Ken Grimwood

Kenneth Milton Grimwood (February 27, 1944 - June 6, 2003) was an American author of fantasy fiction combining themes of life-affirmation and hope with metaphysical concepts, themes found in his best-known novel, the highly popular Replay.

Related Topics:
February 27 - 1944 - June 6 - 2003 - American - Fantasy - Replay

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Ken Grimwood's impressive debut novel, Breakthrough (1976), was heavily influenced by EC Comics, concluding its blend of science fiction, reincarnation and horror elements with a surprising and unpredictable twist ending. Cured of epilepsy by a breakthrough in medical technology, 26-year-old Elizabeth Austin has miniature electrodes implanted in her brain. She can control her seizures by pressing an external remote to activate the electrodes. Adjusting to a normal life, she is ready to patch up a troubled marriage and resume her abandoned career. However, as part of the implant operation, Elizabeth gave her consent for the insertion of extra electrodes, featuring experimental functions unknown to science. When one of those electrodes is stimulated, Elizabeth experiences memories which are not her own. She discovers the remote has given her the ability to eavesdrop on her previous life 200 years in the past, and she keeps this a secret from her doctor. Intrigued, she finds the earlier existence appealing and begins to spend more and more time there. Eventually, she discovers that the woman in the past is a murderer who is plotting to kill Elizabeth's husband in the present.

Related Topics:
1976 - EC Comics - Science fiction - Reincarnation - Horror

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Although Breakthrough went out of print shortly after publication, author Gary Carden ranked it alongside books by Stephen King and Ray Bradbury: "Over the last 40 years, there are 40 or 50 'good trash' books that have remained in my memory because the writing was graphic, suspenseful and tense. Like the clichéd blurb on the cover of most suspense or crime fiction always promises, I found I 'could not put it down.' A lot of these managed to frighten me, and that is a pretty good trick. When I read Richard Matheson?s I Am Legend, I actually turned on all of the lights, locked the door and finished the book before sunrise. The same thing is true of Stephen King?s Salem's Lot. I read it in a motel in Maggie Valley and ended up finishing it in the lobby where I had the comforting presence of other people. I?ll not forget James Hall?s Bone of Coral or James Lee Burke?s Black Cherry Blues or Ray Bradbury?s October Country. Then there was a book by Ken Grimwood called Breakthrough and William Goldman?s Marathon Man. All of these authors have the ability to 'set the hook' in the first page, and then you are there for the long haul, reading as you eat, neglecting the chores and refusing to answer the phone. You aren?t reading Kafka or Tolstoy, and you know it, yet you know the author is far better than most writers of popular 'thriller' or 'suspense' fiction. Sometimes, he gets pretty close to 'literature,' but essentially, he is just entertaining you."

Related Topics:
Stephen King - Ray Bradbury - Richard Matheson - William Goldman

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Film producer William Castle took an interest in adapting Breakthrough for a movie, but the project was never realized. Breakthrough has certain parallels with David Williams' Second Sight (Simon and Schuster, 1977), coincidentally written the same year and later adapted for the TV movie, The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan (1979). Williams has commented, "As the author of Second Sight, I have to tell you that until I read this Wikipedia page in 2004, I had never heard of Ken Grimwood or his novel Breakthrough."

Related Topics:
1977 - 1979

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The 1988 World Fantasy Award went to Grimwood for his novel Replay (Arbor House, 1987), the compelling account of 43-year-old radio journalist Jeff Winston, who dies and awakens back in 1963 in his 18-year-old body. He then begins relive his life with intact memories of the next 25 years, and this happens repeatedly with different events in each cycle. This acclaimed novel, a bestseller in Japan, was an obvious influence on Harold Ramis' comedy-drama Groundhog Day (1993), and variations of Grimwood's plot premise can also be seen in the Japanese film Taan, aka Turn (2001), and the 1993 TV movie 12:01, adapted from the Richard Lupoff short story "12:01 PM," originally in the December, 1973 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In Locus magazine's 1998 poll of the best fantasy novels published prior to 1990, Replay placed #32.

Related Topics:
1988 - World Fantasy Award - Replay - 1987 - Japan - Harold Ramis - Groundhog Day - 1993 - 2001 - Richard Lupoff

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Orson Scott Card, reviewing Replay for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (May, 1987), wrote, "Jeff makes a quick fortune gambling on sure things; this time the 1970s and 1980s are filled with the glamour and disappointment of wealth. Until he dies again. And again wakes up in 1963. And again, and again, replays of his past life, each time wiser than the time before, each time surprised by new joy, new pain. Children he raised and then lost, lovers who don't want him the second time around. Desperately lonely with all his knowledge that he cannot share, he searches for others caught in the same endless loop of lifetimes. And finds some. Grimwood's style is clear, penetrating. He leads us through Jeff Winston's lives with great skill, never lingering too long with any one experience, never moving so rapidly that we cannot taste the flavor of each passage through the decades. Replay is Pilgrim's Progress for our time, a stern yet affectionate portrait of the lives we lead. When I finished it, I felt I had been moving with the hidden rhythm of life, that I had seen more clearly, that I had loved more deeply than is ever possible in one short passage of years."

Related Topics:
Orson Scott Card - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

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Publishers Weekly reviewed, "Grimwood has transcended genre with this carefully observed, literate and original story. Jeff's knowledge soon becomes as much a curse as a blessing. After recovering from the shock (is the future a dream, or is it real life?), he plays out missed choices. In one life, for example, he falls in love with Pamela, a housewife who died nine minutes after Jeff; they try to warn the world of the disasters it faces, coming in conflict with the government and history. A third replayer turns out to be a serial killer, murdering the same people over and over. Jeff and Pamela are still searching for some missing parts of their lives when they notice they are returning closer and closer to the time of their deaths, and realize the replays and their times together may be coming to an end."

Related Topics:
Publishers Weekly - Genre

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Grimwood's fascination with cetacean intelligence, encounters with dolphins and research into intraspecies dolphin communication gave him the inspiration for Into the Deep (William Morrow, 1995), a "spiritual adventure" about a marine biologist struggling to crack the code of dolphin intelligence. It features lengthy imaginative passages written from the point-of-view of several dolphin characters. To research "the willful denial and gratuitous cruelty" involved in tuna fishing, Grimwood secretly infiltrated the crew of a San Diego-based tuna boat.

Related Topics:
Cetacea - Dolphin - 1995

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Other novels include The Voice Outside (1982), exploring mind control and telepathy-inducing drugs, and Elise (1979). Born in Versailles in 1683, Elise is immortal due to her DNA, and the story traces her experiences with various lovers and husbands through the centuries.

Related Topics:
1982 - 1979

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Grimwood died of a heart attack in his home in Santa Barbara, California. At the time of his death, he was writing a sequel to Replay. His works are included in the Santa Barbara Authors and Publishers Special Collection at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Related Topics:
Heart attack - Santa Barbara, California

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