Hilbert Schenck

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Hilbert van Nydeck Schenck Jr. (born February 12, 1926 in Boston , Massachusetts ; died December 2, 2013 ) was an American science fiction writer and engineer.

Life

Schenck served as an electronics technician in the US Navy from 1944 to 1946 . He then studied physics at Williams College in Williamstown , Massachusetts, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1950, and at Stanford University , where he graduated with a master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1952 . After graduating, he worked as a test engineer at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft until 1956 , after which he became a lecturer and finally professor at Clarkson College in Potsdam , New York . From 1966 to 1983 he was a professor at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston and from 1968 to 1980 head of the Scuba Safety Project . As an engineer, he was a specialist in diving technology and, in particular, in the safety issues involved and wrote a number of monographs and statistical papers on this topic as well as several engineering textbooks, and he also wrote a number of diving guides .

Schenk published his first science fiction story about a meteorologist who investigated the spread of radioactivity after a nuclear war in 1953 in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , but it wasn't until 1977 that further stories followed, and from 1981 four novels in which his engineering specialty and his sporting interests, the ocean and especially the east coast of the USA in the Cape Cod area play an important role. Some of his stories are more sea or underwater adventures in which science fiction or fantasy elements play a certain role. An example can be his first novel, At the Eye of the Ocean , in which a captain from New England, shortly before the Civil War, brings fled slaves to Canada with his ship, whereby a deep relationship with the sea gives him a clairvoyant view into the depths of the sea where he is has the vision of the “eye of the ocean”, a mystical place from which the future history of mankind will be shaped.

Schenck's short stories have been nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards several times , his novels At the Eye of the Ocean , A Rose for Armageddon and Chronosequence have been nominated for the Locus Award . Only three short stories in anthologies have appeared in German translation .

Schenck married Mary Low Taylor in 1950 and Anne Thompson in 1983. He had six children. Schenck died in 2013 at the age of 87.

bibliography

Novels
  • At the Eye of the Ocean (1981)
  • A Rose for Armageddon (1982)
  • Steam Bird (1984)
  • Chronosequence (1988)
Collections
  • Wave Rider (1980)
  • Steam Bird (1988)
Short stories
  • Tomorrow's Weather (1953, as Hilbert Schenck, Jr.)
  • Three Days at the End of the World (1977)
  • The Morphology of the Kirkham Wreck (1978)
  • The Battle of the Abaco Reefs (1979)
    • English: The Battle of Abaco Reef. In: Manfred Kluge (Ed.): The time syndicate. Heyne (Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy # 3845), 1981, ISBN 3-453-30774-7 .
  • Wave Rider (1979)
    • German: Wellenreiter. In: Roy Torgeson (ed.): The great consecration. Moewig (Playboy Science Fiction # 6722), 1981, ISBN 3-8118-6722-9 .
  • Buoyant Ascent (1980)
    • German: Risky ascent. In: Manfred Kluge (Ed.): Terrarium. Heyne (Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy # 3931), 1982, ISBN 3-453-30854-9 .
  • A Rose for Armageddon (excerpt) (1982)
  • The Theology of Water (1982)
  • Hurricane Claude (1983)
  • The Geometry of Narrative (1983)
  • Silicon Muse (1984)
  • Send Me a Kiss by Wire (1985)
  • Ring Shot (1986)
  • A Down East Storm (1990)
  • A Present for Santa (1993)
Technical and non-fiction literature
  • Shallow water diving for pleasure and profit (1950, with Henry Way Kendall )
  • Shallow water diving and spearfishing (1954, with Henry Way Kendall)
  • Skin diver's and spearfisherman's guide to American waters: Where to go and what you will find when you get there (1955)
  • Underwater Photography (1957)
  • Heat transfer engineering (1959)
  • Theories of engineering experimentation (1961)
  • Fortran methods in heat flow (1963)
  • Fundamentals of thermodynamics (1963, with Richard A. Kenyon)
  • An introduction to the engineering research project (1969)
  • Skin and scuba diving fatalities involving US citizens (issues for 1970 and 1971, with J. McAniff and E. Carapezza)
  • Turbidity profiles of Point Judith Pond and West Passage (1970)
  • Non-fatal, pressure-related scuba accidents, identification and emergency treatment (1971)
  • Mortality rates for skin and scuba divers (1972)
  • Diving accident survey, 1946-1970, including 503 known fatalities (1972)
  • United States underwater fatality statistics (1972 to 1976 editions)
  • Portalab, an inexpensive self-ballasting habitat (1974)
  • Introduction to ocean engineering (1975, as editor)
  • Corrosion of steel and aluminum scuba tanks (1978)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schenck, Hilbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schenck, Hilbert van Nydeck Jr. (Full name); Schenck, Hilbert van; Hilbert Schenck, Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American science fiction writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 2013