Cliff McNish
English writer
Cliff McNish is an English author of fantasy and supernatural novels for young adults. His best-known works include the 2006 ghost novel Breathe, The Silver Sequence, and The Doomspell Trilogy, which has been translated into 26 languages.
Early life and education
McNish was born in Sunderland in the north-east of England. His father, a Marine Engineer, moved south a year later with his wife, and McNish spent most of his childhood in the south east of England.
Career
McNish started writing in 1998 and has been a full-time author since 2003, combining writing with visiting workshops in schools on writing fiction.
Between 2000 and 2003 he released The Doomspell Trilogy, a fantasy trilogy for middle-grade readers consisting of The Doomspell, The Scent of Magic, and The Wizard's Promise, set partly on Earth and also on the Witch Worlds of Ithrea and Ool. The Doomspell novels have been published in 26 languages, with wide readership in the UK and Japan. McNish has cited The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis as an influence on the style and characterisation of the trilogy.
The Silver Sequence (2003–2005) followed on immediately from the Doomspell Trilogy, and is a science fiction trilogy primarily for middle-grade and lower-teen readers, consisting of The Silver Child, Silver City, and Silver World. The trilogy concerns six children with unusual powers who are battling to prevent a single vast entity from destroying all life on Earth.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cliff McNish” is english writer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cliff, McNish and English, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3277196. VIAF identifies the subject as 27240701. The Library of Congress control number is n2001021817. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1998, 2003 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cliff McNish” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.