are 300 pages of whining about the failure of being a father, Global Warming, an Ice Age, the segregation of men and women, and little household robots that are as dangerous as they are cute - how many problems can you pack in a Dystopian novel? Perhaps never enough, and so I felt overly unsatisfied after reading The Ice People.

The narrator, Saul, introduces himself in a pompous manner, "I, Saul, Teller of Tales, Keeper of Doves, Slayer of Wolves, shall tell the story of my times." What follows are 300 pages of whining about the failure of being a father, the faults of women, and the general failure of society.

In a society where androgyny is the height of fashion, men and women keep among themselves and slowly begin to hate the other gender. Sarah's main attraction is her femininity, her way to wear skirts and her hair long and not shaved or short like the others. Her main fault is that she complains about doing all the household work, that she slowly becomes vocal about the women society, and that she starts to wear trousers and her hair short like other women. Or so thinks Saul, who does not even think of the possibility to help her even though she's tired as well and he supposedly loves her - we remember, this is not the past we are talking about, this is the near future, the 21st century.
And yet, it makes today's feminists, who fight for equality, look bad (Atwood criticized that kind of feminism in her novel, The Handmaid's Tale, published long before The Ice People).
It really bothered me that for the narrator, "being a woman" was equal with wearing certain clothes and having the hair cut in the certain way. The subjective point of view made it hard to be convinced by the society of the middle of the 21st century when the narrator is such an unsympathetic jerk.

People in the discussion at university thought the male narrator was well-written and convincing. Well, if you think that means putting sexist platitudes in his speech because all men do this, yes, then it is convincing.

But as if the gender discussion wasn't enough, little household robots gone wrong added the mix. Many people have criticized that the presentation of naive, and I have to agree - it was not only naive but also badly executed and unnecessary to add them to the looming catastrophe.

The main thing about this book should have been the ecological thriller that is referred to in the title - the ice people are the people from the north, the ones that seek refugee in the southern countries. And yet, almost nothing about that was in the book. Very little about the ice age (it got cold, yes), the importance of the ice people or the threat they might pose to the peace in southern countries ... when Saul took his son south and tried to get into Africa because of his heritage, where was the struggle? He had some problems with his son, he got scammed only not to go to Africa after all. His son got abducted/left him, but the political struggle that might have arisen didn't took place. Saul had given up, went back, nothing more happened.

That seemed to be the overall topic of the book: Giving up on life. The characters rarely tried to better their lives, and when they did, they were damned by the other characters.
Most of the action took place off-screen. We heard about changes and struggles through other characters or the media, but the narrator was rarely involved.
The best scene in the entire book was actually the execution of the main character at the end.

Also, the author seemed to be allergic to hyphens. ...more

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Aug 31, 2013 Helen French rated it it was ok

Shelves: sffh

An old man living during an ice age in the near future narrates his tale, explaining how humanity didn't see the big chill coming at first, then how men and women segregated as life got harder, how his relationship with Sarah fell apart, how he tried to take his son to Africa, where it would still be warm, how he ended up alone and unloved.

The main problem is that the main character is a selfish, misogynistic, lazy asshat. His partner is a harridan. In fact, according to the narrator, pretty muc ...more

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Aug 13, 2018 Stephen Hull rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I started this novel with the misconception that it was about climate change. That's kind of like saying that Middlemarch is about the coming of the railways or 2001: A Space Odyssey is about bad software design. Climate change is an element, an essential element, but it's most certainly not what the book is about.

So what is it about? Without giving anything away, it’s about the divide between men and women, between the young and the old, between the certainty of the past and the mystery of the ...more

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Sep 28, 2017 Paulina rated it did not like it

Shelves: science-fiction, location-uk, british-literature, abandoned

Terrible, awfully misogynistic and simplistic. The main character is a sexist asshole who falls for a woman because she is feminine, and, "not like other girls". The whole social milieu of separated sexes based on their differences - which is nothing but utter bullshit (girls are not good at math, like to take care of the house, men have to carry things...I have no words) - has aged horribly.

After about 100 pages still not much about the climate change or the plot, so I just threw the book out. ...more

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Aug 12, 2020 Ralph Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: 20th-century

From what I can understand, this feels a bit like the movie Titanic, where Rose is telling a group of young adults about her tale living on the ship and meeting her love, and the tragedy that happened.

However, in Maggie Gee’s The Ice People, instead of a sinking cruise ship, we have a man taken hostage by a group of outlaws and they want him to tell stories. He spent his time telling the story during the ice age, where men and women live separately. Before that happened, the man, named Saul, had ...more

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Jan 20, 2018 Kay Smillie rated it really liked it

This book kept coming up as a recommendation on Amazon, given my browsing and purchasing history on there, and I eventually gave in and bought it. Thinking it was a relatively recent publication, it came as a surprise that it was released twenty years ago.

