Robert W. Lowndes

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Augustine Ward "Doc" Lowndes (born September 4, 1916 in Bridgeport , Connecticut ; died July 14, 1998 in Newport , Rhode Island ) was an American science fiction writer and editor.

Life

Lowndes was the son of Henry Irving Lowndes and Fanny Raymond, nee Stevens. After attending high school in Darien and Community College in Stamford , he worked in various professions during the years of the Depression - including as a porter, salesman and helper on a poultry farm - and also took part in several job creation programs of the Civilian Conservation Corps .

Lowndes took part in the emerging SF fandom very early on . In 1933 he subscribed to the Science Fiction Digest , one of the first SF fanzines, and in 1935 he established a sub-group of the Science Fiction League in Stamford. He was also one of the founding members of the Futurians , a group of New York SF fans, whose members were to recruit numerous important SF editors and authors, as was the case with Lowndes for example. As a fan, Lowndes was the author of numerous contributions, using a large number of pseudonyms (an estimated 50). Among the fanzines published by him include Le Vombeiteur (1938-1940) and Vagrant (1938-1939), he was also the editor of the Apazines Agenbite of Inwit (1942-1946) and Afterthoughts (1945).

In the early 1940s, Lowndes began working for Columbia Publications , a publishing house that published numerous pulp magazines in various genres. In addition to western and crime series, these were primarily science fiction magazines, where Lowndes worked as an editor in the following decades, among others for:

  • Future Science Fiction , April 1941 - April 1960
  • Science Fiction Quarterly , Winter 1941/1942 - February 1958
  • Science Fiction Stories , April 1943 - May 1960
  • Dynamic Science Fiction , December 1952 - January 1954
  • The Magazine of Horror , August 1963 - April 1974
  • Startling Mystery Stories , Summer 1966 - March 1971
  • Famous Science Fiction , winter 1967/1967 - spring 1969
  • Weird Terror Tales , winter 1969 - autumn 1970
  • Bizarre Fantasy Tales , Fall 1970 - March 1971

In addition, Lowndes was from 1956 to 1968 with a brief interruption in 1958 the science fiction series of Avalon Books , where he was editor of all volumes except for four editions. After 1971 he was editor of the Gernsback magazines Sexology and Luz . From 1978 to 1984 he was head of production for Luz and from 1978 to 1989 he was also in charge of the magazines Radio Electronics , Special Projects , Hands-On Electronics and Computer Digest .

As an SF writer, Lowndes first appeared in the magazines in 1935 with Letter: Report of the Plutonian Ambassador , which, however, appeared as an article in the letter to the editor of Wonder Stories . The first regular narrative was A Legend of Lanth (1938). In addition to short stories, Lowndes also wrote four novels, one of them together with James Blish , just as he enjoyed working with colleagues from the time of the Futurians on his short stories and often used them as authors for the magazines he edited.

In 1991 Lowndes was awarded the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award . He was guest of honor at Lunacon 12 in 1969 and at Boskone 10 in 1973 . For The Gernsback Days , a story of the early days of science fiction, which was published posthumously in 2004 and co- authored with Mike Ashley , he was nominated for the Locus Award in 2005.

Lowndes had married Dorothy Sedor Rogalin in 1948, from whom he divorced in 1974. He died in 1998 at the age of 82.

bibliography

Novels
  • Mystery of the Third Mine (1953)
  • The Duplicated Man (1953, with James Blish )
    • German: The copied man , Bastei Lübbe Science Fiction Action # 21155, 1982, ISBN 3-404-21155-3 .
  • Believers' World (1961)
    • English: Das Rätsel Carolus , Pabel Utopia # 364, 1963
  • The Puzzle Planet (1961)
    • English: Das Rätsel Carolus , Pabel Utopia # 357, 1962
collection
  • Science Fiction by Robert W. Lowndes (2013)
Non-fiction
  • Three Faces of Science Fiction (1973)
  • Bok (1974, with Gerry de la Ree, Hannes Bok , Jack Cordes, Ben P. Indick and Calvin Thomas Beck)
  • The Gernsback Days (2004, with Mike Ashley )
Short stories
  • Letter: Report of the Plutonian Ambassador (1935, as Sir Doc Lowndes)
  • A Legend of Lanth (1938)
  • Daughter of Moonlight (1939)
  • And Satan Came (1940)
  • My Lady of the Emerald (1941, as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • A Green Cloud Came (1941)
  • The Abyss (1941)
  • Mataiya (1941)
  • The Martians Are Coming (1941, with CM Kornbluth and Donald A. Wollheim )
  • Black Flames (1941, with Donald A. Wollheim, also as Lawrence Woods, also as The Thought Monsters )
  • Exiles of New Planet (1941, with Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth, as Paul Dennis Lavond)
  • The Castle on Outerplanet (1941, with Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth, also as SD Gottesman)
  • The Doll Master (1941, as Paul Dennis Lavond)
  • The Other (1941)
  • The Strange Sad Story of Joe (1941)
  • The Gray One (1941)
  • The Colossus of Maia (1941, with Donald A. Wollheim, also as Lawrence Woods)
  • A Matter of Philosophy (1941, as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • The Mantle of Graag (1941, with Henry Dockweiller and Frederik Pohl, also as Paul Dennis Lavond)
  • No Star Shall Fall (1941, also as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • Quarry (1941, as Mallory Kent)
  • Something from Beyond (1941, with Dirk Wylie and Frederik Pohl, as Paul Dennis Lavond)
  • Einstein's Planetoid (1942, with Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth, as Paul Dennis Lavond)
  • The Inheritors (1942, with John B. Michel)
  • The Lemmings (1942, as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • Lure of the Lily (1942, also as Lilies , 1967)
  • The Long Wall (1942, also as Wilfred Owen Morley, also as Settler's Wall , 1968)
    • German: Settlers Mauer , in: Frank Festa (Hrsg.): HP Lovecrafts Necronomicon. Festa, 2018, ISBN 978-3-86552-324-2 .
  • Passage to Sharanee (1942, as Carol Gray)
  • Blacklist (1942)
  • A Message for Jean (1942, as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • The Peacemakers (1942, as Mallory Kent)
  • The Slim People (1942, as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • Highway (1942, also as Wilfred Owen Morley, also as The Road to Nowhere )
  • The Collector (1942, as Mallory Kent)
  • The Extrapolated Dimwit (1942, with CM Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl, also as SD Gottesman)
  • Leapers (1942, also as Carol Gray)
  • The Deliverers (1942, as Richard Morrison)
  • ... Does Not Imply ... (1943, as Wilfred Owen Morley)
  • Chaos, Co-Ordinated (1946, with James Blish, as John MacDougal)
  • Star of the Undead (1948, with Dirk Wylie and Frederik Pohl, as Paul Dennis Lavond)
  • Dhactwhu! - Remember? (1949, with Forrest J. Ackerman , as Wilfred Owen Morley and Jacques DeForest Erman)
  • The Troubadour (1951)
  • Intervention (1952, also as Michael Sherman)
  • A Matter of Faith (1952, as Michael Sherman)
  • The Fourth Invasion (1956, also as Henry Josephs)
  • Object Lesson (1958, as Carl Groener)
  • Clarissa (1963)

literature

Web links