Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 - February 1 1977) was a popular author of
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
stories and novels during the mid-twentieth century.
http://www.pulpgen.com/pulp/edmond_hamilton/ Born in
YoungstownYoungstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County, whose urban area borders Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
,
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
, he was raised there and in nearby
New Castle, PennsylvaniaNew Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh and near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border just 18 miles east of Youngstown, Ohio; in 1910, the total population was 36,280; in 1920, 44,938; and in 1940, 47,638. The population has fallen to 26,309...
. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and started college (
Westminster CollegeWestminster College is a liberal arts college located in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1852, it is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church .- Overview :...
,
New Wilmington, PennsylvaniaNew Wilmington is a borough in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, first platted in 1824 and established as a borough on April 9, 1873. The population was 2,452 at the 2000 census...
) at the age of 14–but washed out at 17.
Edmond is credited as the author of the first hardcover compilation of what would eventually come to be known as the science fiction genre,
The Horror on The Asteroid and Other Tales of Planetary Horror (1936).
Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 - February 1 1977) was a popular author of
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
stories and novels during the mid-twentieth century.
http://www.pulpgen.com/pulp/edmond_hamilton/ Born in
YoungstownYoungstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County, whose urban area borders Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
,
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
, he was raised there and in nearby
New Castle, PennsylvaniaNew Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh and near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border just 18 miles east of Youngstown, Ohio; in 1910, the total population was 36,280; in 1920, 44,938; and in 1940, 47,638. The population has fallen to 26,309...
. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and started college (
Westminster CollegeWestminster College is a liberal arts college located in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1852, it is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church .- Overview :...
,
New Wilmington, PennsylvaniaNew Wilmington is a borough in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, first platted in 1824 and established as a borough on April 9, 1873. The population was 2,452 at the 2000 census...
) at the age of 14–but washed out at 17.
Writing career
Edmond is credited as the author of the first hardcover compilation of what would eventually come to be known as the science fiction genre,
The Horror on The Asteroid and Other Tales of Planetary Horror (1936). The book compiles the following stories: "The Horror on the Asteroid", “The Accursed Galaxy", "The Man Who Saw Everything" ("The Man With the X-Ray Eyes"), "The Earth-Brain", "The Monster-God of Mamurth", and "The Man Who Evolved".
His career as a
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
writer began with the publication of the short story "The Monster God of Mamurth",
http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/monstergod_hamilton.html which appeared in the August 1926 issue of the classic magazine of alternative fiction,
Weird TalesWeird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J.C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre. Edwin Baird was the first editor of the monthly, assisted by Farnsworth Wright.-Edwin Baird:Baird...
. Hamilton quickly became a central member of the remarkable group of
Weird Tales writers assembled by editor
Farnsworth WrightFarnsworth Wright was the editor of the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the magazine's heyday.He was born in California, and educated in the University of Nevada and the University of Washington....
, that included
H. P. LovecraftHoward Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction....
and
Robert E. HowardRobert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. His most famous character — created in the pages of the Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales — is Conan the Barbarian.With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre of...
. Hamilton would publish 79 works of fiction in
Weird Tales between 1926 and 1948, making him one of the most prolific of the magazine's contributors (only
Seabury QuinnSeabury Grandin Quinn was a pulp magazine author most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in Weird Tales with great success....
and
August DerlethAugust William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
appeared more frequently). Hamilton became a friend and associate of several
Weird Tales veterans, including E. Hoffmann Price and
Otis Adelbert KlineOtis Adelbert Kline born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E...
; most notably, he struck up a 20-year friendship with close contemporary
Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
, as Williamson records in his 1984 autobiography
Wonder's Child. In the late 1930s
Weird Tales printed several striking fantasy tales by Hamilton, most notably "He That Hath Wings" (July 1938), one of his most popular and frequently-reprinted pieces.
Through the late 1920s and early '30s Hamilton wrote for all of the SF pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed
horrorHorror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle and horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a disturbing supernatural element into everyday human experience...
and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was very popular as an author of
space operaSpace opera is a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing powerful technologies and abilities...
, a sub-genre he created along with
E.E. "Doc" SmithE. E. Smith, also Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, and Ted was a food engineer and early science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others...
. His story "The Island of Unreason" (
Wonder StoriesWonder Stories was an early science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt...
