The first Jan Mark book I read was Nothing to Be Afraid Of, which I picked up in a book shop in Lancaster some time in 1984 while I was at university there. I’d never heard of her before, but the book looked interesting, so I bought it. By the time I’d read a few of the stories, and most especially ‘William’s Version’, I was hooked. I began to seek out every Jan Mark book I could find — which was a lot harder in those days, before the internet put everything at our fingertips.

Only afterwards did I discover that Jan had also written SF — and I’m a huge Science Fiction fan, and always have been. I devoured The Ennead and went looking for more, finding Aquarius and Divide and Rule, and becoming ever more impressed with my new favourite author.

Then I discovered that Jan was going to be a guest at a Science Fiction convention I’d been thinking of attending. I just had to get there, even though I was still a student and decidedly short of money. I showed up with a small pile of books, and Jan very graciously signed them. 

But that wasn’t all. Jan didn’t just sign my books; she was happy to talk. We talked about her books, and then other favourite authors, and discovered a lot of shared interests. I remember a lively discussion about Robert Nye (I later lent her my copy of The Voyage of the Destiny, as she hadn’t been able to find a copy).  

But the three snatches of conversation I remember most vividly were: 1) her amused admission that the lizard earrings she’d been given by a fan turned out to have been designed for cocaine, with a tiny spoon at the end of the tail, 2) her frustration when she couldn’t remember the correct wording of a misprinted sentence in Divide and Rule as she wanted to write in a correction, and 3) her response when I asked her whether the hero dies at the end, which was: ‘No, the sad thing is, I don’t think he does…’

In fact, we talked so long that it was time for dinner — and I demurred from joining her and (I think) her agent and publisher, as it would have been beyond my means as a student to eat at the hotel. But I didn’t yet know how generous Jan could be: she insisted I join them, and that she would pay for my meal. 

I went on to meet up with her again at the Lancaster Literary Festival, and subsequently arranged for her to speak to the Preston Science Fiction Group — which she told me she enjoyed far more than most literary groups, as the PSFG was just as well read, but far less pompous. I finally had the chance to repay her generosity on that visit, as she stayed in a spare room at the house I lived in, and I had the pleasure of cooking her dinner. The next day, she gave a talk to the village primary school just across the road (which I’d arranged at her suggestion). 

A year or two later, she repaid my hospitality by hosting me at her house in Oxford one night, and showing me around the town the next day. I will forever be indebted to her generosity, not just in sharing her food and a lovely Armagnac, but in making so much time for someone who was simply a young and enthusiastic fan.

We stayed in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and the occasional letter. Sometimes if she thought her latest book would be of particular interest to me, she would send it along when it came out. I doubt she ever knew how much that meant to me.

But I treasure one short note above all others. I loved her book The Eclipse of the Century, and decided to create a website that the more credulous characters in the book might have built. Amongst other things, the site urged people to ‘come to Qantoum under the Black Sun at the end of a thousand years’, and had a little animation of an eclipse at the top of the home page.

I wasn’t sure if Jan was on the internet (not that many people were, back in 1999), so I printed off a copy and mailed it to her, along with the address of the website. Her note back was simple, but underlined and emphatic: ‘This has made me very happy.’  I’m glad it did: because reading her books, even the darker ones, has made me very happy over the years.  

I miss her, and I miss the books I’ll never get to read because she never got the chance to write them.