In brief, it is about the breakdown of society due to global warming which is turned on it's head by a sudden and unexpected ice age. A small number attempt to reach Africa, with the attempt to reach Ghana. It is safe to say that the journey i ...more

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Jun 18, 2019 Grace Palmer, Novel Nights rated it it was amazing

The Ice People, published in 1998 describes a 'near future,' a work of the imagination of how climate change will disrupt our world, how society might collapse, how gender wars develop, how infertility might rise.
Reading it, in 2019, I was struck by how prescient Maggie Gee is. Why I wonder is Cormac McCarthy's Road so lauded and this novel by Maggie Gee relatively unknown?

She's a very fine writer. The quotes on the back of the book: "It can be read as a terrifying view of a possible future... ...more

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Jan 09, 2019 Joel Nichols rated it it was ok

worldbuilding was interesting, but the constant switches from present to past took away some of the excitement of anything happening in the present of the novel; so the most interesting setting was quickly revealed to be a nowhere place where nothing was going to happen. Saul as a POV character was also too much for me--his gender regression was supposed to characterize him and help along the plot, but instead he just disgusted me. Would love to have switched to Luke's POV for last few chapters ...more

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Jan 21, 2019 Marg rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Not as engrossing as I had thought from the comments and reviews. Slightly distasteful and long-winded though I usually enjoy post-apocalyptic scenarios! And he is such an idiot; self-obsessed and selfish! No wonder his wife left - and took the child! He's just so thoughtless! Not a nice book, but then people are not very nice, are we? ...more

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Jul 10, 2019 sara rated it did not like it

Shelves: green

Really good for its times in terms of how it deals with global climate crisis, but everything else is kinda questionable and I absolutely hated. I hated the protagonist, I hated that everything was from his point of view (so entirely skewed), yet weirdly I wanted to keep reading until I reached the end. Still, I wanna wash my brain with bleach now, I feel so bitter.

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Aug 26, 2019 Mary-Anne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Grim

Well imagined and beautifully written, but horrifyingly grim.
Might suit those with a taste for darker fiction. Personally I'd prefer a main character less oblivious, less obnoxious. ...more

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Jul 27, 2018 Luke rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A great read, turning the world upside down and seeing what falls out.

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Nov 02, 2019 Tanzey rated it really liked it

Fantastic dystopian tale of a new ice age and its consequences. The characters are real and the prose poetic. It was depressing but well worth reading for its contemporary relevance.

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Jul 04, 2012 Virginia rated it liked it

Shelves: literature, future-dystopia

Oh my goodness. Where to start. I'm trying to process my thoughts and I really wish Gee had bothered to do the same. I think she took every idea about what could be going on in our dystopian future and mashed it together into one big jumble. This isn't too say that I didn't enjoy the book. I was nearly in the four stars camp, but as the story unfolded, I found my attention wandering.

Here's my problem. We know what's going to happen because it opens with our narrator Saul, alone in his dystopian Oh my goodness. Where to start. I'm trying to process my thoughts and I really wish Gee had bothered to do the same. I think she took every idea about what could be going on in our dystopian future and mashed it together into one big jumble. This isn't too say that I didn't enjoy the book. I was nearly in the four stars camp, but as the story unfolded, I found my attention wandering.

Here's my problem. We know what's going to happen because it opens with our narrator Saul, alone in his dystopian future - except for the the menacing boy savages - musing on how he got there. As he begins to tell the tale of his once happy family, Gee's job is to keep us interested in why it all fell apart. This requires us to feel sympathy for our narrator. Poor Saul, how could this have happened to you? I'm all ears. It's also helpful if we care about the society which has now been decimated.

Gee paints a picture of a society teetering on the precipice of climate disaster, but still not able to rally around the issue. I liked that instead of preparing themselves, politicians are preoccupied with a whole host of things that feel more controllable; fertility rates, the segregation of gender, political activism, robot malfunction crises. The proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic, but nevertheless a believable multiplicity of issues that human nature wouldn't allow us to ignore.

My problem was that Gee tried to give all these issues weight in the novel, but none was fully realised. I would have preferred if Gee had just picked one train of thought and fleshed it out a bit so we could have sympathized with what was going on. The Wicca (Sarah) were painted as crazy people, the men (Saul) were were pathetic and whiny, the Doves were a distraction. The whole lot of them were annoying. After a certain point I decided that the ice couldn't come crashing down fast enough.

At a personal level, as Saul recounts the unraveling of his relationship with Sarah and his son Luke, he tells us about all the signs he missed and recounts actions that scream of impetuousness and immaturity. He's a self absorbed man, who fails at every opportunity to redeem himself. And (apart from her glorious hair) Sarah seemed to have few redeeming features, so why was he so blind and prepared to put up with being treated as he was? This man did not deserve to succeed. Goodbye care factor.

