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Eric Frank Russell (January 6, 1905 - February 28, 1978) was a British author best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. Events 1066 - Harold Godwinson is crowned King of England. 1205 - Philip of Swabia becomes King Year 1905 ( MCMV) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 202 BC - coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty 's rule Year 1978 ( MCMLXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar) The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created Much of his work was first published in the United States, in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction and other pulp magazines. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the John Wood Campbell Jr (June 8 1910 – July 11 1971 was an important Science fiction editor and writer Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American Science fiction Magazine. Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps" were inexpensive Fiction magazines Russell also wrote horror fiction for Weird Tales, and non-fiction articles on Fortean topics. Horror fiction is broadly Fiction in any medium intended to scare unsettle or horrify the audience Weird Tales is an American Fantasy and Horror fiction Pulp magazine first published in March 1923. Charles Hoy Fort ( 6 August, 1874 &ndash 3 May, 1932) was a Dutch-American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena A few of his stories were published under pseudonyms, of which Duncan H. Munro was used most often. A pseudonym is a fictitious alternative to a person's legal name (see Alias) Eric Frank Russell ( January 6, 1905 - February 28, 1978) was a British Author best known

Contents

Biography

Russell was born in 1905 in Sandhurst in Berkshire, where his father was an instructor at the Royal Military Academy. Sandhurst is a small town and Civil parish in England of around 7500 homes and 22000 inhabitants primarily domiciliary in nature with a few light industries Berkshire (ˈbɑːkʃə or /ˈbɑːkʃɪə/ say Baak-shuh/-sheer sometimes abbreviated to Berks) is a Home County in the South The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst ( RMAS) commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is the British Army officer initial training centre [1] Russell became a fan of science fiction, and in 1934 while living near Liverpool he saw a letter in Amazing Stories written by Leslie J. Liverpool ( is a City and Metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary Amazing Stories was an American Science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback 's Experimenter Publishing. Johnson, another reader from the same area. [2] Russell met up with Johnson, who encouraged him to embark on a writing career. Together, the two men wrote the novella "Seeker of Tomorrow" which was published in Astounding in July 1937. A novella is a written, Fictional Prose Narrative longer than a Novelette but shorter than a Novel. Both Russell and Johnson became members of the British Interplanetary Society. The British Interplanetary Society (BIS founded in 1933 by Mr

Russell's first novel was Sinister Barrier, published in the first issue of Astounding's short-lived sister magazine Unknown (March 1939). Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was a pulp Fantasy fiction magazine, edited by John W This is an explicitly Fortean tale based (as Russell explains in the novel's foreword) on Charles Fort's famous speculation "I think we're property". Charles Hoy Fort ( 6 August, 1874 &ndash 3 May, 1932) was a Dutch-American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena His second novel, Dreadful Sanctuary (serialized in Astounding during 1948) is an early example of conspiracy fiction, in which a paranoid delusion of global proportions is perpetuated by a small but powerful secret society. The conspiracy thriller (or paranoid thriller) is a subgenre of thriller fiction. Paranoia is a disturbed thought process characterized by excessive Anxiety or Fear, often to the point of Irrationality and Delusion. A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed False Belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false fanciful or derived from Deception Secret society is a term used to describe a variety of organizations [3]

After serving with the Royal Air Force during World War II and working briefly as an engineer, Russell took up writing full-time in the late 1940s. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including He became an active member of British science fiction fandom and the British representative of the Fortean Society. Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community of people actively interested in Science fiction and Fantasy literature, and in contact with one another The Fortean Society was started in the United States in 1931 by Tiffany Thayer in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort. He won a Hugo Award in 1955 for his short story "Allamagoosa". The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best Science fiction or Fantasy works and achievements of the previous year "Allamagoosa" is an award-winning Science fiction Short story by Eric Frank Russell.

Russell was awarded a posthumous Prometheus Hall of Fame award in 1985 for "The Great Explosion", and in 2000 he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. The Prometheus Award is an award for Libertarian science fiction novels given out annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society which also publishes a quarterly journal

Writings

"Sinister Barrier" in Unknown
"Sinister Barrier" in Unknown

Russell's full-length fiction includes the following:

Russell also wrote a large number of shorter works, many of which have been reprinted in collections such as Deep Space (1954), Six Worlds Yonder (1958), Far Stars (1961), Dark Tides (1962) and Somewhere a Voice (1965). Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was a pulp Fantasy fiction magazine, edited by John W Sinister Barrier is a Science fiction novel by author Eric Frank Russell. Dreadful Sanctuary is a Science fiction novel by author Eric Frank Russell. Wasp is a 1957 Science fiction novel by English author Eric Frank Russell. Next of Kin, also known as The Space Willies, is a Science fiction Comic novel by Eric Frank Russell. The Great Explosion is a satirical Science fiction Novel by Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962 Deep Space is a collection of Science-fiction short stories by the British writer Eric Frank Russell. His non-fiction includes a compendium of Forteana entitled Great World Mysteries (1957) as well as The Rabble Rousers (1963), a sardonic look at human folly including the Dreyfus affair and the Florida land boom. The Dreyfus Affair a Political scandal which divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s The Florida land boom of the 1920s was Florida 's first Real estate bubble, which burst in 1925 leaving behind entire new cities and the remains of failed development

