Alice Lightner Hopf

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Alice Martha Lightner Hopf (born October 14, 1904 in Detroit ; died February 3, 1988 in Upper Black Eddy , Bucks County , Pennsylvania ) was an American writer who wrote science fiction for teenagers as AM Lightner .

Life

Lightner's father was the lawyer Clarence Ashley Lightner, her mother the playwright Frances McGraw. After attending Westover School in Middlebury , Connecticut , she studied from 1923 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie , where she graduated in 1927 with a bachelor's degree. In 1935 she married Ernest Joachim Hopf, with whom she had a son. Since 1951 she has been a freelance writer.

She had already published a volume of poetry in 1928, her first professionally published short story was A New Game , an SF story for teenagers that appeared in Boy's Life in 1959 . In the following years she published a number of SF novels for young people under her maiden name AM Lighter and a number of popular animal non-fiction books for young people under her married name Alice L. Hopf. The focus here was on lepidopterology and ecology , as well as a nine-volume series with “biographies” of representatives of various animal species, as well as a three-volume series on the wild relatives of the domestic animals dog, cat and horse. In 1972 and 1973 she was recognized by the National Science Teachers Association .

Lightner's most successful SF novel The Day of the Drones (1969) was originally designed for adult readers, but was not accepted by the publishers as such. Only when the publisher of one of her youth books became enthusiastic about the story did she rewrite the book for young readers. It is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which a group of African survivors have managed to rebuild a civilization, with technology taboo and strict genetic control, including abandoning white-skinned babies. During an expedition to the area of ​​former England, they come into contact with the barbaric tribes there, which have organized themselves in a matriarchal society similar to a bee state . Alongside Margot Bennett's The Long Way Back and Georg Zauner's The Forbidden Continent , it is another novel in which black Africans, survivors of a nuclear war between East and West, become carriers of a new civilization. According to Francis J. Molson, The Day of the Drones - also translated into German as Die Tage der Drhnen - must be considered one of the relatively few outstanding examples of SF for young people.

bibliography

Poems (as AM Lightner)
  • The Pillar and the Flame (1928)
Science Fiction for Teens (as AM Lightner)
  • The Rock of Three Planets (1963)
  • The Planet Poachers (1965)
  • Doctor to the Galaxy (1965)
    • German: Der Planetendoktor. Moewig (Terra Nova # 59), 1969.
  • The Galactic Troubadours (1965)
    • English: Rebels of the Galaxy. Bastei Lübbe Science Fiction Paperback # 26, 1973, ISBN 3-404-00107-9 .
  • The Space Plague (1966)
  • The Space Olympics (1967)
  • The Space Ark (1968)
    • German: Die Weltraum-Arche. Moewig (Terra Nova # 75), 1969.
  • The Day of the Drones (1969)
    • German: The days of the drones. Moewig (Terra Nova # 95), 1969.
  • The Walking Zoo of Darwin Dingle (1969)
    • German: gangsters, snakes, scorpions. Translated by Alexa Wienand. Engelbert-Verlag, Balve (Sauerland) 1973, ISBN 3-536-01109-8 .
  • The Thursday Toads (1971)
  • Gods or Demons? (1973)
  • Star Dog (1973)
  • The Space Gypsies (1974)
  • Star Circus (1977)

Short stories:

  • A New Game (1959)
  • A Great Day for the Irish (1960)
  • Best Friend (1961)
  • The Mars Jar (1966)
  • Time's Angry Man (1973)
  • Tigger (1976)
Youth non-fiction books (as Alice Lightner Hopf)
  • Monarch Butterflies (1965)
  • Wild Traveler: The Story of a Coyote (1967)
  • Earth's Bug-Eyed Monsters (1968)
  • Butterfly and Moth (1969)
  • Carab, The Trap-Door Spider (1970)
  • Biography of an Octopus [a Rhino, an Ostrich, an Ant, an Armadillo, an American Reindeer, a Giraffe, a Snowy Owl, a Komodo Dragon] (9 vols., 1971–1981)
  • Misunderstood Animals (1973)
  • Wild Cousins ​​of the Dog [Cat, Horse] (3 vols., 1973–1977)
  • Misplaced Animals and Other Living Creatures (1975)
  • Animal and Plant Life Spans (1978)
  • Animals That Eat Nectar and Honey (1979)
  • Nature's Pretenders (1979)
  • Pigs Wild and Tame (1979)
  • Whose House Is It? (1980)
  • Bugs, Big and Little (1981)
  • Strange Sex Lives in the Animal Kingdom (1981)
  • Chickens and Their Wild Relatives (1982)
  • Hyenas (1983)
  • Bats (1985)
  • Spiders (1990)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Day of the Drones was originally written for the adult field. It is the first novel I ever wrote, but failed to find a publisher until one of my juvenile editors happened to see it. She was enthusiastic and asked me to revise it as a juvenile. Now even before publication it has received a nibble from the film industry. In the 10 years since it was first written, the subject matter (race relations) has come to the fore. "Robert Reginald: Contemporary Science Fiction Authors. Arno Press, New York 1974, ISBN 0-405-06332-6 , p. 163.
personal data
SURNAME Hopf, Alice Lightner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hopf, Alice Martha Lightner (full name); Lightner, Alice Martha (maiden name); Lightner, AM (maiden name, alternative spelling); Lightner, Alice M. (maiden name, alternative spelling); Hopf, Alice L. (alternative spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1988
Place of death Upper Black Eddy , Bucks County , Pennsylvania