All that said, the ideas in this book are very interesting. Any one of them could be stretched into a satisfying novel in its own right (three that come to mind immediately are, The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, I, Robot), so its a shame that Gee didn't fully flesh one of them out for us. I was particularly fascinated by the gender issues and would have loved this quasi-segregated society to be developed further and without resorting to such obvious stereotyping. So despite only half caring about Saul's fate by the time it was finally revealed to me, I do give this three stars. For the quality of the thinking and the first three parts of the story, I am prepared to overlook the tediousness of the last quarter. ...more

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Dec 14, 2015 Liam rated it it was amazing

A little over a month ago, novelist Maggie Gee came to visit the University of Nottingham. I happened to be invited to two talks she was doing, one purely for Creative Writing MA students, and another, more 'open' one for the students within the School of English (although with a strong showing from the third years dystopian module). The latter was hosted by Dr Waddell, a tutor of mine. Both talks were brilliant, and Gee is effortlessly charming.

I picked up 'The Ice People' out of courtesy more A little over a month ago, novelist Maggie Gee came to visit the University of Nottingham. I happened to be invited to two talks she was doing, one purely for Creative Writing MA students, and another, more 'open' one for the students within the School of English (although with a strong showing from the third years dystopian module). The latter was hosted by Dr Waddell, a tutor of mine. Both talks were brilliant, and Gee is effortlessly charming.

I picked up 'The Ice People' out of courtesy more than anything else a day or two before the talks - something about my character told me that it would be impolite to turn up having not read anything Gee had produced. I chose TIP at the recommendation of Dr Waddell, and because of its dystopian leanings, although these two are very closely linked. I managed to read something like a chapter or two before the talks (which sounds pathetic, but is remarkable, given the other pressures and deadlines I had) and found the premise of TIP to be very interesting (I certainly wanted to carry on): utilising dystopia as a lens through which interpersonal relationships could be examined.

As I said, those two talks were fascinating, but it was the third, unexpected talk, that was by far best. After the second talk (ending somewhere after 5pm, I think), I was invited to sit, have a chat and drink with Dr Waddell and Gee about all things writing, academia and life in general. Things that were said during this chat moved me greatly and have potentially nudged me further along a certain path... anyway.

I am trying not to let my opinion of Gee cloud my review, and I'd rather keep the meat of this brief. TIP is a fantastic read. Curiously imaginative, yet conceivable. The weaving of backstory and present story is seamless (something I struggle with). The prose is often beautiful, unwavering in its appeal. Perhaps lazily, I'd compare this to 'Oryx & Crake' by Margaret Atwood, but TIP has more of a heart to it, more of a feel for people.

In short: loved it. Such a shame that it's taken me so long to get round to finishing it, but that's life. ...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Jayne Charles rated it liked it

This sounded like an interesting concept when I spotted it in the bookstore. While the current preoccupation is with global warming and the melting of the ice caps etc, what if the earth actually got colder, and the Northern lands became uninhabitable? Suddenly Africa would come into its own. This is the main theme of this novel, but there are others along the way. First of all, the novel takes us a few years into the future, where society has been split - acrimoniously - along gender lines. Fer ...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Lisa marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: in-my-library

I'm about halfway through this book and really struggling to finish it. I started reading it a couple of months ago. I just can't stand the main character I suppose. Hmm, nah, I just don't like any of the characters. The main character is weak and whiney. I have many colorful words to describe his "wife" but I'll keep this clean. I guess I'll just pretend the people in this story are the way that they are because the climate is very hot. I would like to know why the author chose to write from a ...more

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Jun 26, 2016 Pamela Scott rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library

This counts towards the Popsugar Reading Challenge 2016. The category is ‘A Science Fiction Novel’.

The Ice People took a while to get going but once it did I couldn’t stop reading. The novel reminded me of The Road by Cormac McCarthy (which I loved) at times when Saul, his son Luke and Briony are trying to find somewhere to live. The characters are very well-written, interesting and very real. I hated Saul at times which shows how human he was. The novel really picks up the pace when Saul, Luke ...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Suzi rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book offers an interesting perspective on climate change and what the future may look like. Unfortunately I think Maggie Gee's point about our weather systems get lost amongst the dystopian world she draws. Through the unreliable narrator Saul we learn about the decline of human relationships as we know them and the rise of robots (initially designed to help with cleaning). The book is, in fact largely preoccupied with gender roles and the relationships between man and woman and not with we ...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Fiona rated it liked it

Shelves: 2013

3.5 stars. A futuristic novel with flashes of emotional insight, though at times I didn't find the main character entirely convincing. Also, there were just too many different ideas - global warming followed by a new ice age, infertility, segregation of the sexes, the rise of Africa and the fall of Europe, nearly-human robots who can talk and reproduce themselves (and eat animals and humans - she lost me at that point!) - and more. Well written though with a plot that carries you along, and thou ...more