Two omnibus collections of Russell's science fiction are available from NESFA Press: Major Ingredients (2000), containing 30 of his short stories, and Entities (2001) containing five novels. NESFA Press is the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Association, Inc

The 1995 novel Design for Great-Day, published as by Alan Dean Foster and Eric Frank Russell, is an expansion by Foster of a 1953 short story of the same name by Russell. Alan Dean Foster (born November 18 1946) is a prolific American writer of Science fiction and Fantasy Novels and movie

Writing style and themes

Russell had an easy-going, colloquial writing style that was influenced in part by American "hard-boiled" detective fiction of the kind popularized by Black Mask magazine. Hardboiled Crime fiction is a literary style pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the Black Mask was a Pulp magazine launched in 1920 by journalist H [4] Although British, Russell wrote predominantly for an American audience, and was often assumed to be American by readers. [2]

Much of Russell's science fiction is based on what might be described as "Fortean" themes, with Sinister Barrier and Dreadful Sanctuary being the most notable examples. [3] Another common theme is that of the single resourceful human pitted against a ponderous alien bureaucracy -- this is the basis for the novels Wasp and Next of Kin, as well as several shorter works. Bureaucracy is the structure and set of regulations in place to control activity usually in large organizations and government

Russell is sometimes categorized as a humorous writer, and Brian Aldiss describes him as John W. Brian Wilson Aldiss, '''OBE''', (born August 18, 1925 in East Dereham, Norfolk, England) is a prolific English Campbell's "licensed jester". [5] However, Russell's humour generally has a satirical edge, often aimed at authority and bureaucracy in its various forms. In Politics, authority ( Latin Auctoritas, used in Roman law as opposed to Potestas and Imperium On other occasions, for example in the short stories "Somewhere a Voice" and "The Army Comes to Venus", his work has a deeper and more serious tone, in which the spiritual aspects of humanity's endeavours and aspirations shine through. Spirituality, in a narrow sense concerns itself with matters of the Spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and Faith, a transcendent reality

Cultural influences

Russell's short story "Jay Score" (1941) is unusual amongst the pulp fiction of its time in presenting a black character, the ship's doctor, without any racial stereotyping. The term black people usually refers to a racial group of Humans with dark Skin color, but the term has also been used to categorise a number of diverse An ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an Ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group Indeed, this story and its sequels (collected in Men, Martians and Machines) may be considered an early example of the science fiction sub-genre in which a spaceship is crewed by a multi-ethnic, mixed human/non-human, complement (cf. Multi-ethnic societies, in contrast to single ethnic societies integrate different Ethnic groups irrespective of differences in culture race and history under a common the much later Star Trek).

It has not been proven, but Russell may be the originator of the phrase "May you live in interesting times," which is frequently attributed as an ancient Chinese curse. May you live in interesting times is reputed to be the English Translation of an ancient Chinese Proverb and Curse China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National A curse (also called execration) is any manner of Adversity thought to be inflicted by any supernatural power (such as a spell, a Prayer, an The phrase is quoted with this attribution in Russell's short story "U-Turn", published in the April 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the pseudonym of Duncan H. Munro. It is unclear whether Russell invented the phrase for the story, or whether it existed prior to that.

Russell also appears to have originated the colloquialism "myob" for "Mind your own business", which appears frequently in the novella "...And Then There Were None" (Astounding, June 1951) and in the novel The Great Explosion based upon it. " Mind your own business " is a common English saying which asks for a respect of other people's privacy

Significant quotes

“When one is fighting a paper-war one uses paper-war tactics that in the long run can be just as lethal as high explosive. And the tactics are not limited in scope by use of one material. The said material is very variable in form. Paper can convey a private warning, a public threat, secret temptation, open defiance; wall-bills, window-stickers, leaflets dropped by the thousands from the roof-tops, cards left on seats or slipped into pockets and purses… money. ” - Wasp, p. 75 of 1957 paperback edition

References

  1. ^ Handlist of the Eric Frank Russell Collection 1937-1984.
  2. ^ a b Ashley, Michael (1975). The History of the Science Fiction Magazine, Volume 2. Henry Regnery Company. ISBN 0-8092-8002-7.  
  3. ^ a b David Langford (1996). SF Books of the Damned. Originally published in Fortean Times.
  4. ^ Carr, Terry (1979). Classic Science Fiction: The First Golden Age. Robson Books. ISBN 0-86051-070-0.  
  5. ^ Aldiss, Brian W. (1973). Billion Year Spree. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-76555-8.  

External links

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