Eric Frank Russell (January 6, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
writer best known for his
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
novels and short stories. Much of his work was first published in the United States, in
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell Jr. (June 8, 1910 – July 11, 1971) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' (later called ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'') from late 1937 until his death and wa ...
's ''
Astounding Science Fiction
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...
'' and other
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the Pulp (paper), wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their ...
s. Russell also wrote
horror fiction
Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defin ...
for ''
Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printe ...
'' and non-fiction articles on
Fortean topics. Up to 1955 several of his stories were published under
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
s, at least Duncan H. Munro and Niall(e) Wilde.
[
]
Biography
Russell was born in 1905
As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony i ...
near Sandhurst in Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
, where his father was an instructor at the Royal Military College Royal Military College may refer to:
;Australia
* Royal Military College, Duntroon, Campbell, Australian Capital Territory
;Canada
* Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario
* Royal Military College Saint-Jean, Saint-Jean, Quebec
;Indi ...
. Russell became a fan of science fiction and in 1934, while living near Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
, he saw a letter in ''Amazing Stories
''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...
'' from Leslie J. Johnson, another reader from the same area.[ Russell met with Johnson, who encouraged him to embark on a writing career. Together, the two men wrote a ]novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...
, "Seeker of Tomorrow", that was published by F. Orlin Tremaine in the July 1937 number of ''Astounding Stories''.[ Both Russell and Johnson became members of the ]British Interplanetary Society
The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration.
St ...
.
Russell's first novel was ''Sinister Barrier'', cover story for the inaugural, May 1939 issue of ''Unknown
Unknown or The Unknown may refer to:
Film and television Film
* The Unknown (1915 comedy film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), Australian silent film
* The Unknown (1915 drama film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film), American silent drama ...
''[—''Astounding''s sister magazine devoted to ]fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...
. It is explicitly a Fortean tale, based on Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold w ...
's famous speculation "I think we're property", Russell explains in the foreword. An often-repeated legend has it that Campbell, on receiving the manuscript for ''Sinister Barrier'', created ''Unknown
Unknown or The Unknown may refer to:
Film and television Film
* The Unknown (1915 comedy film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), Australian silent film
* The Unknown (1915 drama film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film), American silent drama ...
'' primarily as a vehicle for the short novel (pp. 9–94). There is no real evidence for this, despite a statement to that effect in the first volume of Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...
's autobiography, ''In Memory Yet Green''.
His second novel, ''Dreadful Sanctuary'' (serialized in ''Astounding'' during 1948) is an early example of conspiracy fiction
The conspiracy thriller (or paranoid thriller) is a subgenre of thriller fiction. The protagonists of conspiracy thrillers are often journalists or amateur investigators who find themselves (often inadvertently) pulling on a small thread which un ...
, in which a paranoid
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of con ...
delusion
A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other m ...
of global proportions is perpetuated by a small but powerful secret society
A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence ag ...
.
There are two incompatible accounts of Russell's military service during World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The official, well-documented version is that he served with the Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
, with whom he saw active service in Europe as a member of a Mobile Signals Unit. However, in the introduction to the 1986 Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is an imprint (trade name), imprint of the Random House Group, a division of Penguin Random House. The imprint was established in 1977 under the editorship of Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, author Lester del Rey. Today, th ...
edition of Russell's novel ''Wasp'', Jack L. Chalker states that Russell was too old for active service, and instead worked for Military Intelligence in London, where he "spent the war dreaming up nasty tricks to play against the Germans and Japanese", including Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat was a successful British disinformation, deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who die ...
. Russell's biographer John L. Ingham states however that "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in his R.A.F. record to show that he was anything more than a wireless mechanic and radio operator".
Russell took up writing full-time in the late 1940s. He became an active member of British science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or fandom of people interested in science fiction in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization (although ...
and the British representative of the Fortean Society. He won the first annual Hugo Award for Best Short Story
The Hugo Award for Best Short Story is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The short story award is available for works of fiction of ...
in 1955 recognizing his humorous " Allamagoosa" as the year's best science fiction.[
The 1962 novel '']The Great Explosion
''The Great Explosion'' is a satirical science fiction novel by English writer Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections. The final section is based on Russell's 1951 short story "...And Then There Wer ...
'' won a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1985[—the third naming of two works to the ]libertarian science fiction
Libertarian science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on the politics and social order implied by right-libertarian (especially American libertarian) philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and private ownership of ...
hall of fame. The 1957 novel ''Wasp'' has been a finalist for the honor, which is now limited to one work per year.[
The ]Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
The Museum of Pop Culture (or MoPOP) is a nonprofit museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Since then ...
inducted Russell in 2000, its fifth class of two deceased and two living writers.[
''Into Your Tent'', a thorough and detailed biography of Russell by John L. Ingham, was published in 2010 by Plantech (UK).]