, May 1933) won the first Jules Verne Prize as the best SF story of the year (this was the first SF prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards). In the later 1930s, in response to the economic strictures of the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, he also wrote detective and crime stories. Always prolific in stereotypical pulp-magazine fashion, Hamilton sometimes saw 4 or 5 of his stories appear in a single month in these years; the February 1937 issue of the pulp
Popular Detective featured three Hamilton stories, one under his own name and two under
pseudonymA pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.Pseudonyms are often used to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre and computer hackers' handles. Actors, musicians, and other...
s. In the 1940s, Hamilton was the primary force behind the
Captain FutureCaptain Future is both a science fiction magazine and a fictional character.-Origins:Although sometimes mistakenly attributed to science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton, who indeed authored most of Captain Future stories, the character was created by Better Publications editor Mort Weisinger during...
franchiseA media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
,
http://www.robertweinberg.net/captainfuture.htm an SF pulp designed for juvenile readers that won him many fans, but diminished his reputation in later years when science fiction moved away from its space-opera roots. Hamilton was always associated with an extravagant, romantic, high-adventure style of SF, perhaps best represented by his 1947 novel
The Star Kings. As the SF field grew more sophisticated, his brand of extreme adventure seemed ever more quaint, corny, and dated.
In 1946 Hamilton began writing for
DC ComicsDC Comics is one of the largest and most popular American comic book and related media companies, along with Marvel Comics. It is the publishing division of DC Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary company of Warner Bros. Entertainment...
, specializing in stories for their characters
SupermanSuperman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics, Inc...
http://fortress.supermanthrutheages.com/tales2/invasion and
BatmanThe Batman, originally referred to as the Bat-Man, is a fictional character, a comic book superhero co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger , appearing in publications by DC Comics...
. One of his best known Superman stories was "Superman Under the Red Sun" which appeared in
Action ComicsAction Comics is an American comic book series which introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
#300 in 1963 and which has numerous elements in common with his novel
City At World's EndCity at World's End is a BBC Books original novel written by Christopher Bulis and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the First Doctor, Barbara, Ian, and Susan....
http://books.google.com/books?id=DI0-ClCBBsAC&pg=PP1&dq=edmond+hamilton&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false (1951). He wrote other works for DC Comics, including the short-lived science fiction series
Chris KL-99Chris KL-99 is a 1950s science fiction comic book character whose adventures were published by DC Comics. He first appears in Strange Adventures #1 , and was created by science fiction author Edmond Hamilton and artist Howard Sherman....
(in
Strange AdventuresStrange Adventures was the title of several American comic books published by DC Comics, most notably a long-running science fiction anthology that began in 1950.-Original series:...
), which was loosely based on his Captain Future character. He retired from comics in 1966.
Marriage and collaboration
On December 31, 1946, Hamilton married fellow science fiction
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
and screen writer
Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
in San Gabriel, CA, and moved with her to
Kinsman, OhioKinsman is an unincorporated community in southern Kinsman Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 44428; as well as a library, the Kinsman Free Public Library...
. Afterward he would produce some of his best work, including his novels
The Star of Life (1947),
The Valley of Creation (1948),
City at World's End, and
The Haunted Stars (1960). In this more mature phase of his career, Hamilton moved away from the romantic and fantastic elements of his earlier fiction to create some unsentimental and realistic stories, such as "What's It Like Out There?" (
Thrilling Wonder Stories, Dec. 1952), his single most frequently-reprinted and anthologized work.
Though Hamilton and Leigh Brackett worked side by side for a quarter-century, they rarely shared the task of authorship; their single formal collaboration,
Stark and the Star Kings, would not appear in print until 2005. In the early 1960s, when Brackett had temporarily abandoned SF for screenwriting, Hamilton did an uncredited revision and expansion of two early Brackett stories, "Black Amazon of Mars" and "Queen of the Martian Catacombs"--the results were published as her novellas
People of the Talisman and
The Secret of Sinharat (1964).
Edmond Hamilton died in 1977 in
LancasterLancaster is the eighth-largest city in Los Angeles County, California and the 9th fastest growing city in the United States. Lancaster is located approximately 70 miles north of the city of Los Angeles in Southern California's Antelope Valley...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, of complications following kidney surgery. In the year before his death he had worked on an
animeis animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917.Anime, like manga , has a large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world...
adaptation of his Captain Future novels and a
tokusatsuis a Japanese term that describes any live-action film or television drama that usually features superheroes and makes considerable use of special effects ....
adaptation of
Star Wolf; both appeared on Japanese television in 1978 and the Captain Future adaptation later played in Europe, winning Hamilton a new and different fan base than the one that had acclaimed him half a century before.
In 2009, Kinsman Ohio celebrates "Edmond Hamilton Day" on July 18.