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Dec 05, 2015 Ellie rated it it was ok

Shelves: post-apoc-scifi, don-t-engage-brain, could-not-finish-drivel

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 05, 2014 Ado Mohammed rated it did not like it

I feel that giving this book one star is quite generous, I wish I had the option of giving it half a star. First of all, the title " Ice People" is a bit deceptive, because the author didn't seem too sure if the coming ice age is more of a sideshow, rather than the main theme of the book. It seems as if the author wasn't too sure if she wanted the book to be about societal collapse caused by a new ice age, or some kind of robot war against the doves, or even a society falling apart due to variou ...more

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Apr 30, 2008 sisterimapoet rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction-2010

I like these dystopian novels. Not quite as good as Margaret Atwood, but still pretty thrilling and shocking stuff. I think I don't have the same idea of humour as the people who wrote the cover blurb, as I found it far more scary than funny. But I guess there was a wry smile or two at seeing familiar things warped a little and thrown back at us. ...more

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Feb 08, 2014 Sharon rated it it was ok

Post new ice age type story. I got a little lost with the story it was very involved with the main characters psychological feelings about things that happened to him and the ending had no solution apart from the fact we would revert to savages eventually. Parts were very clever and thought out well, but I felt a lot more explanation was needed. Just my opinion

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Jan 31, 2015 Elizabeth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-star

A good read:
Not mind blowingly wonderful, but a good rip roaring story, which kept me hooked on a day when the Internet was being very "Chinese" and I didn't fancy going out. Starts with global warming and then the earth dramatically starts to cool down. I do rather enjoy these sorts of stories, just for simple entertainment. ...more

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Jul 28, 2013 Cathy Wood rated it it was amazing

AMAZING! What a fantastic book! A great story with characters who I feel I know like real people and such vivid scenes that I felt that I was there with them. Even now I can almost hear the ice creaking it's way towards the UK.

I went straight out and bought another Maggie Gee book. ...more

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May 23, 2013 Yvonne rated it it was ok

Not a big science fiction fan, but this book kept me reading even though the gender theme was a little too strong and stereotyped.

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Jul 11, 2013 Melanie rated it did not like it

gave up on this as the characters weren't engaging ...more

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Jan 11, 2014 Susie rated it liked it

Shelves: 2014

Jan14

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About Maggie Gee

Maggie Gee

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Maggie Gee is an English novelist. She was born in Poole, Dorset, then moved to the Midlands and later to Sussex. She was educated at state schools and at Oxford University (MA, B Litt). She later worked in publishing and then had a research post at Wolverhampton Polytechnic where she completed the department's first PhD. She has written eleven novels and a collection of short stories, and was the Maggie Gee is an English novelist. She was born in Poole, Dorset, then moved to the Midlands and later to Sussex. She was educated at state schools and at Oxford University (MA, B Litt). She later worked in publishing and then had a research post at Wolverhampton Polytechnic where she completed the department's first PhD. She has written eleven novels and a collection of short stories, and was the first female Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, 2004-2008. She is now one of the Vice-Presidents of the RSL and Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. She has also served on the Society of Authors' management committee and the government's Public Lending Right committee. Her seventh novel, The White Family, was shortlisted for the 2003 Orange Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

She writes in a broadly modernist tradition, in that her books have a strong overall sense of pattern and meaning, but her writing is characterised by political and social awareness. She turns a satirical eye on contemporary society but is affectionate towards her characters and has an unironised sense of the beauty of the natural world. Her human beings are biological as well as social creatures, partly because of the influence of science and in particular evolutionary biology on her thinking. Where are The Snows, The Ice People and The Flood have all dealt with the near or distant future. She writes through male characters as often as she does through female characters.

The individual human concerns that her stories address include the difficulties of resolving the conflict between total unselfishness, which often leads to secret unhappiness and resentment against the beneficiaries, and selfishness, which can lead to the unhappiness of others, particularly of children. This is a typical quandary of late-20th and early-21st-century women, but it is also a concern for privileged, wealthy, long-lived western human beings as a whole, and widens into global concerns about wealth and poverty and climate change. Her books also explore how the human species relates to non-human animals and to the natural world as a whole. Two of her books, The White Family and My Cleaner, have had racism as a central theme, dealt with as a tragedy in The White Family but as a comedy in My Cleaner. She is currently writing a memoir called My Animal Life. In 2009 she published "My Driver", a second novel with many of the same characters as My Cleaner, but this time set in Uganda during a time of tension with neighbouring DRC Congo.

Maggie Gee lives in London with her husband, the writer and broadcaster Nicholas Rankin, an author, and their daughter Rosa. ...more