John Dickinson

Writing style/themes Dickinson has written three fantasy novels, The Cup of the World (2004), The Widow and the King (2005) and The Fatal Child (2008), which are primarily for young adults. The Cup of the World and The Widow and the King have been published in the United States and Brazil as well as in the UK. The Cup of the World has been published in Thailand.

The Cup of the World and its sequels follow a young woman, Phaedra, and subsequently her son, Ambrose, as they come to understand the forces of sin and retribution that have afflicted a small medieval kingdom since its founding. The writing style of The Cup of the World was described by Jan Mark in The Guardian as "detailed, glowing rich, and unforgettable." Amanda Craig wrote in The Times that The Cup of the World and The Widow and the King were "The strangest novels I’ve come across since William Morris’s fairytales."

His third published book, The Lightstep (2008), is a historical novel for adults, set in eighteenth century Germany. It tells the story of a former republican activist, Michel Wéry, who has become disillusioned by the atrocities of the French Revolution and has become a spy for the aristocratic regime of a small German state.

Dickinson's science fiction novel, WE, was published on 7 January 2010. Philip Ardagh, reviewing the book for The Guardian, described the setting as "totally convincing and claustrophic" and that "...it is to Dickinson's credit that intellectual argument and internal conflict have been used to create such a strong driving force."