Austin Hall (writer)

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Austin Javen Hall (born July 27, 1880 in Santa Clara , California ; died July 29, 1933 in San Jose , California) was an American western , science fiction , and fantasy writer.

Life

Hall was the son of JS Hall, a blacksmith. His mother's name was Isabelle or Belle. By 1900 he lived in Brecksville , Ohio with his mother and stepfather . After attending Lincoln High School in Cleveland , Hall studied at Ohio Northern University in Ada , Ohio State University in Columbus and the University of California, Berkeley . After completing his studies, he worked as a journalist and electrician before finally living in the West as a miner and farm worker. In 1910 Hall was married with a son and lived with Soquel in California.

The beginning of his writing career was asking one of the cowboys at the ranch where Hall worked to finish what he was doing with a half-finished story. The story was submitted, accepted, and appeared in All-Story Weekly , one of Munsey magazines , in October 1916 under the title Almost Immortal . Hall claimed to have written over 600 stories, mostly westerns, that appeared in the pulp magazines of the time in the 1920s . He also used the pseudonyms Andrew A. Griffin, Bucky McKenna and Roy Ford for his western and frontier stories. Today, however, he is only known for his science fiction and his weird fiction , comprising four novels that were published at the time and three short stories . This relatively narrow work was, however, repeatedly reprinted or reprinted in anthologies.

His best known work is the novel The Blind Spot , which he wrote in collaboration with Homer Eon Flint and which appeared in six sequels in Argosy in 1921 . It is about a gate to a parallel world that is discovered in an apartment in San Francisco . A resident from this world kidnaps a scientist, a rescue team follows him into the parallel world, in the end it succeeds in closing the gate and protecting the world from further intruders. The novel, which belongs more to the field of fantasy or weird fiction , is considered a classic of parallel world history despite literary deficiencies. In 1932 he published a sequel under the title The Spot of Life , in which the gate is reopened by the inhabitants of the other world with the aim of an invasion. The sequel takes place a generation after The Blind Spot and the hero and savior of the world is the son of the protagonist of the first novel. Hall wrote the sequel alone because Flint had a mysterious accident in 1924.

The sequel was Hall's last work. The next year he died at the age of 53.

bibliography

Novels
  • Into the Infinite (1919)
  • The Blind Spot (1921, with Homer Eon Flint , book edition 1940, 1951)
  • The People of the Comet (1923, book edition 1948)
  • The Spot of Life (continuation of The Blind Spot , 1932, book edition 1941, 1964)
SF & Fantasy Short Stories
  • Almost Immortal (1916)
  • The Rebel Soul (1917)
  • The Man Who Saved the Earth (1919)
Western short stories
  • Some Dog (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1924)
  • Guardian of the Wild (1924)
  • The Cunning of Rex (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1924)
  • Little Silver (1925)
  • Shepherd of the Snows (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1925)
  • Silvertip and Cottontails (Silvertip, 1925)
  • A Problem for Rex (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1925)
  • Silvertip Settles It (Silvertip, 1925)
  • From Under the Bear (Silvertip, 1925)
  • One Good Watchdog (1925)
  • The Long Riders' Last Ride (1925)
  • Silvertip (Silvertip, 1925)
  • Silvertip — Beast of Burden (Silvertip, 1925)
  • The Lost Flock (1925)
  • Hot Work for Rex (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1925)
  • A Magnet for Bandits (1925)
  • Trapping the Trapper (1926)
  • Good Old Rex (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1926)
  • Silvertip and the Bug Hunter (Silvertip, 1926)
  • Rex Acts as Judge (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1926)
  • Silvertip and the Bandits (Silvertip, 1926)
  • Chips — Beaver King (1926)
  • Better 'n Bullets (1926)
  • A Bear's Catch (1926)
  • The Bridge Across the Canyon (1926)
  • Blue Bell of the Sagebrush (1926)
  • Scar Face the Grizzly (1926)
  • A Thoroughbred Thief (1926)
  • Silvertip Ducks Three (Silvertip, 1926)
  • The Rustling of Rex (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1926)
  • Trust a Mule for That (1926)
  • Honey for Silvertip (Silvertip, 1926)
  • Trapping the Wrong Bear (1926)
  • Balked in Burning Basins (1926)
  • Death Valley's Ghost (1926)
  • Too Much Bear (1926)
  • The Wisdom of Rex (Rex, the Sheep Dog, 1926)
  • The Pony and the Bandit (1926)
  • By His Teeth (1927)
  • Too Much Powder (1927)
  • Greenbacks of Gold (1927)
  • The Bear Takes the Cats (1927)
  • With Tooth and Claw (1927)
  • Slaves to the Wolf (1927)
  • Rolling Stone (1927)
  • Very Wild Honey (1927)
  • Ze Worl 'Champeen (1927)
  • Tricky Boots (1927)
  • Backfired (1927)
  • The Code of the Colters (1927, as Andrew A. Griffin)
  • King of the Bucks (1927, as Andrew A. Griffin)
  • Mountains o 'Gold (1927)
  • Dog Fear (1927)
  • The Treasure of Silver Streak (1927, as Andrew A. Griffin)
  • The Killing Tree (1927)
  • Hold-up Dog (1927)
  • The Ghost of the Stampede (1927, as Bucky McKenna)
  • Water! Water! (1927)
  • On Account of the Bear (1927)
  • The Son of a Gun (1927)
  • Bear Bounty (1927)
  • A Bighorn's Way (1927, as Roy Ford)
  • Old Timberline (1927, as Roy Ford)
  • Tobaccy for Bears (1928)
  • Grizzly Music (1928, as Roy Ford)
  • Pigeons in the Jail (1928)
  • The Seven-Haired Dog (1928)
  • The Holdup Twins (1928)
  • Silvertip's Nose Knew (Silvertip, 1928)
  • Silver Bait (1928)
  • Tongue-Tied Bandits (1928)
  • Brains and Bandits (1928)
  • Nick Carter Shows the Way (1928)
  • Up to His Neck (1928)
  • Raining Bears (1928)
  • Any Old Dog Will Do (1928)
  • The Talking Dog (1928)
  • Old Black Sin (1928)
  • The Silver Pony (1928)
  • A Dog of the Snows (1928)
  • Quarter Dog (1928, as Roy Ford)
  • Haywire Hits the Hay (1928)
  • A Dog's Dream (1928)
  • The Fire Whip (1928)
  • A Bear Finish (1928)
  • Spiked Jaws (1928)
  • Single-footed (1928)
  • A True Shepherd (1929)
  • Some Sheep Shy (1929)
  • Riders Adrift (1929)
  • The Gold Mine in the Sky (1929)
  • Wagon-Trapped (1929)

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Austin Hall  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ So at least according to an interview he gave Forrest J. Ackerman in 1933 . See Terence E. Hanley: Austin Hall (1880-1933) .
personal data
SURNAME Hall, Austin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hall, Austin Javen (full name); Griffin, Andrew A. (pen name); McKenna, Bucky (pseudonym); Ford, Roy (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American western, science fiction, and fantasy writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Clara , California
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1933
Place of death San Jose , California