Writings
Russell's full-length fiction includes the following:
* '' Sinister Barrier'' (1939)
* '' Dreadful Sanctuary'' (1948)
* '' Sentinels From Space'' (1953), based on the earlier magazine story ''The Star Watchers'' (1951)
* '' Three to Conquer'' (1956), based on the earlier magazine serial ''Call Him Dead'' (1955)
* '' Men, Martians and Machines'' (1955), containing four related novellas
* ''Wasp
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...
'' (1958)
* ''Next of Kin
A person's next of kin (NOK) may be that person's spouse
A spouse is a significant other in a marriage. A female spouse is called a wife while a male spouse is called a husband.
Married
The legal status of a spouse, and the specific righ ...
'' (1959), published earlier as ''The Space Willies'' (1958)
* ''The Great Explosion
''The Great Explosion'' is a satirical science fiction novel by English writer Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections. The final section is based on Russell's 1951 short story "...And Then There Wer ...
'' (1962)
* '' With a Strange Device'' (1964), also published as ''The Mindwarpers''.
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). His short story " Allamagoosa" (1955) won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
Russell wrote numerous non-fiction essays on Fortean themes, some of which were collected in a compendium of Forteana entitled ''Great World Mysteries'' (1957). His second non-fiction book was ''The Rabble Rousers'' (1963), a sardonic look at human folly including the Dreyfus affair and the Florida land boom. He also wrote ''Lern Yerself Scouse: The ABZ of Scouse'' (1966) under the pseudonym "Linacre Lane".
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. John Pelan's Midnight House published ''Dark Tides'', a collection of Russell's horror and weird fiction
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction, such as ghosts, vampires, ...
, in 2006.[Scott Connors, Review of "''Darker Tides'' by Eric Frank Russell". ''Weird Tales'',October–November 2006. (p.13)]
The 1995 novel ''Design for Great-Day'', published as by Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts.
Career ''Star Wars''
Foster was the ghost ...
and Eric Frank Russell, is an expansion by Foster of a 1953 short story of the same name by Russell.
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. Although British, Russell wrote predominantly for an American audience, and was often assumed to be American by readers.
Much of Russell's science fiction is based on what might be described as Fortean themes, with ''Sinister Barrier'' and ''Dreadful Sanctuary'' the most notable examples. Another common theme is the single resourceful human pitted against a ponderous alien bureaucracy
Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...
, as in the novels ''Wasp'' and ''Next of Kin'', as well as several shorter works.
Russell is sometimes categorized as a humorous writer, and Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for oc ...
describes him as John W. Campbell's "licensed jester". However, Russell's humour generally has a satirical edge, often aimed at authority
Authority is commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group of other people.
In a civil state, ''authority'' may be practiced by legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government,''The New Fontana Dictionary of M ...
and bureaucracy in its various forms. 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.
Critical reception
Scott Connors, reviewing Russell's book ''Darker Tides'', stated that "Russell's prose displays a rare sense of irony and wit...and does the reader the compliment of presenting the story in an indirect fashion so that he has an investment in the tale." Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...
wrote that Russell's stories were examples of "desperately need dexploration of alternative futures, both experimental and conceptual".
Cultural influences
Russell's short story "Jay Score" (1941) is unusual amongst the pulp fiction of its time in presenting a black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
character, the ship's doctor, without any racial stereotyping. Indeed, this story and its sequels (collected in '' Men, Martians and Machines'') may be considered an early example of the science fiction subgenre in which a spaceship is crewed by a multi-ethnic
The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more
races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mult ...
, mixed human/non-human, complement (cf. the much later ''Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
'').
In 1970, Russell was paid £4689 by the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
' company Apple Corps
Apple Corps Limited is a British multimedia company that was established in London by the members of the Beatles in the 1960s to form a Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company's name, pronounced "apple core", is a pun. Its chief div ...
for the motion picture rights to his novel ''Wasp'', the contract being signed on behalf of Apple by Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, us ...
. The film was never made, but it remained one of the most lucrative deals Russell ever made.
See also
* "Study in Still Life
Study or studies may refer to:
General
* Education
**Higher education
* Clinical trial
* Experiment
* Field of study
* Observational study
* Scientific study
* Research
* Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning
Other
* Study ...
" – story by Russell
* Golden Age of Science Fiction
The Golden Age of Science Fiction, often identified in the United States as the years 1938–1946, was a period in which a number of foundational works of science fiction appeared in American genre magazines. Exemplars include the '' Foundation' ...
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*
*
Eric Frank Russell
at ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (''SFE'') is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo Award, Hugo, Locus Award, Locus and BSFA Award, British SF Awards. Two print editions appea ...
''
Review of ''Major Ingredients''
"Shadow Man" fan site by Narrelle Harris
by Bud Webster, at Galactic Central
*
' (1951)—the internet host notes "Anarchy in action—an excellent model of an anarchist or free society"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Eric Frank
1905 births
1978 deaths
Military personnel from Berkshire
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Royal Air Force airmen
English short story writers
20th-century English novelists
English horror writers
English science fiction writers
British weird fiction writers
Fortean writers
Hugo Award–winning writers
People from Sandhurst, Berkshire
Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees
English male novelists