Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey (* 2. June 1915 in Clydesdale , Minnesota ; † 10. May 1993 in New York ) was an US -American science fiction - writer and editor. He always claimed that his full name was Ramon Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez del Rey y de los Verdes , but his real name is Leonard Knapp .
Life
Del Rey was discovered and promoted by John W. Campbell in 1938 . He wrote under numerous pseudonyms for almost all known pulp magazines (as Charles Satterfield , Edson McCann , John Alvarez , Marion Henry , Philip James , Philip St. John , Erik Van Lhin , Kenneth Wright , Wade Kaempfert , Ramon F. Alvarez-del Rey and Cameron Hall ). Whenever his stories didn't sell well, he used to work as a cook in a fast-food restaurant. After marrying Helen Schlaz in 1945, he turned completely to writing and also worked as an editor and office manager for Scott Meredith's literary agency. Later he was the editor of several magazines at the same time, using his various pseudonyms.
He was responsible for launching titles such as Space SF , Fantasy Fiction , Science Fiction Adventures (as Philip St. John), Rocket Stories (as Wade Kaempfert), and Fantasy Fiction (as Cameron Hall) in 1952 and 1953 . In 1968 he became co-editor of Galaxy magazine and in the 1970s took over the SF editorial team of Ballantine Books together with his new wife Judy-Lynn del Rey . The two were so successful there that the SF series appeared from 1977 under the new imprint "Del Rey Books". The first book of the new label was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks , today it publishes manga as well as SF and Fantasy .
Del Rey received the EE Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (also known as the Skylark Award ) in 1972 and the Balrog Special Award in 1985 , an award for which Locus magazine polled its readers for the most popular fantasy author. 1990 del Rey was awarded the Grand Master Award of SFWA honored.
Works
- Jim Stanley series
-
Step To the Stars (1954)
- German: The step into space. Pabel ( Utopia Grossband # 56), 1958.
- Mission To the Moon (1956)
- Moon of Mutiny (1961)
- Single novels
-
Rocket Jockey (1952)
- English: Hunt of the astronauts. AWA (Astron Romane), 1954. Moewig ( Terra # 240), 1962.
-
Marooned on Mars (1951)
- German: Under the spell of the Martian world. AWA (Astron Romane), 1955. Moewig (Terra # 203), 1961.
- The Wind between the Worlds (1951)
- as Philip St. John: Rocket Jockey (1952)
- English: Hunt of the astronauts. AWA-Verlag, 1954.
- Attack from Atlantis (1953)
- as Kenneth Wright: The Mysterious Planet (1953)
- English: The Enigmatic Planet X. AWA (Astron Romane), 1954. Moewig (Terra # 167), 1961.
- as Eric van Lhin: Battle on Mercury (1953)
- English: The electrids of Mercury. AWA (Astron Library), 1957. Moewig (Terra # 192), 1961.
- as Philip St. John: Rockets to Nowhere (1954)
- with Frederik Pohl as Edson McCann: Preferred Risk (1955)
- German: The great risk. Semrau (Der Weltraumfahrer # 5), 1959. Also as: The welfare company . Moewig (Moewig Science Fiction # 3519), ISBN 3-8118-3519-X , 1981.
-
Nerves (1956)
- German: Atomalarm. Pabel (Utopia Grossband # 59), 1957. A matter of nerves . Bastei Lübbe Science Fiction Bestseller # 22032, 1981, ISBN 3-404-22032-3 .
- as Eric van Lhin: Police Your Planet (1956)
- English: Assassination attempt on Mars. Pabel (Utopia Grossband # 85), 1958.
- The Cave of Spears (1957)
- Day of the Giants (1959)
- Tunnel Through Time (1960)
-
The Eleventh Commandment (1962)
- German: The eleventh commandment. Moewig Science Fiction # 3511, 1981, ISBN 3-8118-3511-4 .
-
Outpost of Jupiter (1963)
- English: Epidemic on Ganymede. Moewig (Terra # 543), 1967.
-
Badge of Infamy (1963)
- German: Marsfieber. Goldmann Science Fiction # 0182, 1974, ISBN 3-442-23182-5 .
-
The Runaway Robot (1965)
- English: the innocent robot. Pabel (Utopia Future # 297), 1967.
-
The Infinite Worlds of Maybe (1966)
- German: The world jumpers. Moewig (Terra Nova # 8), 1968.
- Rocket from Infinity (1966)
- The Scheme of Things (1966)
- Victories Perilous (1966)
- Prisoners of Space (1968)
- The Man without a Planet (1969)
-
Pstalemate (1971)
- German: Psi-Patt. Goldmann Science Fiction # 0168, 1973, ISBN 3-442-23168-X .
- The Sky Is Falling (1973)
- Weeping May Tarry (1978) (with Raymond F. Jones )
- Story collections
- And Some Were Human (1948)
- Robots and Changelings (1958)
- Mortals and Monsters (1965)
-
Gods and Golems (1973)
- German: Gods and Golems. Goldmann Science Fiction # 0196, 1975, ISBN 3-442-23196-5 .
- Early Del Rey (1975)
- The Early Del Rey Volume 2 (1976)
-
The Best of Lester Del Rey (1978)
- English: The best stories from Lester del Rey. Moewig (Playboy Science Fiction # 6707), 1980, ISBN 3-8118-6707-5 .
literature
- Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 121 f.
- Don D'Ammassa : Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Facts On File, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5924-1 , p. 109 f.
- Sam Moskowitz : Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction. Hyperion, Westport, Conn. 1974, ISBN 0-88355-158-6 , pp. 167-186.
- Robert Reginald : Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. A Checklist, 1700–1974 with contemporary science fiction authors II. Gale, Detroit 1979, ISBN 0-8103-1051-1 , p. 876.
- Robert Reginald: Contemporary Science Fiction Authors. Arno Press, New York 1974, ISBN 0-405-06332-6 , pp. 74 f.
- Brian M. Stableford , John Clute : del Rey, Lester. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition), version dated September 29, 2017.
- Donald H. Tuck : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1968. Advent, Chicago 1974, ISBN 0-911682-20-1 , pp. 135 f.
Web links
- Literature by and about Lester del Rey in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by Del Rey, Lester in Project Gutenberg ( currently usually not available for users from Germany )
- Lester del Rey in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
- Lester del Rey in the Science Fiction Awards + Database
- Lester del Rey in nndb (English)
- Works by and about Lester del Rey at Open Library
- Lester del Rey in Fantastic Fiction (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ This is what his sister announced, cf. Locus , Jan 8, 2008. See also: Brian M. Stableford , John Clute : del Rey, Lester. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 3rd edition (online edition), version dated September 29, 2017.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | del Rey, Lester |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Knapp, Leonard (real name); Del Rey y de los Verdes, Ramon Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez (full name); Satterfield, Charles (pen name); McCann, Edson (pseudonym); Alvarez, John (pseudonym); Henry, Marion (pseudonym); James, Philip (pseudonym); St. John, Philip (pseudonym); Van Lhin, Erik (pseudonym); Wright, Kenneth (pen name); Kaempfert, Wade (pseudonym); Alvarez-del Rey, Ramon F. (pseudonym); Hall, Cameron (pseudonym) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 2, 1915 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Clydesdale |
DATE OF DEATH | May 10, 1993 |
Place of death | new York |