Writing Career
His first published story was The Man Who Drew Cats which won the British Fantasy Award in 1991 for "Best Short Story". He has been published in Postscripts. His first novel, Only Forward, was published in 1994 and won the August Derleth Award for Best Novel in 1995, and then the Philip K. Dick Award in 2000. The plot involves the lead character, Stark, having to find a missing man he believes to have been kidnapped, and travel through the strange zones of his city. In 1996 his second novel, Spares, was released, a novel in which the lead character, Jack, goes on the run with clones who are used for spare body parts for rich people, when he realises they are people with feelings. Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks purchased the film rights for Spares, but a film was never made. When the rights lapsed, DreamWorks did produce The Island, whose plot had strong similarities to Spares, though Smith did not consider it worthwhile to pursue legal action over the similarities. He now considers it unlikely a Spares film will ever be made.
The novel The Straw Men was the first to be written under the shortened name "Michael Marshall". This change of name was originally due to the publishing of another book of the same name in 2001 by Martin J. Smith. However, Michael then decided to use the split to offer the possibility of publishing different genres of books under the two names - "modern day" novels as Michael Marshall, and horror/science fiction as Michael Marshall Smith (cf. Iain (M.) Banks).
On 1 September 2006, it was announced on his official website that the horror short story Hell Hath Enlarged Herself was in development as a feature film by Cuba Productions and Lightworks Films, financed by the UK Film Council. Smith will be a producer and co-screenwriter on the film.
In an interview for MSN UK in 2009, Michael Marshall Smith revealed that his latest book The Intruders had been picked up by the BBC for a major new drama series - with the novel being made into a feature length pilot.
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