Michael tobias biography

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

(1951-    ) US ecologist, filmmaker, mountaineer and author, identified with environmental concerns from the time of the publication of his first book, Dhaulagirideon (1973), a lightly fictionalized study of mountains and mountaineering which was followed by Deva (1982), a novel with the same focus; neither book was literally fantastic, though the rough-hewn Gaia-infused landscape-mysticism of both inspire expansions of thought.

The implications of these two essays at discerning a sustainable world were expanded upon in After Eden – History, Ecology & Conscience (1984).

Of direct sf interest is Voice of the Planet (1990), whose protagonist, summoned by a message from Gaia transmitted through his Computer, makes a pilgrimage to a Tibetan monastery, where the voice of the planet, here embodied, guides him through a tour of the consequences of any further degradation (see Climate Change; Ec