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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-author"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Crouch, Blake </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 21 October 2024. Tagged: Author.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=crouch_blake'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=crouch_blake'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=crouch_blake'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Checklist" onclick="window.location.hash='chklst'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Alpha" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=crouch_blake&abc'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Chron" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=crouch_blake'" ></span> <span style="cursor: pointer;" onclick="window.open('/gallery.php?link=crouch_blake');"> <img alt="Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com" style="margin: 0; position: relative; top:-2px;" src="/images/icon-gal.gif"></img></span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=Crouch-OrangeObsessions.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/Crouch-OrangeObsessions.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>(1978-    ) US screenwriter and author whose earlier work, like his first novel <i>Desert Places</i> (<b>2004</b>), combined thriller and horror modes, though only with hints of the fantastic. He is perhaps best known for the <b>Wayward Pines</b> sequence comprising <i>Pines</i> (<b>2012</b>), <i>Wayward</i> (<b>2013</b>) and <i>The Last Town</i> (<b>2014</b>), made into the <a href="/entry/television">Television</a> series <i>Wayward Pines</i> (<i>2015-2016</i>) produced by M Night <a href="/entry/shyamalan_m_night">Shyamalan</a>. Wayward Pines seems initially to be a coercively maintained enclave (see <a href="/entry/keep">Keep</a>) under the rule of a mayor-like tyrant, a kind of <a href="/entry/pocket_universe">Pocket Universe</a> not dissimilar to that created (out of the <a href="/entry/sf_megatext">SF Megatext</a>) by Stephen <a href="/entry/king_stephen">King</a> in <i>Under the Dome</i> (<b>2009</b>); but the story soon ramifies confusedly, as did <a href="/entry/lost">Lost</a> (<i>2004-2010</i>), and by the end of the second season had lost some of its central thrust. The main premise – that Wayward Pines's inhabitants have been variously awakened from <a href="/entry/cryogenics">Cryogenic</a> suspension 2000 years hence, into a world ravaged by <a href="/entry/zombies">Zombie</a>-like <a href="/entry/mutants">Mutants</a> – soon became a pretext for arbitrary plot changes and spasms of violence.</p> <p>Crouch is of perhaps stronger sf interest for <i>Dark Matter</i> (<b>2016</b>), a tale set explicitly in a <a href="/entry/multiverse">Multiverse</a> created through "quantum transubstantiation", each of the <a href="/entry/parallel_worlds">Parallel Worlds</a> encountered in the tale being inhabited by different versions of the central protagonist, raising issues of <a href="/entry/identity">Identity</a> and primacy. Various <a href="/entry/alternate_history">Alternate History</a> versions of the story of America dominate these parallel worlds: <a href="/entry/near_future">Near Future</a> <a href="/entry/dystopias">Dystopias</a>; an America which has reverted to pastoral wilderness; a land dominated by neocon <a href="/entry/economics">Economics</a>, with huge gaps between the tax-exempt rich and the dispossessed poor; and so forth. In <i>Upgrade</i> (<b>2022</b>), what seems like a <a href="/entry/technothriller">Technothriller</a> soon becomes a full sf tale in which <a href="/entry/genetic_engineering">Genetic Engineering</a> is serving as an <a href="/entry/evolution">Evolutionary</a> spur. [JC]</p> <h3 id="chklst">Blake Crouch</h3> <p><b>born</b> Statesville, North Carolina: 1978 </p> <p><b>works</b></p> <p><input type="button" value="Alphabetical" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=crouch_blake&abc'"> <input type="button" value="Chronological" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=crouch_blake'"></p> <p><b>series</b></p> <p><b>Wayward Pines</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Pines&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Pines</a></em> (Las Vegas, Nevada: Thomas and Mercer, <b>2012</b>) [<b>Wayward Pines</b>: pb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Wayward&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Wayward</a></em> (Las Vegas, Nevada: Thomas and Mercer, <b>2013</b>) [<b>Wayward Pines</b>: pb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Last+Town&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Last Town</a></em> (Las Vegas, Nevada: Thomas and Mercer, <b>2014</b>) [<b>Wayward Pines</b>: pb/]</li> </ul> <p><b>individual titles</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Desert+Places&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Desert Places</a></em> (New York: St Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books, <b>2004</b>) [hb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Eerie&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Eerie</a></em> (Scotts Valley, California: CreateSpace, <b>2012</b>) with Jordan Crouch [pb/Jeroen ten Berge]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Dark+Matter&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Dark Matter</a></em> (New York: Crown Publishers, <b>2016</b>) [hb/Christopher Brand]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Recursion&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Recursion</a></em> (New York: Crown Publishers, <b>2019</b>) [hb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Upgrade&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Upgrade</a></em> (London: Pan Macmillan, <b>2022</b>) [hb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Abandon&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Abandon</a></em> (New York: Ballantine, <b>2023</b>) [pb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Run&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Run</a></em> (New York, Ballantine Books, <b>2024</b>) [/pb/]</li> </ul> <p><b>collections</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=A+Little+Orange+Book+of+Obsessions&field-author=Crouch+Blake" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">A Little Orange Book of Obsessions</a></em> (Benson, Maryland: Borderlands Press, <b>2020</b>) [coll: in the publisher's <b>Little Book</b> series: hb/nonpictorial]</li> </ul> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.blakecrouch.com/">Blake Crouch</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?144343">Internet Speculative Fiction Database</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/gallery.php?link=crouch_blake">Picture Gallery</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/crouch_blake' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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